Behind The Bridge

Bill -

Are you sure you didn't mean behind the barn. That's where I first... oh,
never mind.

>I have tried this on the only other instrument that I know of designed to
>be played on both sides of a bridge -- the European double-bridged dulcimer
>-- without success. [...] If one has a movable bridge, one can make slight
>adjustments on the fly, I suppose, especially if the string is tight and
>the bridge has little friction.

I didn't mean to apply that it was *successful*, I just said that Harry did
it. Yet this is entirely keeping with the thought that Adam shared: a
portion (substantial or not, you be the judge) of Harry's compositional
palette consisted of expressionistic motives, passages, leitmotifs --
whatever -- that Partch found in certain bridge combinations. On one side
might be a scalar passage, either with slightly wider intervals (melodic) or
smaller (43-tone stepwise 'effects' scales); on the other side, maybe a
quite short string length, would be some kind of reverse scalar passage that
emitted some of the screams or moans that the Harmonic Canons are famous
for. In other instances, Harry would have a very straight bridge covering a
number of strings, all tuned unison. When either stroked as a group, or
played with a mallet (occasionally, like the hammered dulcimer) you would
get an 'ensemble' effect, nulling out the small differences between strings,
and you can set the bridges so that the two pitches (on either side of the
bridge), being played by a number of strings, can be tuned to two pitches
that you might need harmonically. Not every string, on both sides,
*exactly* in tune -- yes; a strong addition to a composer's toolkit of
expression -- absolutely.

If people want to reference exact places in pieces, I can probably find the
spots. Would take me a while, but I could do it if you like...

Good discussion, gang. See ya...
Cheers,
Jon
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
Jonathan M. Szanto | Come visit Corporeal Meadows . . . . . . .
Backbeats & Interrupts | . . . . . . . . . our little Partch tribute.
jszanto@adnc.com | http://www.adnc.com/web/jszanto/welcome.html
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Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 09:22:07 -0700
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