Uni/College good for just intonation composition/music writing

Hi there.

Wonder if you can help me. I'm fascinated by just intonation music, and also at a point in my life where it would be great to do another course of study. I know you learn it all on your own, but would love to have the benefits of learning with people.

So wonder if you know english speaking courses anywhere in the world that teach music or creative music technology and have tuition in JI or a culture of using it.

I have a first degree in audio tech, so could consider masters, just taking modules from a uni with no degree in mind, or a private tutor.

Thanks for your help.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "antseaji" <antseaji@...> wrote:
>
> Hi there.
>
> Wonder if you can help me. I'm fascinated by just intonation
> music, and also at a point in my life where it would be great
> to do another course of study. I know you learn it all on your
> own, but would love to have the benefits of learning
> with people.
>
> So wonder if you know english speaking courses anywhere in the
> world that teach music or creative music technology and have
> tuition in JI or a culture of using it.
>
> I have a first degree in audio tech, so could consider masters,
> just taking modules from a uni with no degree in mind, or a
> private tutor.
>
> Thanks for your help.

Hi antseaji. Nice to hear from you. The short answer is,
I'm not aware of any university music program built around
alternative tunings of any kind anywhere in the world.
But one thing about university is that you're supposed to
be able to study what interests you. And what we have seen
in the past decade is an explosion in experimental music
of all kinds -- consumer interest, academic interest, and
the availability of tools to make it. So you should find
people at any university who at least know about microtonal
tunings and would be willing to support you studying them.
There are even a few places well microtonal composers are
on the faculty. Here are a couple links:

Bill Alves - Harvey Mudd College
http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/

Larry Polansky - Dartmouth
http://digitalmusics.dartmouth.edu/~larry/

Bill Sethares - University of Wisconsin
http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/

The experimental music groups at Stanford (CCRMA) and
Berkeley (CNMAT) might also be worth checking out.

I once met a fellow who studied clarinet at UC Davis:
Sam Torrisi. That was back when Tenney was still alive.
Anyone know what's going on at Davis these days?

Mills College in Oakland is the only college I know
of to have ever had something approaching a program
around microtonal music -- back in the 1980s when
Larry Polansky was there. Last I heard (which was
over 10 years ago, sheesh) John Bischoff was in charge.

My wife attended Mills for a year in 2005, and it was
really suffering (dropping attendance). I wouldn't
recommend it these days.

Hope that helps,

-Carl

The following would definitely be good teachers, but it is also largely a question of the musical genre or style or tradition in which you want to work as well as your academic qualifications and financial resources:

Wolfgang von Schweinitz, CalArts
Clarence Barlow, UC Santa Barbara
Chris Brown, Mills College
Jon Fonville, UC San Diego (I'm not certain that he teaches composition, but he does compose microtonally and, with cellist Charles Curtis — who works closely with La Monte Young — on the faculty, there is a niche for intonation studies at UCSD)
Janice Giteck, Cornish
Larry Polansky, Mills
Bill Alves, Harvey Mudd/Claremont Colleges

outside of the US:

Jon Wild, McGill
Christopher Fox, Brunel (Brunel's music department also has Richard Barrett and Partch biographer Bob Gilmore)
Walter Zimmermann and Marc Sabat, Berlin University of the Arts

Daniel Wolf
Frankfurt

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel Wolf" <djwolf@...> wrote:
>
> The following would definitely be good teachers, but it is also
> largely a question of the musical genre or style or tradition in
> which you want to work as well as your academic qualifications and
> financial resources:
>
> Wolfgang von Schweinitz, CalArts
> Clarence Barlow, UC Santa Barbara
> Chris Brown, Mills College
> Jon Fonville, UC San Diego (I'm not certain that he teaches
> composition,
> but he does compose microtonally and, with cellist Charles Curtis
> â€" who works closely with La Monte Young â€" on the faculty, there
> is a niche for intonation studies at UCSD)
> Janice Giteck, Cornish
> Larry Polansky, Mills
> Bill Alves, Harvey Mudd/Claremont Colleges
>
> outside of the US:
>
> Jon Wild, McGill
> Christopher Fox, Brunel (Brunel's music department also has
> Richard Barrett and Partch biographer Bob Gilmore)
> Walter Zimmermann and Marc Sabat, Berlin University of the Arts
>

In Bern, Switzerland, there is Bernardo Grossenbacher:

http://www.classicpoint.ch/kursangebote/grossenbacher-bernardo/view-details

But it's probably not in english (but OTOH, who knows...)
--
Hans Straub

Hello antseaji,

You might also want to check out the University of Miami's Music Engineering
program, which I just graduated from - It's currently being run by Colby
Leider, who is an electronic and microtonal composer in his own right.

Also, wasn't something going on at Boston's NEC...?

-Mike

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 2:18 PM, antseaji <antseaji@...> wrote:

>
>
> Hi there.
>
> Wonder if you can help me. I'm fascinated by just intonation music, and
> also at a point in my life where it would be great to do another course of
> study. I know you learn it all on your own, but would love to have the
> benefits of learning with people.
>
> So wonder if you know english speaking courses anywhere in the world that
> teach music or creative music technology and have tuition in JI or a culture
> of using it.
>
> I have a first degree in audio tech, so could consider masters, just taking
> modules from a uni with no degree in mind, or a private tutor.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
>
>

> Larry Polansky, Mills

Larry hasn't been at Mills for a decade.

> Jon Wild, McGill

Forgot about Jon! He and some students are doing some
pretty exciting work with Celemony Melodyne at the moment.

-Carl

Thanks for the replies so far. I'll work through those links and see what they're up to.

I suppose my ideal is to be able to work with western compositional techniques with a tutor or small group, who is knowledgable about JI, and also have the freedom to work in an electronic/sound art/multimedia for a good deal of the time. And not to have to learn too much about music history opera and all that. Not that it's no good, but I did a conservatoire as a kid and it's not my direction.

Pretty tall order :) Like I said I will work through the links, but if anything jumps out from what I said would be good to have input.

Cheers!

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "antseaji" <antseaji@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the replies so far. I'll work through those links
> and see what they're up to.
>
> I suppose my ideal is to be able to work with western
> compositional techniques with a tutor or small group, who is
> knowledgable about JI, and also have the freedom to work in an
> electronic/sound art/multimedia for a good deal of the time.
> And not to have to learn too much about music history opera and
> all that. Not that it's no good, but I did a conservatoire as
> a kid and it's not my direction.
>
> Pretty tall order :) Like I said I will work through the links,
> but if anything jumps out from what I said would be good to
> have input.
>
> Cheers!

If you already have chops on an instrument you should have
a look at the Berklee music school.

http://www.berklee.edu/

I'm not aware of anything particularly microtonal about it,
but they are known for having open minds. (Though IIRC
Joe Maneri has done some workshops on 72-ET there.)

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
>
> If you already have chops on an instrument you should have
> a look at the Berklee music school.
>
> http://www.berklee.edu/
>
> I'm not aware of anything particularly microtonal about it,
> but they are known for having open minds. (Though IIRC
> Joe Maneri has done some workshops on 72-ET there.)
>

Hmm, speaking of Boston - there is the Boston microtonal society (http://bostonmicrotonalsociety.org), which indeed works with 72-ET.
--
Hans Straub

you should try to contact David Fiuczynski (a guitar instructor there) who put together the "microtonal club" at Berklee.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
>
> If you already have chops on an instrument you should have
> a look at the Berklee music school.
>
> http://www.berklee.edu/
>
> I'm not aware of anything particularly microtonal about it,
> but they are known for having open minds. (Though IIRC
> Joe Maneri has done some workshops on 72-ET there.)
>
> -Carl
>

Thanks for those. I'll check it out.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carlo Serafini" <carlo@...> wrote:
>
> you should try to contact David Fiuczynski (a guitar instructor there) who put together the "microtonal club" at Berklee.
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@> wrote:
> >
> > If you already have chops on an instrument you should have
> > a look at the Berklee music school.
> >
> > http://www.berklee.edu/
> >
> > I'm not aware of anything particularly microtonal about it,
> > but they are known for having open minds. (Though IIRC
> > Joe Maneri has done some workshops on 72-ET there.)
> >
> > -Carl
> >
>