Category Archives: microtonal

Easley We Roll Along

Posted on November 19, 2022 by midiguru

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Easley Blackwood Jr. (born 1933) is still alive. We should all be so lucky! Forty years ago I interviewed him for an article in Keyboard. He was so articulate that the interview ended up … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, music | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Floater

Posted on September 17, 2021 by midiguru

You may not enjoy this type of thing, but I find it oddly relaxing. This is a fairly simple patch in VCV Rack. Three FM-type sine oscillators are playing a convoluted pattern in a subset of 19-note equal temperament. You’ll … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, modular, music | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Roll Your Own Theory

Posted on May 19, 2014 by midiguru

Last night I started musing about how one might develop a coherent theory of harmony (that is, scales and chords) for a tuning with 31 equal-tempered steps per octave. This tuning, which we can call 31et or 31edo for short, … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, music | Leave a comment

Tiny Everything

Posted on April 13, 2014 by midiguru

A couple of months ago I learned one or two pieces in Book 4 of Bela Bartok’s Mikrokosmos. And recently one of the people on the Xenharmonic Alliance II group on Facebook posted a link to a really nice piece … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, music | 2 Comments

Stepping Out (Csound/JI)

Posted on March 7, 2014 by midiguru

Found this little experiment on my Mac tonight. I had forgotten I did it. [audio https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18276384/vary_seq.mp3] It isn’t really a piece of music — just a texture. I suppose it’s post-minimalist, if you like genre terminology: It’s not intended to go … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, music | 3 Comments

When Is a Volt Not a Volt?

Posted on January 8, 2014 by midiguru

Regular readers of this space (all five of you) will be aware that I’m fussy about intonation. And yet, I’ve acquired an analog modular synthesizer. Go figure. Analog synthesis is good at many things, but precise intonation is not one … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, modular, music, technology | 13 Comments

Modular Mojo: More About Pitch

Posted on December 29, 2013 by midiguru

After struggling a bit earlier today (see the previous post) with intonation in my modular synth, I felt I should do a few more tests. There’s some good news to report, and some bad news. Bad news first: The output … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, modular, music, technology | Leave a comment

Temper, Temper

Posted on October 18, 2013 by midiguru

I’ve composed upwards of a dozen pieces using microtonal equal temperaments — dividing the octave into 17 steps, or 19, or 20, or 31. What I like about these tunings, beyond the fact that you can modulate freely, is that … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, music | Leave a comment

Bashing

Posted on September 20, 2013 by midiguru

For the past week I’ve been on a Reply All email list in which experimental musicians are being loudly abusive of those who don’t like their music. (I’m one of the latter, which is how I got on the list … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, music, random musings, society & culture | 7 Comments

In the Lurch

Posted on September 19, 2013 by midiguru

One of the things I like about microtonal tunings is that their exotic flavor sort of invites you to try a few other unusual ideas as well. This piece is in 17-note equal temperament. Both the melodic mode and the … Continue reading →

Posted in microtonal, music | 2 Comments