Prelude for Centaur Tuned Piano

This is a prelude for solo piano tuned in Kraig Grady's Centaur tuning – the Just Intonation ratios are given in the score. The computer rendition from Sibelius & pianoteq did have some difficulty with rendering a proper accelerando so the tempo shifts are a bit abrupt.

Online play and creative commons license information
http://chrisvaisvil.com/?p=902

The audio download
http://micro.soonlabel.com/centaur_tuning/Prelude_For_Centaur_Tuned_Piano.mp3

The score
http://micro.soonlabel.com/centaur_tuning/Prelude_For_Centaur_Tuned_Piano.pdf

I transcribed it for Brass and percussion

http://micro.soonlabel.com/centaur_tuning/prelude_in_centaur_brass_and_precussion.mp3

Or

Online play and creative commons license information

http://chrisvaisvil.com/?p=902

Chris,

I like the piano version quite a bit. Seems like more of the serial
influences showing through, but that may just be me.

I like the horns-and-percussion version somewhat less. It's not bad, mind
you, but it seems less coherent to me, somehow. Where the piano rendition
seems tight, almost clinical, the brass version feels a bit too brash.

I didn't listen closely for the tuning aspects of it -- I was just listening
to it as music.

Regards,
Jake

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Jake,

Thanks for the listen and comments.

The piece isn't serial, but it certainly sounds like it could be. This is an
example where / when it started to make sense to me to re-examine serialism
as a organizational tool. The guiding factor in my voice leading is the
level of dissonance. It would be hard for me to define right now - when I
was working the score I made variations of the themes and adjusted notes
based on a sense of how dissonant I wanted the harmony to sound. One of the
things I actively was trying to avoid, for the most part, where "near
perfect" consonances in the scale - like a near perfect fifth that had
audible beating / phasing. Another guiding factor was making the right and
left hand parts as distinct as possible and of course to compose
contrapuntally. The opening theme toyed with the idea of making B the tonic
where the Centaur tuning is technically centered on C (as far as I
understand it). That idea gave way to more of a free-form follow-your-ear
voice leading with 3rd avoiding sonorities, quartal and quintal chords
sprinkled in as contrast. In the end F was the tonal center with a leaning
towards minor modality.

I agree that the brass doesn't have the same punch though I think the brass
does a better job in pulling out more emotion out of the slow section.

Chris

On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 1:16 PM, Jake Freivald <jdfreivald@...> wrote:

>
>
> Chris,
>
> I like the piano version quite a bit. Seems like more of the serial
> influences showing through, but that may just be me.
>
> I like the horns-and-percussion version somewhat less. It's not bad, mind
> you, but it seems less coherent to me, somehow. Where the piano rendition
> seems tight, almost clinical, the brass version feels a bit too brash.
>
> I didn't listen closely for the tuning aspects of it -- I was just
> listening
> to it as music.
>
> Regards,
> Jake
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]