Free style JI: Difference between revisions

In '''Free Style JI''', pitches are not chosen from a fixed just scale, but instead determined by their ratio with the previous melody note or with a note in the current harmony.<ref name="polansky1987harrison"/>

Lou Harrison defines the Free Style in his Music Primer<ref name="harrison1970primer"/>:

After only a brief study of intervals it becomes clear that there are two ways of composing with them: 1) arranging them into a fixed mode, or gamut, & then composing within that structure. This is Strict Style, & is the vastly predominant world method. However, another way is possible — 2) to freely assemble, or compose with whatever intervals one feels that he needs as he goes along. This is Free Style, & I used this method first in my Simfony in Free Style. Lovely new devices & expressions are possible in this style…

Lou Harrison's use of Strict and Free Style is discussed in <ref name="dalton2017freedom"/>.

Harrison's second piece in Free Style is his 1963 ''At the Tomb of Charles Ives''. There is an [https://johnnyreinhard.bandcamp.com/track/lou-harrison-at-the-tomb-of-charles-ives AFMM recording] as well as an excerpt of a [https://soundcloud.com/center-21stcentury-music/lou-harrison-at-the-tomb-iof-charles-ives performance by the Slee Sinfonietta].

The third piece is Harrison's 1974 ''A Phrase for Arion's Leap'', for which there is an [https://johnnyreinhard.bandcamp.com/track/lou-harrison-precision-piece-a-phrase-for-arions-leap-babin-tsuda-reinhard-yallech-2 AFMM recording]. Also see [https://eamusic.dartmouth.edu/~larry/scores/other_peoples_scores/lou_harrison/arions_leap_recopied.4.pdf Larry Polansky's transcription], which gives the stepwise intervals in the original score in bold and the absolute intervals below.

Larry Polansky's 1986 ''B’rey’sheet'', for singer and live interactive computer, uses Free Style JI through a computer program written in

[https://github.com/philburk/hmsl HMSL].<ref name="polansky2018words"/> There is a [https://newworldrecords.bandcamp.com/track/breysheet-in-the-beginning recording on Bandcamp].

James Tenney's 2006 string quartet ''Arbor Vitae'' makes algorithmic use of Free Style JI.<ref name="winter2008arbor" /> There is a