User:Rperlner

My name is Ray Perlner (the only one as far as I know.) I have a longstanding hobby of writing music for a standard acoustic piano and playing it for friends and family. I also enjoy writing and studying microtonal music, which is by definition, music which cannot be played on my chosen instrument. Why would I do this to myself? Of course, this wiki has a general page on why a person might opt for microtonalism, but I would like to give it a more personal spin using my compositions as examples.

First of all, sometimes music I can play on the piano may sound better in a different tuning. A well known example is that music based on the diatonic scale can be rendered in any meantone temperament, and not just 12-EDO. Baroque and Renaissance music in particular generally will sound better in tunings ranging from about sixth comma meantone (~55EDO) to quarte-comma meantone (~31edo). Indeed this was what was used when these styles were the hot new thing in Europe. I have tried my hand at this style, and I find my compositions to sound better in these tunings as well.

Here is a short fugue I wrote in the Phrygian mode rendered in 55 EDO:

Phrygian Fugue in 55 EDO

And here it is in 12 EDO:

Phrygian Fugue in 12EDO

I don't know about you, but the 55EDO version sounds better to me.

Here's another short, fugue, this time in Mixolydian and 31 EDO:

Mixolydian Fugue in 31 EDO

And in 12 EDO:

Mixolydian Fugue in 12 EDO

Again, I prefer the non-12EDO version.