I will be flying in to San Diego & Los Angeles, staying from Wed. Nov. 18 through Monday afternoon Nov. 23. My prime directive is to examine the completed MicroZone keyboard and corresponding software for Windows 95. I'm looking forward to trying Harvey Starr's 810-key velocity-sensitive instrument, and, providing it meets my needs, to take one home with me (once a pitch template envelope is mounted on top, as my Clavette has).
Almost as important is the chance to meet my fellow xenharmonicists. In case you're not familiar with my work, you can at least get some sense of what I'm up to from http://www.wavefront.com/~hfortuin. The Clavette microtonal keyboard controller that I designed is described there.
Since the completion of the Clavette in 1994, the bulk of my compositions have been microtonal, including works in 19, 22, and 31-ET. My approach in these pieces has been to revisit existing styles of Romantic to early Modern Classical music and jazz (chromatic tonal music), but with the additional resources of these richer ETs. I work out new functional harmonies by modelling the voice-leading with these ratios above 1/1:
7/6, 6/5, 11/9, 5/4, 9/7 (the five kinds of thirds)
7/5, 3/2 (fifths)
7/4, 9/5, 11/6, 15/8, 27/14 (the sevenths a 3/2 above the thirds)
17/8, 9/8 (ninths)
11/4 (the harmonic 11th)
The above ratios within an octave are used in inversion as well (I dont entirely accept the concept of interval inversion entirely, thus the quotes).
On first hearing, my pieces sound similar to Easley Blackwoods Etudes. They are fully notated, and I perform them on Clavette playing synthesizer with setups which map one keystroke to one tone, like traditional instrument performance--I dont trigger any sequences.
I have an interest in Balkan, Middle Eastern, and Indian musics, but have not yet written any xenharmonic work along these lines, although I do have a Japanese-influenced piece Ill take along.
I will bring pieces on cassette, CD, and my 36-minute Clavette video documentary on VHS. I will also bring earlier, freely atonal virtuoso compositions on cassette and CD, including xenrhythmic work. And be forewarned: I must admit to having a Ph.D. in music composition ;) :(
Im most interested in meeting other xenharmonicists who have built or designed alternate keyboards or other instruments; and those composers/improvisers/performers/ theorists with related concerns.
For now, the only thing scheduled is to visit Starr Labs in San Diego on Wed. the 18th. Id like to see if I could meet with San Diego xenharmonicists that evening or perhaps on the 19th.
I expect to be in the Los Angeles vicinity from the 19th or 20th through Mon. the 23rd.
If youd like to meet, please send me your address, phone, website, and the dates and times you are available.
Best wishes from microtonal Minneapolis, Harold Fortuin hfortuin@wavefront.com
(I realize that this is a tad off the subject for the tuning list, but since there's a lot of musicians here...)
I've always been told that one should start trills on the upper of the two notes (i.e., the note above the notated note). I think my bassoon teacher back in high school first pointed that out to me. It seems like that's what I've always heard in recordings as well, but I'll have to do some listening.
But this past Saturday, my saxophone teacher, who is working on his music PhD but is first and foremost a jazz man, said that he'd always heard that you should start on the notated note. Since trills are rather rare in jazz, I at first racked it up to his background. However, I looked at the venerable Harvard Dictionary, and it said that that is a controversial topic, or at least that it depends on the era the music is from.
I'm going to listen to some recordings to get some statistics along those lines, but I'm curious: what have you folks been told along those lines? Understand that I'm talking about true trills - not mordents and such.
Trills before the Romantic period start from the upper note. After 1820, it is permissiable to start the trill from the lower "written" note. This continues straight through the 20th century, thus including Jazz tradition.
Johnny Reinhard Director American Festival of Microtonal Music 318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW New York, New York 10021 USA (212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495 reinhard@idt.net http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/AFMM