User:Bozu
- See also: Bostjan Zupancic
I programmed a microtonal synth application for PC in 1998. After that, I spent nearly a decade trying to track down a microtonal guitar before I found Jon Catler around 2004. Since then, I've collected two more microtonal guitars as well as two basses.
I played in a band called "Ox," a three piece (guitar, synth, and drums) fusion band in Detroit. We played one successful gig, then the band's component members were reabsorbed into other projects as the success locally seemed impossible to maintain. I finally released a solo, half-microtonal, mostly-instrumental, album in 2015, to thunderous shrugging and puzzlement from my friends and family. Encouraged by that result, I released another in 2016, but this time, all 19-EDO, and with vocals; then I released another instrumental album, but all 19-EDO. Then two more with vocals were released in 2017. None of my works have been widely accepted by any community, nor any group of people, for that matter, but I did get in the newpaper and in a couple of magazines.
I love talking about music in general, so send me a message if you're bored.
I have a list of all scales in 19-EDO. I have yet to find a use for the list, but it's in a spreadsheet organized into several tabs (each tab with a different number of tones per octave). Please contact me if you have any use for such a thing. I did one for 12-EDO long ago, and doing one in 19-EDO seemed like a good idea at the time. Obviously there is a lot more data in the 19-EDO list. The 12-EDO scale list is easy enough to categorize into scale "families" as I called them, scales that have modal relationships with one another (for example all of the church modes), and scales that have similar tonal characteristics (for example scales that have a minor third, diminished fifth, and diminished seventh). But in 19-EDO, there is just too much to sift through using the same rationale.
My thoughts on microtonal music
Music in 12-edo is great. In fact, I am not convinced that 12-edo is deserving of anything less than being the most popular tuning system used in western music... however, there is a world outside of western music that is culturally and artistically rich, and that it deserves attention as well. Even within western music, I don't think that we should box ourselves into one tuning for all. And, honestly, we don't. Nashville session players often use other temperaments- they just don't talk about them very much outside of trade circles. Rock and blues guitarists love playing slide guitar so that they can perform notes outside of equal temperament, and virtually every orchestral instrument has well known quirks that are results of different temperaments.
I think an open minded composer could write music for 19-EDO piano along with a standard orchestra and make a piece of music that sounded just as in-tune as other pieces of music sound with a 12-EDO piano. The orchestra isn't perfectly in-tune across all instruments over those instruments' entire range anyway, so the savvy composer writes around the quirkiness of the instruments.
Anyway, there is a pretty strong case for 31-edo and 19-edo in a western tradition- or bringing back various well temperaments or various forms of just intonation. There are reasons to look into more exotic tunings for more exotic applications. I really feel strongly about 19-edo, since it is so easy to use and generally sounds just as good as 12-edo in many contexts.
Current Projects
I am currently working on the following:
(music)
My solo music: Bostjan Zupancic
My band: Naegleria Fowleri
Hoping to get a 19-edo funk-rock project going
Various 19-edo covers of 12-edo songs
Microrhythms.
AI drumming
DIY PVC flutes in various tunings.
DIY RasPi hardware synth
Classical Indian Music.
(non-music related)
Magnetoelectric composite materials.
Laser sound detection.
Damage to electrical insulation from partial discharge.
Furans as chemical fingerprint markers of deterioration of electrical grid equipment.
Mathematical modelling of chemical degradation of mineral oil due to pyrolysis, hydroylisis, and oxidation under various thermal, electrical, and chemical stresses.
Phase radar early collision detection.
Understanding coronavirus mutations and treatments.