Unusual Microtonal Instruments, Part 5

Bells often work very well with microtonal tunings. Many of the instruments we are familiar with (pianos, violins, guitars, most wind and brass instruments, etc.) have a harmonic spectrum that tends to work best with more traditional tunings. They can also work well with some very exotic or dissonant tunings, but the inharmonic spectrum of bells often provides a better match. I am fascinated by bells and the possibilities they represent.

As an example, Tony Salinas performs on a microtonal bellophone that uses a tuning of 96 equally spaced tones to the octave. The conic bells that are used can be arranged in various ways.

Here is a picture of a single conic bell.

Of course, this is all very interesting, but you probably want to know how it sounds and see it in action. Click here to see a video demonstration. The bellophone has already been used in concert and I hope to hear more about in the future.

Well, this concludes the first batch of unusual microtonal instruments that I wanted to share with you. I hope you enjoyed reviewing just some of the fascinating approaches to exploring pitch with instruments. This series will take a break for a while, but I hope to discuss more microtonal instruments in the future, including some of my own.

See also:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

15 Tone Gamelan (a new version of an old piece)

Jon Lyle Smith suggested that my Study for Bells might work well with gamelan sounds. He was also nice enough to render the midi file for me. Here is the new version. I'm impressed with how it turned out. It sounds very different than the original.

I had also thought that gamelan sounds might work well with this piece. The tuning of 15 tone equal temperament contains a subset of five tone equal temperament which resembles the Indonesian slendro scale. This makes gamelan sounds a logical choice, although the particular scale I used also has some striking differences from traditional gamelan scales. This piece doesn't sound much like authentic gamelan music, but it does provide an interesting study of the pairing of an unusual tuning with the beloved gamelan sound. I'm grateful to Mr. Smith for providing this audio file. Click here to listen.

See also:
Two Gamelan Transcriptions for Piano
Wikipedia article on gamelan music
Study for Bells in 15 Tone Equal Temperament

Slow Dance in Thirteen Tone Equal Temperament

What happens if you add an extra note to the common twelve tone scale? Well, if you space these thirteen notes equally within the octave, you get a tuning that is very dissonant and very unlike anything you may be familiar with.

Some have even concluded that this infamous thirteen tone equal temperament is the worst possible tuning! This kind of assertion just makes me want to explore this tuning even more. I really don't believe it's the worst. I actually consider it to be one of my favorites, although I'm willing to admit it can be difficult to work with at times.

Slow Dance in thirteen tone equal temperament is one of the first microtonal pieces I have worked on. I have tried to make a soft and gentle piece that contrasts with the ideas that many people have about this tuning.

I played this once for a friend. It was actually a version played with a different sound, so it sounded more dissonant than this one. He claimed he could hear it with his deaf ear. We were both pretty shocked by this. We tried several other microtonal pieces, but none of them had this same effect.

I have spent a ridiculous amount of time working on this piece. It's still not how I want it. I find the strange dissonances to be compelling, but they make for difficulties with production. I would like to add extra parts, but they always seem to clash with what is already there. Maybe, after I've gained more experience, I'll be able to return to it and expand upon it.

In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy this little glimpse into a very exotic tuning. Click here to listen.

X.J. Scott has written some excellent pieces in thirteen tone equal temperament. You can find them near the bottom of this page.

Study in Fifteen Tone Equal Temperament for Bells

I have been working on a lot of microtonal music projects lately. I have been playing and writing music for most of my life, but I am pretty new at producing music with a computer. It sometimes seems that it is easier to write music than produce it. Well, I wanted to start sharing some of my music with you, even if it isn't as professional as I would like. This first piece is a study in fifteen tone equal temperament (fifteen equally spaced notes to the octave instead of the usual twelve) for bells. This tuning has a lot of strange dissonances. I welcome your comments, both positive and negative. I may eventually improve or expand on this piece and your feedback will be helpful to me.

Study in fifteen t...

Note: If you can't see the player or are having problems, try this link.