Music & Techniques by Chris Vaisvil

36 hairs

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Caleb Morgan on the tuning list posted a piano piece using his 36 note tuning of fractions created in homage to Harry Partch.

I asked and received permission to try his tuning as well as the scala formated tuning itself.

The piece in the video is a sight unseen improvisation using a M-Audio 88es midi controller to drive Pianoteq 3 standalone. I midi recorded the performance via pianoteq and rendered the midi without correction post performance and combined it with video I took of the performance with added effects.

Being an improvisation and a totally new tuning scheme there are “bad” notes and also the exploration section is intact. I can’t say I really grok this tuning though I want to try it again – at an octave or two lower.

Comments

2 responses to “36 hairs”

  1. admin

    Hi Rob, thanks for the comment. I would like to make one point. Microtonal doesn’t necessarily mean dissonant – in fact some tunings are more “pure” than the usual 12 equal steps. On the other hand I can’t disagree with your feeling when listening to micromusic. Especially this one which is very different from the normal tuning.

  2. Rob

    Very eerie. I often find when I listen to experimental tunings that I always experience the same feeling. I guess dissonance is of itself an unnatural thing, even in the musical world…

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