I was trying to find some genre like this and i've finally found it. It feels wrong and right at the same time. Like a human: really messy and alive. Beautiful
48 et (equal temperament with 48 equal steps to the octave) is a long way different to Harry Partch's 43 unequal steps to the octave. Partch & Ben Johnston share a liking for justly intoned intervals & harmony. Ben Johnston seems more successful in retuning his piano than Lou Harrison was in the latter's Piano Concerto. There seems to be a lot of scope in Julian Carrillo's idea of the 13th sound (overflowing 12 tones to the octave).
The Cello Guy Don't you ever just listen to the sound that the notes make when played together? This stuff is tuned rationally so the harmony isn't uncompromised (untempered). If you can't appreciate something when it's actually in-tune because of your "perfect" pitch (absolute pitch) then I feel sorry for you
@@JohnSmith-iu3jg i'm pretty sure he meant it was confusing him, but he never said he didn't appreciate it. i can understand why it would drive him crazy because his perfect pitch is based on a tempered scale. if your hearing is already hard-wired to 12 tet, microtones can really mess with it because it always sounds out of tune relative to 12 tet. it's not really his fault.
if you listen to the beatless way the notes decay, these is something magical here that you don't get when ET notes are sustained. If you train your ears to just intonation, the rest of the music you hear sounds "wrong".
Rookie question, do they actually tune the piano exactly to the non traditional scale? I assume the answer is yes because I’m not sure how else you would accomplish this (other than through recording software) but I would love to hear from someone who knows.
Yes, it requires retuning which takes skill and often lots of time because you want the piano to 'get used to' its non-standard tuning. Additionally, the tendency among Just Intonation composers is to have a new scale for just about every piece - certainly Johnston has been continuously, relentlessly experimental about this. Which means though that you would need to retune the piano for every piece you play in a recital! Needless to say, this kind of music doesn't usually get made because it's so practical... certainly not on piano. And nobody is likely to get rich off it, if only for that reason alone! You can't just go to any old concert hall and start playing this piece right there the way you can with Chopin. With electronic keyboards, with strings or most winds, the problem is generally less big though. The clever thing about this particular Suite is that Johnston uses just one tuning, but by taking another note in the system as the tonic for each movement, he acquires completely different modal colorings throughout. You end up with entirely divergent sound worlds, that are still unified by one tuning system. It's really very good thinking going on here. (Compare to how utterly different the movement of the planets across the sky would look when you're on a different planet in the same solar system.)
Tuning a JI temperament is actually a bit easier than tuning 12TeT cause you're basically just trying to make the partials beatless. *Playing* in one on the other hand can be a bit tricky the moment you get too far away from the intended key. My piano is currently in 16/15 9/8 7/6 5/4 4/3 11/8 3/2 8/5 5/3 7/4 15/8 2 and it sounds really great...in some keys haha.
I know this is a little off the subject but maybe someone here can help with a composer I've tried for years to identify. I am a multi-instrumentalist composer, performer with only the shallowest of formal training but 45 yrs. efforts. So anyway, in 1988 or 89 I heard a short segment on a composer of microtonal (?) work. For symphony orchestra. As I understood it he divided each time by for
That got posted half done. I meant to say divided each tone by 4 resulting in a 48 tone octave. All players had to learn a notation of his creation for this. I seem to recall the radio segment was in form an obituary as he had just passed. An excerpt of audio his voice American accent, ~ age 60-70. He said " The work requires great effort and I do not recommend anyone to attempt it because you will become insane. " Ok why I care. They played a short except of his work. Symphonic instrumentation. A peace overcame me at once though it was a cheap tiny clock radio with bad reception. The power of music to soothe is known to all, bit this was orders of magnitude more so, and not lullaby soothing but vibrant. Like the world was put right. The tone was not dissonant or experimental sounding, but like I was hearing music "in tune" for the first time, and it literally caused a physical and mental joy. I assumed I'd get all I could of this, but life intervened, I forgot the name ( unremarkable Anglo I'm pretty sure). Well I can't find it/him but that makes no sense. And I'm not just curious. I want that music. It seemed to correct my world. How could such be obscure or forgotten, or did I hear the one short passage of it's kind?
Harry Partch. American composer and music theorist. Developed a 43 tone scale called the "Genesis scale" which required special instrumentation and notation. Died at age 73 in 1974. I know the descriptions don't match perfectly, but this seems like your man.
It amazess me that his allegiance to just intonation and others of the unorthodox sort kept him busy his whole life.Does the ear want this .I need to read something he has written in order to feel such a commitment is justified .That many others have chosen this path tells me the ear is a relative thing.
John e martin III ... See if you can find a copy of David Doty's JI Primer. It's probably still around, and I have a stack of 1/1 backissues if that's not enough.
It's definitely relative. the western scale does not share all its notes with other scales from the middle and eastern parts of the world. Their notes sound sharp/flat to a westerner, and of course ours would sound sharp/flat to them.
My ear needed this the first time it heard it, no rationale or arguments in language required. 12 equal music has to really bring something special to compare to this now... A sacrifice, in retrospect...
Try the essay "Some Quarter-Tone Impressions" by the great American composer Charles Ives. He quotes a contemporary music teacher who wrote of "a fallacious appeal to the judgment of the ear, mistaking the force of education and habit for the promptings of nature."
Thank you all for your comments and thanks to JustIntonationMusic for posting this. Working on getting this CD re-released...somehow...
Please DO! Such a beautiful piece, and such a great performance.
Beautiful! Would love to get my hands on a copy of this gem.
I wish you the best of luck, this is an incredible recording of an incredible piece.
I was trying to find some genre like this and i've finally found it. It feels wrong and right at the same time. Like a human: really messy and alive. Beautiful
This is ridiculously cool
like a medieval blues.
I come back to this every year or two, and it never fails to move me. Beautiful interpretation.
not gonna lie. I find this profoundly beautiful.
I want to live the rest of my life in 1:43 and never leave.
2:18 gotta be the best part
My mind is blown.
Beautiful in concept and realisation
some chords make me chuckle
Wonderful! This somehow reminds me The Shawshank Redemption’s soundtrack
Wowzer
To anyone interested in the sheet music, it can be purchased here: www.smith-publications.com/html/printed_music.html
Great , keep it up!
48 et (equal temperament with 48 equal steps to the octave) is a long way different to Harry Partch's 43 unequal steps to the octave. Partch & Ben Johnston share a liking for justly intoned intervals & harmony. Ben Johnston seems more successful in retuning his piano than Lou Harrison was in the latter's Piano Concerto. There seems to be a lot of scope in Julian Carrillo's idea of the 13th sound (overflowing 12 tones to the octave).
Microtonal piano - an idea that both fascinates me while driving my perfect pitch crazy.
The Cello Guy Don't you ever just listen to the sound that the notes make when played together? This stuff is tuned rationally so the harmony isn't uncompromised (untempered). If you can't appreciate something when it's actually in-tune because of your "perfect" pitch (absolute pitch) then I feel sorry for you
Why would it drive your perfect pitch crazy?
@@JohnSmith-iu3jg i'm pretty sure he meant it was confusing him, but he never said he didn't appreciate it. i can understand why it would drive him crazy because his perfect pitch is based on a tempered scale. if your hearing is already hard-wired to 12 tet, microtones can really mess with it because it always sounds out of tune relative to 12 tet. it's not really his fault.
The composer, Ben Johnston, also had perfect pitch. He had to unlearn it to write his music :)
if you listen to the beatless way the notes decay, these is something magical here that you don't get when ET notes are sustained. If you train your ears to just intonation, the rest of the music you hear sounds "wrong".
Great
Cool
muy interesante
Rookie question, do they actually tune the piano exactly to the non traditional scale? I assume the answer is yes because I’m not sure how else you would accomplish this (other than through recording software) but I would love to hear from someone who knows.
Yes, it requires retuning which takes skill and often lots of time because you want the piano to 'get used to' its non-standard tuning. Additionally, the tendency among Just Intonation composers is to have a new scale for just about every piece - certainly Johnston has been continuously, relentlessly experimental about this. Which means though that you would need to retune the piano for every piece you play in a recital!
Needless to say, this kind of music doesn't usually get made because it's so practical... certainly not on piano. And nobody is likely to get rich off it, if only for that reason alone! You can't just go to any old concert hall and start playing this piece right there the way you can with Chopin. With electronic keyboards, with strings or most winds, the problem is generally less big though.
The clever thing about this particular Suite is that Johnston uses just one tuning, but by taking another note in the system as the tonic for each movement, he acquires completely different modal colorings throughout. You end up with entirely divergent sound worlds, that are still unified by one tuning system. It's really very good thinking going on here. (Compare to how utterly different the movement of the planets across the sky would look when you're on a different planet in the same solar system.)
So precise. So, soooooo precise.
@@SamuelVriezen wasn't it performed on real microtonal keyboards?
Tuning a JI temperament is actually a bit easier than tuning 12TeT cause you're basically just trying to make the partials beatless. *Playing* in one on the other hand can be a bit tricky the moment you get too far away from the intended key. My piano is currently in 16/15 9/8 7/6 5/4 4/3 11/8 3/2 8/5 5/3 7/4 15/8 2 and it sounds really great...in some keys haha.
I know this is a little off the subject but maybe someone here can help with a composer I've tried for years to identify. I am a multi-instrumentalist composer, performer with only the shallowest of formal training but 45 yrs. efforts. So anyway, in 1988 or 89 I heard a short segment on a composer of microtonal (?) work. For symphony orchestra. As I understood it he divided each time by for
That got posted half done. I meant to say divided each tone by 4 resulting in a 48 tone octave. All players had to learn a notation of his creation for this. I seem to recall the radio segment was in form an obituary as he had just passed. An excerpt of audio his voice American accent, ~ age 60-70. He said " The work requires great effort and I do not recommend anyone to attempt it because you will become insane. "
Ok why I care. They played a short except of his work. Symphonic instrumentation. A peace overcame me at once though it was a cheap tiny clock radio with bad reception. The power of music to soothe is known to all, bit this was orders of magnitude more so, and not lullaby soothing but vibrant. Like the world was put right. The tone was not dissonant or experimental sounding, but like I was hearing music "in tune" for the first time, and it literally caused a physical and mental joy. I assumed I'd get all I could of this, but life intervened, I forgot the name ( unremarkable Anglo I'm pretty sure). Well I can't find it/him but that makes no sense. And I'm not just curious. I want that music. It seemed to correct my world.
How could such be obscure or forgotten, or did I hear the one short passage of it's kind?
Harry Partch. American composer and music theorist. Developed a 43 tone scale called the "Genesis scale" which required special instrumentation and notation. Died at age 73 in 1974. I know the descriptions don't match perfectly, but this seems like your man.
i agree i think they're talkin about partch
Sounds like Partch, '74. Or maybe Charles Ives, '54.
Men, i see some shapes and colors
It amazess me that his allegiance to just intonation and others of the unorthodox sort kept him busy his whole life.Does the ear want this .I need to read something he has written in order to feel such a commitment is justified .That many others have chosen this path tells me the ear is a relative thing.
John e martin III ... See if you can find a copy of David Doty's JI Primer. It's probably still around, and I have a stack of 1/1 backissues if that's not enough.
It's definitely relative. the western scale does not share all its notes with other scales from the middle and eastern parts of the world. Their notes sound sharp/flat to a westerner, and of course ours would sound sharp/flat to them.
My ear needed this the first time it heard it, no rationale or arguments in language required. 12 equal music has to really bring something special to compare to this now... A sacrifice, in retrospect...
What sounds “right” is what you grow up listening to
Try the essay "Some Quarter-Tone Impressions" by the great American composer Charles Ives. He quotes a contemporary music teacher who wrote of "a fallacious appeal to the judgment of the ear, mistaking the force of education and habit for the promptings of nature."
Sounds like persian piano 😁