Видео

I'm so glad my music has emotionally resonated with you :)

Thank you! This study was a rather spur-of-the-moment affair, and I think that almost improvisatory feel comes across well (in spite of some of its structural technique). Do you believe that it would be playable on a Lumatone without adjustment? If not, the top few grace notes can be removed fairly inconsequentially.

Thank you! I use this plugin: musescore.org/en/project/31edo-tuner

Unfortunately I don't have a lumatone or natively microtonal keyboard- so I'm pretty free to disregard playability if I wish. Hence, the (I imagine) extreme difficulty of this study. Even if I had a lumatone- I'm not sure I could easily play this, I just haven't ever played an instrument like that one.

Thank you very much! I currently use this plugin, 31-EDO tuner: musescore.org/en/project/31edo-tuner I have yet to try Xentuner, but I have heard good things.

@Willow_Ramsay_Music Xentuner doesn't work at all in Musescore 4 in my experience. I've been using 31-EDO tuner at your recommendation and it works pretty well despite having to re-run it before every preview which is annoying. Beautiful piece by the way, I'm looking forward to more of your studies!

Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoy it! For the extended chords, I pull on my knowledge of jazz harmony and intuit different ways of incorporating the extra microtonal intervals! You kinda just have to experiment- play around with Scale Workshop & a DAW or notation software (if you don't have a microtone compatible instrument available). For some of the basics of 31-EDO theory, have a look at Zhea Erose's intros to 31-EDO, they were a great help for me and opened the doorway to apply my own knowledge to get started with this wonderful system. Hope this is of some help! Link to Scale Workshop, which is super flexible and has a keyboard you can play through your browser: scaleworkshop.plainsound.org/about?version=3.1.0

The chords closest to 12-EDO are the ones that ground the entire piece.

@@apreviousseagle836 Perhaps, as the harmonies here extend from my pre-existing 12-EDO knowledge, although I believe the reason for some of them sounding a little "off" is a balancing issue. There isn't a synth patch used- it's a string orchestra library, and my alterations to a more typical synth-patch-like orchestration are both a strength and a weakness, mainly through the switching of material from 1st to 2nd Violins, and vice versa.

@Willow_Ramsay_Music The chords are phenomenal, sir. We are used to the 12-tone western standard (which I believe is psychologically ingrained into us from birth). 31-EDO is basically a better approximation.......as long as you stick to the 12 notes closest to Just Intonation. You can stray a bit and get the weird microtonal harmony, which does a phenomenal job of creating tension we are not used to hearing. But grounding it with chords closer to Just Intonation grounds the harmony to something we find more recognizable.

@@apreviousseagle836 Apologies, I misunderstood your original comment, I get your point now!

Thank you very much! A lot of the traditional modes in this harmonic study are commonly found in jazz music- particularly the major modes, and things like 5th mode of A harmonic minor. I used a few scales in this that are impossible in 12-TET as well, but they can be a little harder to spot. I imagine that they could also be treated in a similarly way to some of the major modes.

if we were in a simulation, this would be god's soundtrack

I'll need to listen to more Elliot Carter, the only piece I'm really familiar with is the Double Concerto, so as it is, I don't feel I comfortable know or could describe what Carter's elegiac expression is. I highly doubt that my extended harmonies & unusual movements are as rigorous as Carter's, but I am honoured to be part of this projected lineage!

@Willow_Ramsay_Music I was vague, I did mean specifically his Elegy - the adaptation for strings, 1948/1952, early Carter. There's a version with a score on YT ruclips.net/video/LSQlGv8f368/видео.html. And I wouldn't say your work sounds influenced by, sounds like, is formally similar to, etc, some other person, only that it made me feel something I recalled from the other. And for that, it's nice to imagine that there's music out there, permeating, and you composers sculpt a bit of it to communicate to us.

@@robhewett7602 Ah, I understand now what you mean, thanks for clarifying! Thanks for sharing that wonderful elegy- I particularly like bars 49-50, has a bit of that Bartókian strange beauty that I really love. I haven't given it much thought before, but now you've mentioned it, there's a great interest for me in the idea that sounds are pulled, plucked, summoned from a conceptual realm, and a composer is merely a vessel. It is a rather spiritual idea. I find with form as a whole I choose a feeling, a goal to achieve, and for me, this is primarily through my understanding of a literal musical colour. While I'm not sure if I'd be considered a synaesthetic in a traditional sense, certain colours & gradients just feel right for certain sounds- this elegy/harmonic study feels a distinctly darker green, a gradient that has been slightly dulled silver on one side (I don't believe it would actually be possible for me to show this gradient, but it exists in my brain). The individual chords & notes have their own hues, but through their context and interactions, they create a whole that for me is an appealing colour. I relate this back to the idea of a composer as a vessel as I often pull notes, and larger sections of music for a certain colour, one that is only achieved through this state of objectivity that my brain is convinced of. Maybe this idea appeals to me because it feels right for me- although I am picking sounds via their colour relationships. Even if this is nonsense, it's food for thought and has certainly given me a lot to think about, thank you!

@Willow_Ramsay_Music this exchange sent me off yet another long Carter excursion, again trying to understand more of this man's work. I have, like many others it seems, struggled to connect with later Carter as a listener, even as his earlier works such as the Cello Sonata I find impactful. I think the mathy stuff is the problem, addressing intervallic combinatorics as an end in itself, and leaving the listener to just construct an experience out of the resulting sound. And then considering that the combinatorics are built on what is essentially an arbitrary pitch domain of 12EDO, it really is pure formality. Now when you address color compositionally (and I mean in the literal/pyschological sense of your previous comment), well I as a listener am more apt to receive color (even if it's a different color - "do we all see the same red" etc) and experience something (something of this permeating music), independent of any necessary formalities your technique requires. I think that's what I and other commenters are hearing/experiencing with your piece here, it connects.

@@robhewett7602 That's really wonderful- this pervading sense of colour for me is key to whether I find a piece at the very least interesting. My personal criteria as a composer, the arbiter as to whether or not I value my own work is whether I'd enjoy listening & engaging with it, even with the knowledge of it's inner workings I have. I try to achieve my emotional, formal & colouristic goals, and if I reach them, I find it worth valuing. Some of my favourite music has an indescribable visual appeal (although I wish to clarify that linking music with paintings and other media just doesn't seem to link for me, the closest match for me is probably ballet), for example, my favourite composers, Ravel & Bartók, have distinct coloristic tendencies that I love. Their musical language evokes certain indescribable gradients, such as Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit overall feeling a certain dark shade of blue, although tinted grey from the middle movement. Even within that middle movement, those super dissonant descending chord passages feel super strange and wonderful to the point where I can't really describe it- but what it does in my brain is incredibly appealing. Bartók's 1st Piano Concerto has a slightly red-brown orange tint (which to me makes me think E or A major as an overall key centre), but the middle movement is a cool gold-ish yellow, with that wonderful ostinato section that adds a brown colour to it in a way I cannot describe. Bartók's second concerto is a gold colour, occasionally framed with orange, with the outer sections of the 2nd movement (the quintal strings) being a dark, but open green (this sort of green colour appears all over Bartók's music for me, I can't get enough. This includes the entirety of the concerto for orchestra, the 2nd & most of the 3rd movement of the music for strings, percussion & celesta, & the 2nd Violin Concerto to name but a few). The middle scherzo section is a combination of all the goldfish & greenish elements to that point (& formally the whole piece, being in arch form) and is my favourite part. I'm talking a lot here, but the gist is for just about any piece I value has a colour driven justification. When I compose (at least in shorter, more focused forms) I aim for a clear visual identity. The elegy is as previously described, my Toccata for Solo Piano is a bold gold, the Nocturne for Solo Piano I am currently working on is a pale but ever present dark blue (though not without it's hints of steel-y silver) Even throughout totally abstract formal music, I find colour. I find Boulez to be wonderful- albeit drenched in lighter red-orange yellows, but still great. The Carter double concerto is one of those satisfying darker, almost swamp greens in its intensity, the more silvery percussion contrasting well. I am very much aware that this is all subjective- I haven't spoken much about it before for that reason, I like my listeners to bring their own meaning to my art- but if the knowledge in how I consider my work is interesting, then maybe it's worth knowing. In terms of its relation to microtonality, I find it a pretty simple evolution. I am simply afforded more control over colour, and know that there are more possible colouristic combinations, but not all of them are necessarily more appealing, so that's why I've mostly stuck with 12-TET examples. For microtonal music I find super colourful? I love basically everything that Amelia Huff (Zhea Erose) has written/recorded, and Fabio Costa's 31-EDO vocal music is just wonderful. Thank you very much, you've provoked a great discussion and a lot for me to think about!

I'm glad you enjoy it!

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!

I'm glad you find it nice, and I wish you luck on your explorations into new music! I really recommend working hands-on with microtonal music- strangely enough, working with all these new sounds for me has led to my ear being stronger, especially in 12-TET standard tuning. --- For your questions you left here in your comment, the answer for all but one is no, which is the question about notorious musicians. It's important to consider that 12-TET standard tuning is a recent western invention, and so musicians have been playing "microtonal" music for as long as they've been around, and that the western system is purely western. Other cultures & their traditions have completely different ideas about tuning, and have always been more adventurous than the western musicians (though this specific opinion is more subjective). But relative to standard tuning, here are some examples: There are many famous musicians (& composers) who interact with microtonality regularly. One of the most easily recognisable (once noticed) everyday uses of microtonality is in a cappella vocal music (barbershop quartets, sacred choral music, etc.) where the singer pitch by ear, tending to gravitate towards pure/just intonation with its simple ratios. For explicit intended uses of microtonality in composition, there are alternate tuning systems of baroque music, mean & well temperaments, the experimental instruments such as the Archicembalo (which, I could be wrong, I believe was one of the first uses of extended systems like 36-TET). With the establishment of 12-TET as the standard, you don't really find microtonality in Western classical until the 20th century, with composers like Bartók employing it infrequently, mostly as effect (specifically for Bartók and his application of it, you don't often notice it's there, see the Solo Violin sonata or Miraculous Mandarin). Composers like Easley Blackwood & Julian Carrillo would push academics to more closely examine their pioneering microtonal works, and build new systems of theory to accommodate unusual divisions of the octave. For some contemporary recommendations, I'd start with Michael Harrison's "Revelations" (a solo Piano album in Just Intonation), Fabio Costa's "Aphoristic Madrigal" & "...and while there he sighs..." (both are gorgeous works for voice(s) & organ) and lastly the various different releases by Amelia Huff, particularly the harmonic studies, to help show off the sheer beauty & versatility of these systems. Hope this brief history & listening recommendations are helpful!

Thank you so much!

Xentuner works great

I personally use 31EDO tuner for 31, which can be found here: musescore.org/en/project/31edo-tuner I used to type in all the tuning values by hand, but it was so tedious that I switched to this plugin, which bases it's tunings around D = 293.665Hz. I haven't tried Xentuner yet- but I probably should.

Thank you, I'm glad you found it really inspiring!

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!

@@teodorb.p.composer why are you everywhere

@@IamANoob_131 Music is my life, lol ... Mainly Medtner