What is microtonal music: Difference between revisions

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== Other terms used instead of "microtonal", or in addition to it ==

Because of the slipperiness of the term "microtonal", other terms have been deployed to describe this great big teeming mass of adventurously different-sounding music. One such term is "'''macrotonal'''". Macrotonal music only uses intervals which are larger than the semitone (but not necessarily multiples of it). Dividing the octave eight equal ways, for example, is a macrotonal tuning. The Javanese [[slendro]] tuning, with 5 unequal (but not justly tuned) pitches in a stretched octave, represents another example of a macrotonal tuning. Non-octave tunings like a Pythagorean JI tuning of 19 just perfect fifths in the 3:1 also presents us with an instance of a macrotonal tuning.

Because of the slipperiness of the term "microtonal", other terms have been deployed to describe this great big teeming mass of adventurously different-sounding music.

=== Macrotonal ===

One such term is "'''macrotonal'''". Macrotonal music only uses intervals which are larger than the semitone (but not necessarily multiples of it). Dividing the octave eight equal ways, for example, is a macrotonal tuning. The Javanese [[slendro]] tuning, with 5 unequal (but not justly tuned) pitches in a stretched octave, represents another example of a macrotonal tuning. Non-octave tunings like a Pythagorean JI tuning of 19 just perfect fifths in the 3:1 also presents us with an instance of a macrotonal tuning.

=== Mestonal ===

The term '''mesotonal'''{{idiosyncratic}} (sometimes capitalized as ''Mesotonal''), meaning "between tones"<ref>https://scholars.uow.edu.au/display/publication78311{{dead link}}</ref>, was created by [[Kraig Grady]] as an alternative to the term ''microtonal'', as well as ''[[macrotonal]]'', where the ''meso-'' prefix suggests neither that the tones are smaller nor larger than typical tones, but simply between them.

Kraig does not suggest mesotonal as a replacement term for microtonal, though he suggests it may have been a better term<ref>[http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/2008/05/mesotonal.html Field Stations and Outposts of Anaphoria Island: ''Mesotonal'']</ref>. Instead he differentiates mesotonal from microtonal. Where microtonal music tends to be "technical – commonly referring to working in what is equal divisions or in simple just intonation… Mesotonal tunings involve the use of high harmonics found in the spiral like patterns formed by recurrent sequences"<ref name="fb">https://www.facebook.com/anaphorianembassy/about/{{dead link}}</ref>. Kraig further states that "Mesotonal music is also commonly combined with other art forms such as Shadow Theatre, film, dance and ritual"<ref name="fb"/>, and associates them with "theatrical anthropology and medical ethnomusicology"<ref>[https://www.xenharmonikon.org/author/kraig-grady/ Xenharmonikon | ''Kraig Grady'']</ref>.

=== Xenharmonic ===

Perhaps the most popular term other than "microtonal" is "xenharmonic".

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Unfortunately, "microtonal" implies that you're using tiny intervals when you may not be, and "xenharmonic" has been called "so...negative." However, we must recall that in the original Greek, ''xenos'' can also mean "hospitable" -- a fact of which Ivor never tired of reminding those who objected to the term "xenharmonic." He pointed out "xenharmonic can also mean `hospitable to different tones.'" Ivor also suggested the term "'''neoteric'''" music earlier on, circa the late 1950s. One objection to this term is that it means "recent in origin," while many audibly microtonal tunings, like the Greek enharmonic genus, are anything BUT recent in origin!

=== Non-Western ===

"'''Non-Western'''" sometimes proves a popular sobriquet. It has, as mentioned above, the drawback of implicitly defining modern conventional Western tuning as a universal standard. Since the conventional Western tuning of 12 equal semitones per octave did not even come into wide usage until roughly 300 years ago, and now seems to be going the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon as more and more young composers use laptops and softsynths to generate music in tunings far outside anything inconventional western music, it becomes inadvisable to declare as a universal bedrock that which seems more like quicksand. As the history of all musical cultures shows, music changes, and often quite radically. The granite monuments deemed absolute for eternity in one musical era often vanish like smoke in the desert, leaving behind hardly a trace of their existence -- as the transformation of Western music proves. Western music started as an entirely melodic monophonic choral form based on pairs of conjoined ''tetraktys'' (sets of 4 notes) based on the number 4, and not recognizing triads as musical structures. In the early middle ages, Western music changed to a Pythagorean diatonic 7 note system based on the number 3 with occasional dyads involving perfect fifths, perfect fourths, and octaves (''fauxbourdon''). During the later middle ages, Western music changed yet again to a 12 note system of medieval modes in which the vertical perfect fourth became recognized as a point of musical stasis, while the major third was used as a musical [[dissonance]] but the major second was allowed as semi-[[consonance]] (Gothic era of Perotinus and Longinus). During the Renaissance period, these rules turned upside down, and tertian triadic harmony was employed for the first time, along with prohibitions against using the fourth as the final cadence because it was now judged a musical dissonance, while the major third became a musical consonance. Such radical transformations in Western musical usage over the years have continued to the present day, when such innovations as tone clusters, synthesizers, xenharmonic tunings, algorithmic composition, extended performance techniques, homebuilt instruments and sonification of non-musical datasets (as in ''The Earth's Magnetic Field'' by Charles Dodge) have in the 21st century become commonplace. Given the fact of such transilient change in Western music, it seems unwise to declare one particular aspect of Western music as a universal standard by which all other musics everywhere on the planet ought to be measured.

=== Alternative tuning ===

Another popular term is "'''alternative tuning'''". The problem with calling a tuning "alternative" of course is that it immediately raises the question "alternative to ''what?''" Our conventional western tuning of 12 semitones to the octave is, arguably, an alternative tuning -- an alternative to the 7 tone equal tuning used by the Are-Are people of the Solomon Islands. Now, it's easy enough to object that the musical culture of the Are-Are people ought not to be held up as the universal standard for every other musical throughout the world... But isn't that what we Euro-Americans do when we dismissively describe non-12-equal tunings as "alternative"?

=== Metachromatic ===

Toward the end of his life, Ivor Darreg coined yet another term -- "'''metachromatic'''". ''Meta'' means "above" or "beyond," while ''chromatic'' refers to the individual step of our musical scale. Some objection has been raised to this neologism as "excessively high-flown" and "too Greekified," but it has the distinct advantage of conveying the sense that the tuning sounds suitably different from conventional 12-equal without being specific on whether the scale-steps are smaller or larger than those in conventional Western music.

~~[mclaren 10/25/2006]~~

=== Ekmelic ===

Yet another term is "'''ekmelic'''" - this one is used by the [http://www.ekmelic-music.org/ International Ekmelic Music Society] in Austria. The term comes from the Greek music theory: "ek Melos" is translated "out of range" - that is what pitches that were not included in the ancient Greek sound system were called. In the same meaning, the term can be used today for music that contains sounds that are outside of our traditional, [http://youtu.be/ztV8ONIMgmo 12-tone equal tempered system.]

[[Category:Overview]]

[[Category:Essays]]

@@ Line 52: / Line 52: @@
 == Other terms used instead of "microtonal", or in addition to it ==
-Because of the slipperiness of the term "microtonal", other terms have been deployed to describe this great big teeming mass of adventurously different-sounding music. One such term is "'''macrotonal'''". Macrotonal music only uses intervals which are larger than the semitone (but not necessarily multiples of it). Dividing the octave eight equal ways, for example, is a macrotonal tuning. The Javanese [[slendro]] tuning, with 5 unequal (but not justly tuned) pitches in a stretched octave, represents another example of a macrotonal tuning. Non-octave tunings like a Pythagorean JI tuning of 19 just perfect fifths in the 3:1 also presents us with an instance of a macrotonal tuning.
+Because of the slipperiness of the term "microtonal", other terms have been deployed to describe this great big teeming mass of adventurously different-sounding music.
+=== Macrotonal ===
+One such term is "'''macrotonal'''". Macrotonal music only uses intervals which are larger than the semitone (but not necessarily multiples of it). Dividing the octave eight equal ways, for example, is a macrotonal tuning. The Javanese [[slendro]] tuning, with 5 unequal (but not justly tuned) pitches in a stretched octave, represents another example of a macrotonal tuning. Non-octave tunings like a Pythagorean JI tuning of 19 just perfect fifths in the 3:1 also presents us with an instance of a macrotonal tuning.
+=== Mestonal ===
+The term '''mesotonal'''{{idiosyncratic}} (sometimes capitalized as ''Mesotonal''), meaning "between tones"<ref>https://scholars.uow.edu.au/display/publication78311{{dead link}}</ref>, was created by [[Kraig Grady]] as an alternative to the term ''microtonal'', as well as ''[[macrotonal]]'', where the ''meso-'' prefix suggests neither that the tones are smaller nor larger than typical tones, but simply between them.
+Kraig does not suggest mesotonal as a replacement term for microtonal, though he suggests it may have been a better term<ref>[http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/2008/05/mesotonal.html Field Stations and Outposts of Anaphoria Island: ''Mesotonal'']</ref>. Instead he differentiates mesotonal from microtonal. Where microtonal music tends to be "technical – commonly referring to working in what is equal divisions or in simple just intonation… Mesotonal tunings involve the use of high harmonics found in the spiral like patterns formed by recurrent sequences"<ref name="fb">https://www.facebook.com/anaphorianembassy/about/{{dead link}}</ref>. Kraig further states that "Mesotonal music is also commonly combined with other art forms such as Shadow Theatre, film, dance and ritual"<ref name="fb"/>, and associates them with "theatrical anthropology and medical ethnomusicology"<ref>[https://www.xenharmonikon.org/author/kraig-grady/ Xenharmonikon | ''Kraig Grady'']</ref>.
+=== Xenharmonic ===
 Perhaps the most popular term other than "microtonal" is "xenharmonic".
@@ Line 61: / Line 70: @@
 Unfortunately, "microtonal" implies that you're using tiny intervals when you may not be, and "xenharmonic" has been called "so...negative." However, we must recall that in the original Greek, ''xenos'' can also mean "hospitable" -- a fact of which Ivor never tired of reminding those who objected to the term "xenharmonic." He pointed out "xenharmonic can also mean `hospitable to different tones.'" Ivor also suggested the term "'''neoteric'''" music earlier on, circa the late 1950s. One objection to this term is that it means "recent in origin," while many audibly microtonal tunings, like the Greek enharmonic genus, are anything BUT recent in origin!
+=== Non-Western ===
 "'''Non-Western'''" sometimes proves a popular sobriquet. It has, as mentioned above, the drawback of implicitly defining modern conventional Western tuning as a universal standard. Since the conventional Western tuning of 12 equal semitones per octave did not even come into wide usage until roughly 300 years ago, and now seems to be going the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon as more and more young composers use laptops and softsynths to generate music in tunings far outside anything inconventional western music, it becomes inadvisable to declare as a universal bedrock that which seems more like quicksand. As the history of all musical cultures shows, music changes, and often quite radically. The granite monuments deemed absolute for eternity in one musical era often vanish like smoke in the desert, leaving behind hardly a trace of their existence -- as the transformation of Western music proves. Western music started as an entirely melodic monophonic choral form based on pairs of conjoined ''tetraktys'' (sets of 4 notes) based on the number 4, and not recognizing triads as musical structures. In the early middle ages, Western music changed to a Pythagorean diatonic 7 note system based on the number 3 with occasional dyads involving perfect fifths, perfect fourths, and octaves (''fauxbourdon''). During the later middle ages, Western music changed yet again to a 12 note system of medieval modes in which the vertical perfect fourth became recognized as a point of musical stasis, while the major third was used as a musical [[dissonance]] but the major second was allowed as semi-[[consonance]] (Gothic era of Perotinus and Longinus). During the Renaissance period, these rules turned upside down, and tertian triadic harmony was employed for the first time, along with prohibitions against using the fourth as the final cadence because it was now judged a musical dissonance, while the major third became a musical consonance. Such radical transformations in Western musical usage over the years have continued to the present day, when such innovations as tone clusters, synthesizers, xenharmonic tunings, algorithmic composition, extended performance techniques, homebuilt instruments and sonification of non-musical datasets (as in ''The Earth's Magnetic Field'' by Charles Dodge) have in the 21st century become commonplace. Given the fact of such transilient change in Western music, it seems unwise to declare one particular aspect of Western music as a universal standard by which all other musics everywhere on the planet ought to be measured.
+=== Alternative tuning ===
 Another popular term is "'''alternative tuning'''". The problem with calling a tuning "alternative" of course is that it immediately raises the question "alternative to ''what?''" Our conventional western tuning of 12 semitones to the octave is, arguably, an alternative tuning -- an alternative to the 7 tone equal tuning used by the Are-Are people of the Solomon Islands. Now, it's easy enough to object that the musical culture of the Are-Are people ought not to be held up as the universal standard for every other musical throughout the world... But isn't that what we Euro-Americans do when we dismissively describe non-12-equal tunings as "alternative"?
+=== Metachromatic ===
 Toward the end of his life, Ivor Darreg coined yet another term -- "'''metachromatic'''". ''Meta'' means "above" or "beyond," while ''chromatic'' refers to the individual step of our musical scale. Some objection has been raised to this neologism as "excessively high-flown" and "too Greekified," but it has the distinct advantage of conveying the sense that the tuning sounds suitably different from conventional 12-equal without being specific on whether the scale-steps are smaller or larger than those in conventional Western music.
-[mclaren 10/25/2006]
+=== Ekmelic ===
 Yet another term is "'''ekmelic'''" - this one is used by the [http://www.ekmelic-music.org/ International Ekmelic Music Society] in Austria. The term comes from the Greek music theory: "ek Melos" is translated "out of range" - that is what pitches that were not included in the ancient Greek sound system were called. In the same meaning, the term can be used today for music that contains sounds that are outside of our traditional, [http://youtu.be/ztV8ONIMgmo 12-tone equal tempered system.]
 [[Category:Overview]]
 [[Category:Essays]]