ecarroll

TMers,

As some of you know I've become very interested over the past few years in the expressive nature of microtonal music, both within conventionally notated music and free improvisation. The following website was recently brought to my attention by Ben Grow, a former trumpet major at Rice who's now following a theory degree at McGill.

Home

This website introduces approaches to playing quarter-tones (24-div) and eighth-tones (48-div) on a standard 3-valve trumpet and, using a specially constructed conversion kit (which is described), 19 equal divisions of the octave (19-div). Imaginative teachers are encouraged to adapt the ideas and approaches to encourage younger students.

This music obviously isn't for everyone but I think that it's VERY interesting. Your comments, please?

Best,
EC

mahaberio

I've heard microtones used very effectively (see Michael Blake Watkins and Scelsi) and I've often heard them used gratuitously by immature composers (mostly exciteable students). Either way, they're useful to learn how to do and I've found that the most important step in performing them effectively is to hear them. As far as applying some kind of microtone technique I think it would be a waste of time as every piece I've come across that uses them uses them in a very specific way and, if the composer is courteous, they're fairly easy to do if you can hear them.

rowuk

1/4 or 1/8th tones only make sense to me if you have an audience for them. It is a lot of head work that only sounds out of tune to the uninformed.
I sang 1st Altus in Dies Irae by Kryztof Penderecki for his 60th birthday with a vocal sextet in Stuttgart, Germany. I had to learn 1/4 tones and be able to get them from a tuning fork A=442. It took me 2 weeks to find somebody that could reliably file down the tuning fork, then 6 weeks of 4 hours a day to get in shape. Yes, I learned something, yes, I would do it again if there was somebody there to listen to it. (My wife thought it was just noise......)

__________________
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

tpter1

This is fascinating, Ed. From an aural skills and tuning-learning perspective, I think it is a valuable resource, even if only used for that purpose. There is a wealth of Eastern music that makes use of 1/4 tones, so it seems the ability to play them and hear them properly would open up many doors to new opportunities for literature.

When I was in college, our choral director used to make us divide a half step into 12 parts as part of our warm-up. First, we would go unison, then the women would come down and the men would ascend, meeting in the middle. At first I could not hear any difference. When we would get to the 2nd note, the accompanist would play the reference pitch and lo and behold, imperceptively, we arrived at a half step away from our starting point. It blew me away the first time. There were NO intonation problems in that group, even when singing a capella.

__________________
-Glenn
"Roses have thorns; shining waters mud. Clouds and eclipses stain the moon and the sun; and history reeks of the wrongs we have done. After today, after today, consider me gone."- Sting

TrentAustin

I've been fooling around with a bunch of microtonal stuff in my improvisations. -T

__________________
Trent Austin
lurking around. If you want to chat PM me.
http://www.trentaustin.com
http://www.onlinejazzimprovisation.com

ecarroll

Trent,

Shades of Don Ellis?

Glenn,

I'm totally in favor of any sort of exercise that increases our aural awareness. I'm more interested, however, in composition that uses quarter tones as part of the language (see Maha's post. For example, please take a listen to Matt Brown's performance of 4tro Pezzi: http://www.matthew-brown.com/Recordings.html )

Robin,

I attended a concert given by a microtonal piano duo (pianos tuned .25 tone apart) at Dartmouth a few years back. The tenor sax teacher was standing in the back with me and his comment "I don't know what the big deal is. I play with pianos that sound like this all the time" cracked me up. It's not for everybody and, if you'd like, I can send his address to you to console your wife! (I loved it, however)

Matthew,

It's time for you to start Kryl :)

Best,
EC

ecarroll

Trent,

In case you're interested: http://www.trumpetguild.org/news/new...ellisfilm.html

Best,
EC

TrentAustin

Hey Ed,

I saw that. I'm gonna have to check that out. Don Ellis is definitely one of my "under the radar" trumpet heroes.

Thanks,
T

__________________
Trent Austin
lurking around. If you want to chat PM me.
http://www.trentaustin.com
http://www.onlinejazzimprovisation.com