Harry Partch related scales
Harry Partch was an influential composer, musician, theorist and instrument maker. He was also an influential scalesmith, and this page documents some of the scales he made whether directly or indirectly.
Scales made by Partch himself
The famous Partch scale is his 43 note Genesis scale or "pure" scale.
Some other Partch scales are his 29-note adapted viola scale, his 37-note draft exposition scale, his 41-note exposition scale and his 43-note exposition scale.
Scales by others based on Partch’s work
By removing 11/10 and 20/11 from the Genesis scale, we obtain a 41-note epimorphic scale which has been called Genesis Minus; this scale is close to being a Fokker block, tempering to a MOS in cassandra, magic and rodan temperaments, for each of which the generators range from -20 to 20, leading to a symmetrical scale.
Paul Erlich constructed the cassmagoctrod Fokker block which is also a MOS in octacot temperament, with generator range -20 to 20. By chosing other linearly independent temperaments supported by the 11-limit patent val for 41edo to add to cassandra, magic and rodan and requiring the range of generators to be -20 to 20 for that temperament also, we can find other alternatives to Genesis Minus based on monkey, superkleismic, or miracle, which do equally well measured by differences from Genesis Minus.
A 58-note scale is as small as is possible for an epimorphic scale containing Genesis, for example genesisplus. By way of comparison, here is a Fokker block containing 35 of the 43 notes of Genesis: mynadiaechhemi. Mynadiaechhemi also contains a complete 11-limit tonality diamond, and 58 is the smallest size of epimorphic scale for which that is possible.
See also
- Category:Harry Partch: Some additional scales may be documented here