Quarter Tone Bouzouki

Here's an interesting video of a bouzouki with some extra frets to get some of the notes "between the notes".

A Nice Piece in Seventeen Tone Equal Temperament

I know from personal experience that seventeen tone equal temperament (seventeen equally spaced tones per octave) can be a challenging tuning. It sometimes comes across as harsh and dissonant. However, it also has a softer side. I think the producers of this piece did an excellent job of showing how pleasant music can emerge from what might seem like an unpromising tuning system. I think their choice of instrument and style is a good match for the unique possibilities of this particular tuning.

Seventeen Dragon Dreams (Music and Video by Sethares and Crowly)

Here is one of my compositions in seventeen tone equal temperament.

Revelation for Piano

Here is Michael Harrison performing his innovative "revelation tuning", a form of just intonation that makes use of small tuning differences that are generally avoided in other types of purely tuned music.

Revelation for Piano (Michael Harrison)

See also Michael Harrison's website.

Microtonal Marimba (Quartertones)

I'm always excited when I discover a new microtonal instrument. I just came across this video of a fascinating quartertone marimba (twenty four equally spaced tones to the octave instead of twelve).

Quarter Tone Marimba

See also Quartertone Marimba.com for more videos and information about this project.

Microtonal Ukulele

Here's a great video of a young musician playing a ukulele tuned to thirteen tone equal temperament. This is often thought of as a dissonant and unpleasant tuning, but I think he makes it sound wonderful.

Thirteen Tone Uke

A Scream from Lebanon

Here is a cool video that uses a microtonal variation of the C minor scale where the A and D notes are each thirty cents flat.

A Scream from Lebanon

Quarter Tone Piano

Normally, a piano has notes that are a half tone apart. If you take two pianos and tune one of them a quarter tone sharp, you can use them to play 24 tone equal temperament. These videos demonstrate 3 quarter tone piano pieces by Charles Ives.

24 tone equal temperament is a somewhat controversial tuning. It's similarity to 12 tone equal temperament makes it an obvious choice for study, but many people don't like it. They point out that the in between notes tend to be rather dissonant. This tuning is regarded by some as one of the least interesting. Well, I haven't formed any strong opinions about it myself. I have had very little success with it, so far, but I recently had some ideas that may be productive. I can say that I like these pieces and hope you will enjoy them, too.

Charles Ives-3 Quarter Tone Pieces-Largo

Charles Ives-3 Quarter Tone Pieces-Allegro

Charles Ives-3 Quarter Tone Pieces-Chorale

Many thanks to Daniel Stearns for bringing these to my attention. See this page for more information on these pieces.

The Seventeen Tone Piano Project

The seventeen tone piano project is an ambitious undertaking that involves tuning two pianos to share the notes of seventeen tone equal temperament (seventeen equally spaced notes to the octave instead of twelve). This is an unique and exotic tuning. It is characterised by fifths that are somewhat sharper than purely tuned fifths. (Twelve tone equal temperament and mean-tone tunings have somewhat flat fifths.) It also has a neutral third in addition to versions of major and minor thirds.

That's enough theory, it's better to listen to it, so I have included this video of phase two of the project.

Seventeen Tone Piano Project, Phase Two

Phase three is scheduled to be performed this coming Monday. I'm excited because I have submitted one of my own pieces for the concert. It's a gentle nocturne. I tried to write a piece that contrasts with the reputation of 17ET as being somewhat rough sounding. Time will tell if I succeeded or not.

Update: Recordings of phase 3 are archived here.

Two Gamelan Transcriptions for Piano

It can be pretty difficult, at times, to perform microtonal music on certain acoustic instruments. This video results from an ambitious yet rewarding process of retuning a piano to a gamelan scale. I love this pairing of tuning and timbre. It might not be authentic, but it sure is interesting.

Two Gamelan Transcriptions

See also Microtonal Music Videos