Three Daphnes

May 17th, 2012



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Daphne in 12 equalDaphne in Porcupine 15 Lesfip Daphne in Arabic 17-tone Pythagorean

Slumber of Thought

May 13th, 2012

Slumber of Thought is complete – at least for now. The tuning is 65 cent Equal Temperament.
The score is linked here.
In a 3 hour sitting after waking up with only one cup of coffee I obsessively finished this composition. I again throw any thought of traditional musical form under the bus and forge on ahead. In a superficial fashion the form that piece does have resembles Prelude for a Centuar Tuned Piano. What turns out to be the unifying structure of the piece for me is the exchange of harmonic and melodic material. There were also edits of tempo and minor note and other expressive changes through the whole score. You can get more information on the development of this piece on this page.

The Stillness of my Heart for chamber ensemble

May 12th, 2012

The Stillness of my Heart for solo viola, string ensemble, glass marimba, cymbals and electronics using adaptive JI (just intonation) tuning.

Three Microtonal Ambient Pieces

May 11th, 2012

Space is in Us is a study in noise to music manipulation. Tuning system unknown.
Thedy’s Ribbon is a multi-tuned synthesizer piece inspired by Ray Bradbury’s story The Jar as seen on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Tunings used: 9, 17, 19, 22, and 31 edo.
Frannie at the 7th limit is a sample of Tonehammer’s Francesca manipulated by Paul’s Extreme Stretch to yield a parallel 7th limit minor 7th chord. (1/1, 5/4, 3/2, 7/4)

Enjoy, I hope.

15 floors of glory

May 4th, 2012

15 floors of glory is a multi-tuned piece using 5, 9, 10, 11, 12 edo as well as unpitched (drums). It was performed live on an AXiS 49, Korg nanokontrol and Simmons SDMP1 drum pad (played with hands) using Kontakt and Sonar X1.

Seven Minutes to Circle

April 27th, 2012

Seven Minutes to Circle is a 17 edo guitar looper piece. This is a live improvisation using a splitter, two looper pedals, and some added reverb and a touch of echo in Sonar after the fact.

Dedication

April 24th, 2012

Dedication is a piece for Alto Flute plus an electronic accompaniment (in old time parlance “tape”) in 24 edo (quartertone aka 24 et). Thank you Amy Shankland for providing the voice and also Vox Novus for commissioning this piece!! The score is here – if you are interested in performing this piece you can contact me and I will supply the accompaniment for you. Performance of this work is also covered under my creative commons license though if you perform it at a paid event its not a problem – also if you record it and don’t sell the recording for a profit (as part of a collection or whatever) I’m ok with that too. If you look at the score you will see that the percussion and effects are not “explicitly” written out. That is because I am availing myself of the samples in the Kontakt packages I purchased. However, the synthesizer and synthesized piano scordatura are accurate.

And the princes bring near the dedication of the altar in the day of its being anointed; yea, the princes bring near their offering before the altar.

And Jehovah saith unto Moses, `One prince a day — one prince a day — do they bring near their offering for the dedication of the altar.’

Numbers 7:10. 7:11 Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible

Well Enough Alone

April 19th, 2012

Well Enough Alone – 12 equal 5 string bass, 19 equal guitar, drums.

Mindaugas Rex Lithuaniae

April 18th, 2012


Mindaugas Rex Lithuaniae
is a piece for string orchestra using 9 note MOS scale called superpelog[9] in 23edo(detailed below). It was performed on an AXiS 49 with Sonar X1 and Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.0 – Mindaugas was the only King of Lithuania.

! 5deg23MOS9
!
A MOS-generated scale
9
!
104.347826087
260.869565217
365.217391304
521.739130435
626.086956522
782.608695652
886.956521739
1043.47826087
1200.0
!

wakalix tuning survey

April 13th, 2012

This is the instrument I used with pianoteq to perform the improvisational survey.

blackopkeegil1           blackopkeegil1.mid           scala file

prism           prism.mid           scala file
hppshq           hppshq.mid           scala file
meansqunumigpopmo           meansqunumigpopmo.mid     scala file
domdimpajinjschis            domdimpajinjschis.mid           scala file
godmeankeeflat1           godmeankeeflat1.mid           scala file

This is a survey of about maybe a fifth (at this time) of wakalix and superwakalix tunings devised by Gene Ward Smith and Carl Lumma (others?). The midi files *require* the use of the corresponding scala files in order to reproduce the pitches heard in the mp3s. These are raw unedited improvisations created to give a quick hearing of the tunings I tried.