Andrew Heathwaite
Andrew Heathwaite is me. I am a dad, husband, experimental human, and sometimes maker of music!
Since the early 2000's, I've had periods of high microtonal activity, and periods of none. I owe a lot to Jacob Barton, who has inspired me countless times and been my collaborator on such projects as Oddmusic Urbana-Champaign and the Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp, where I was a teacher back in the day. I have some songs featured in The Sagittal Songbook, including one that appears on An Exciting Event's EP Hark Ye Music Lovers. I also gave names to a few things that appear on this wiki, including Orgone, Shoe, Cartwheel-17, and the apparently meme-worthy Kleeth modes.
I've experimented with supergluing wire frets to produce homebrew microtonal instruments (a la Dante Rosati), although I confess when the frets started falling off, I got discouraged and walked away from that. I used to play 22-tone guitar, 88cET guitar, and a 20-tone JI dulcimer refretted that way; also cümbüş (a fretless Turkish lute) with a special focus on 17edo; and a 31-tone bouzouki, refretted by Ron Sword. The accompanying song-writing generated music for two bands that no longer exist: JARband and The Enslins. I don't have (most of) those instruments anymore.
Now (2025), after some years of no-music, followed by some years of 12-only music, I am back to occasional microtonal forays, with the intention at least to contribute this year to the Tuning of the Month Club on Discord. I don't anticipate getting super involved in the microtonal community or taking on any sort of teacherly role (other people are much more committed and up on things than me), but it's nice to be involved again, even if just a little bit!
And what got me making microtones again? One big factor: my son is now doing it! Inspired by music we both love (Sevish, Brendan Byrnes, Xotla, ZIA, and Francium), he has been studying music production and creating his own original tracks to share with the world. And seeing him do it helped me remember, I love it too!
Long live Xenharmony!
External links
- Bandcamp profile (with download links for Newbeams)
- SoundCloud profile
- SoundClick profile
- Andrew Heathwaite's MOS Investigations
- Technical Notes for Newbeams
- earwig