i sort of lurk

happy thanksgiving guys,


and i sort of lurk. i've written to this page a couple of times trying to get
some information about various problems i've run into in microtonalland but
i've never taken the time to introduce myself.

I'm a composer. i studied at the peabody conservatory in baltimore in the
80's. previous to that i studied briefly with k. stockhausen in holland. i
wrote mainly atonal music at this time using boulez and webern as theoretical
models. before this i played alot of jazz and rock on guitar. i have recently
been writing alot of songs in a more popular vein.

it was back at peabody where i first found interest in 19-tone music. i read a
fascinating dissertation my mayer joel mandelbaum. i forget what it was
precisely called. i've got a copy of it somewhere still. in anycase, my first
piece at school was a 19-tone piece for soprano and electronics. the school
btw had this awesome old huge moog synthesizer. that baby was sweet!
unfortunately much time passed before i could compose more 19-tone music
because of financial restraints and lack of musical instruments. this was
remedied by getting credit cards and cruising the internet where i found a
cd by some dude that played 19-tone guitar in a rock style by the name of neil
haverstick. well good ole neil turned me onto several guitar builders (john
starret being one of them) and i then had a guitar and bass converted over to
19-tone et.

i also play and compose on keyboards. i was absolutely delighted that john
loffink, the senior hardware developer for kurzweil, logged on the other week.
i own a kurzweil and for a kurzweil owner this loffink character is god. i
mean this boy designs my instrument. and as far as i'm concerned kurzeils have
got the best sound of any commercial synth on the market. i hope more people
than i have personally corresponded with this gentleman as the microtonal
world desperately needs more beautiful sounding instruments. sound is what it
is all about in the end and heres a guy who can do us much good. please take
advantage of his willingness to listen to us.


getting back...


i am now writing a fair amount of 19-tone music. i hope to put out a self
produced cd sometime in the next 6 months.

as far as the things i would like to see are

1) a velocity sensitive keyboard for 19-tones to the octave.

2) some recordings from fellow 19-tone composers. it would be nice if
several of us could begin to trade our tapes. all this talk on this page is
without a doubt vital for microtonalists but wouldn't a little bit of music be
even nicer?

3) there is a 3rd thing i just can't remember what it is.


in any case i feel the time is ripe for new tunings. i find alot of young
musicians are very excited about the prospects of having more fretts on their
guitars. and whether people in general know it or not i think the general
populus is bored of 12tet. i do not say this to simply sound egalitarian.
the regular guy is ready for this. i am almost sure. we need to keep on coming
together and continue to present not our musical experiments but our most
musical works. we need to take our culture at hand, embrace it and work within
it. this in practical terms means taking those forms wich are musically
popular and working with them in a fashion that will present microtonality
palatably . let's not make the mistake that the "serious"composers of this
century had of locking ourselves up in towers and writing with no others in
mind than themselves. well, i'll stop here.


thanks fellas,


denis atadan
615 halstead rd.
wilmington, de. 19803

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