1.
Quadrangularis Reversum
–
One of Partchs scales has 43 tones to the octave. To play this music, he built a number of unique instruments, with names such as the Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum. Partch called himself a philosophic music-man seduced into carpentry, the path towards Partchs use of a large number of unique instruments was a gradual one. Partch began in the 1920s using traditional instruments, and wrote a quartet in just intonation. He had his first specialized instrument built for him in 1930—the Adapted Viola and he re-tuned the reeds of several reed organs and labeled the keys with a color code. The first one was called the Ptolemy, in tribute to the ancient music theorist Claudius Ptolemaeus, whose musical scales included ratios of the 11-limit, the others were called Chromelodeons, a portmanteau of chrome and melodeon. Most of Partchs works used the instruments he created exclusively, some works made use of unaltered standard instruments such as oboe, clarinet, or cello, and Revelation in the Courtyard Park used an unaltered small wind band. In 1991, Dean Drummond became the custodian of the original Harry Partch instrument collection until his death in 2013, in 1999 the instruments began a residency at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey which lasted until November 2014 when they moved to University of Washington in Seattle. They are currently under the care of Charles Corey, Partch built two steel-string guitars, the six-string Adapted Guitar I, and the ten-string Adapted Guitar II. Partch first started experimenting with such instruments in 1934, and the Adapted Guitar I first appeared in Barstow in 1941, in 1945, he began using amplification for both instruments. The Adapted Viola is earliest extant instrument created by Partch and it is made from a cello fingerboard neck attached to the body of a viola. It also includes a bridge which allows triple stops, i. e. full triads. Partch hammered brads into the fingerboard to aid with finding fingerings, the Adapted Viola was constructed in New Orleans with the assistance of an Edward Benton, a local violin maker. Partch originally called it the Monophone, but by 1933 it had known as the Adapted Viola. Partch tuned the Adapted Viola an octave below the violin and the brads inserted into the instrument fingerboard are placed at ratios commonly used in Partchs works. In playing the instrument, Partch called for a one-finger technique, specifically, he desired that notes should be approached by gliding from tone to tone, The finger may start slowly on its move, increase speed, and hit the next ratio exactly. It may move very fast from the first ratio, and then slowly and insinuatingly into the next—so slowly, sometimes. Or, all this may be reversed, what the bow is doing meanwhile, in its capacity of providing an infinitude of nuance, is supremely important
2.
Harry Partch
–
Harry Partch was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales. He built custom-made instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, to play his music, Partch built a large number of unique instruments, with such names as the Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Zymo-Xyl. Partch described his music as corporeal, and distinguished it from abstract music, ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh and kabuki heavily influenced his music theatre. Encouraged by his mother, Partch learned several instruments at a young age, by fourteen, he was composing, and in particular took to setting dramatic situations. He dropped out of the University of Southern Californias School of Music in 1922 over dissatisfaction with the quality of his teachers, in 1930, he burned all his previous compositions in a rejection of the European concert tradition. Partch frequently moved around the US, early in his career, he was a transient worker, and sometimes a hobo, later he depended on grants, university appointments, and record sales to support himself. In 1970, supporters created the Harry Partch Foundation to administer Partchs music, Partch was born on June 24,1901, in Oakland, California. His parents were Virgil Franklin Partch and Jennie, the Presbyterian couple were missionaries, and served in China from 1888 to 1893, and again from 1895 to 1900, when they fled the Boxer Rebellion. Partch moved with his family to Arizona for his mothers health and his father worked for the Immigration Service there, and they settled in the small town of Benson. It was still the Wild West there in the twentieth century. Nearby, there were native Yaqui people, whose music he heard and his mother sang to him in Mandarin Chinese, and he heard and sang songs in Spanish and the Yaqui language. His mother encouraged her children to music, and he learned the mandolin, violin, piano, reed organ. His mother taught him to read music, the family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1913, where Partch seriously studied the piano. He had work playing keyboards for silent films while he was in high school, by 14, he was composing for the piano. He early found an interest in writing music for dramatic situations, and often cited the lost composition Death, Partch graduated from high school in 1919. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1919 following the death of Partchs father, there, his mother was killed in a trolley accident in 1920. He enrolled in the University of Southern Californias School of Music in 1920 and he moved to San Francisco and studied books on music in the libraries there and continued to compose
3.
Music theory
–
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. The term is used in three ways in music, though all three are interrelated. The first is what is otherwise called rudiments, currently taught as the elements of notation, of key signatures, of time signatures, of rhythmic notation, Theory in this sense is treated as the necessary preliminary to the study of harmony, counterpoint, and form. The second is the study of writings about music from ancient times onwards, Music theory is frequently concerned with describing how musicians and composers make music, including tuning systems and composition methods among other topics. However, this medieval discipline became the basis for tuning systems in later centuries, Music theory as a practical discipline encompasses the methods and concepts composers and other musicians use in creating music. The development, preservation, and transmission of music theory in this sense may be found in oral and written music-making traditions, musical instruments, and other artifacts. In ancient and living cultures around the world, the deep and long roots of music theory are clearly visible in instruments, oral traditions, and current music making. Many cultures, at least as far back as ancient Mesopotamia and ancient China, have also considered music theory in more formal ways such as written treatises, in modern academia, music theory is a subfield of musicology, the wider study of musical cultures and history. Etymologically, music theory is an act of contemplation of music, from the Greek θεωρία, a looking at, viewing, contemplation, speculation, theory, also a sight, a person who researches, teaches, or writes articles about music theory is a music theorist. University study, typically to the M. A. or Ph. D level, is required to teach as a music theorist in a US or Canadian university. Methods of analysis include mathematics, graphic analysis, and especially analysis enabled by Western music notation, comparative, descriptive, statistical, and other methods are also used. See for instance Paleolithic flutes, Gǔdí, and Anasazi flute, several surviving Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets include musical information of a theoretical nature, mainly lists of intervals and tunings. The scholar Sam Mirelman reports that the earliest of these dates from before 1500 BCE. Further, All the Mesopotamian texts are united by the use of a terminology for music that, much of Chinese music history and theory remains unclear. The earliest texts about Chinese music theory are inscribed on the stone and they include more than 2800 words describing theories and practices of music pitches of the time. The bells produce two intertwined pentatonic scales three tones apart with additional pitches completing the chromatic scale, Chinese theory starts from numbers, the main musical numbers being twelve, five and eight. Twelve refers to the number of pitches on which the scales can be constructed, the Lüshi chunqiu from about 239 BCE recalls the legend of Ling Lun. On order of the Yellow Emperor, Ling Lun collected twelve bamboo lengths with thick, blowing on one of these like a pipe, he found its sound agreeable and named it huangzhong, the Yellow Bell
4.
Musical tuning
–
In music, there are two common meanings for tuning, Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice. Tuning systems, the systems of pitches used to tune an instrument. Tuning is the process of adjusting the pitch of one or many tones from musical instruments to establish typical intervals between these tones, Tuning is usually based on a fixed reference, such as A =440 Hz. Out of tune refers to a pitch/tone that is too high or too low in relation to a given reference pitch. While an instrument might be in relative to its own range of notes. Some instruments become out of tune with damage or time and must be readjusted or repaired, different methods of sound production require different methods of adjustment, Tuning to a pitch with ones voice is called matching pitch and is the most basic skill learned in ear training. Turning pegs to increase or decrease the tension on strings so as to control the pitch, instruments such as the harp, piano, and harpsichord require a wrench to turn the tuning pegs, while others such as the violin can be tuned manually. Modifying the length or width of the tube of an instrument, brass instrument, pipe, bell. The sounds of instruments such as cymbals are inharmonic—they have irregular overtones not conforming to the harmonic series. Tuning may be done aurally by sounding two pitches and adjusting one of them to match or relate to the other, a tuning fork or electronic tuning device may be used as a reference pitch, though in ensemble rehearsals often a piano is used. Symphony orchestras and concert bands tend to tune to an A or a B♭, respectively, interference beats are used to objectively measure the accuracy of tuning. As the two approach a harmonic relationship, the frequency of beating decreases. When tuning a unison or octave it is desired to reduce the beating frequency until it cannot be detected, for other intervals, this is dependent on the tuning system being used. Harmonics may be used to facilitate tuning of strings that are not themselves tuned to the unison, for example, lightly touching the highest string of a cello at the middle while bowing produces the same pitch as doing the same a third of the way down its second-highest string. The resulting unison is more easily and quickly judged than the quality of the fifth between the fundamentals of the two strings. In music, the open string refers to the fundamental note of the unstopped. The strings of a guitar are tuned to fourths, as are the strings of the bass guitar. Violin, viola, and cello strings are tuned to fifths, however, non-standard tunings exist to change the sound of the instrument or create other playing options
5.
Ratio
–
In mathematics, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers indicating how many times the first number contains the second. For example, if a bowl of fruit contains eight oranges and six lemons, thus, a ratio can be a fraction as opposed to a whole number. Also, in example the ratio of lemons to oranges is 6,8. The numbers compared in a ratio can be any quantities of a kind, such as objects, persons, lengths. A ratio is written a to b or a, b, when the two quantities have the same units, as is often the case, their ratio is a dimensionless number. A rate is a quotient of variables having different units, but in many applications, the word ratio is often used instead for this more general notion as well. The numbers A and B are sometimes called terms with A being the antecedent, the proportion expressing the equality of the ratios A, B and C, D is written A, B = C, D or A, B, C, D. This latter form, when spoken or written in the English language, is expressed as A is to B as C is to D. A, B, C and D are called the terms of the proportion. A and D are called the extremes, and B and C are called the means, the equality of three or more proportions is called a continued proportion. Ratios are sometimes used three or more terms. The ratio of the dimensions of a two by four that is ten inches long is 2,4,10, a good concrete mix is sometimes quoted as 1,2,4 for the ratio of cement to sand to gravel. It is impossible to trace the origin of the concept of ratio because the ideas from which it developed would have been familiar to preliterate cultures. For example, the idea of one village being twice as large as another is so basic that it would have been understood in prehistoric society, however, it is possible to trace the origin of the word ratio to the Ancient Greek λόγος. Early translators rendered this into Latin as ratio, a more modern interpretation of Euclids meaning is more akin to computation or reckoning. Medieval writers used the word to indicate ratio and proportionalitas for the equality of ratios, Euclid collected the results appearing in the Elements from earlier sources. The Pythagoreans developed a theory of ratio and proportion as applied to numbers, the discovery of a theory of ratios that does not assume commensurability is probably due to Eudoxus of Cnidus. The exposition of the theory of proportions that appears in Book VII of The Elements reflects the earlier theory of ratios of commensurables, the existence of multiple theories seems unnecessarily complex to modern sensibility since ratios are, to a large extent, identified with quotients. This is a recent development however, as can be seen from the fact that modern geometry textbooks still use distinct terminology and notation for ratios
6.
Otonality
–
Otonality and utonality are terms introduced by Harry Partch to describe chords whose pitch classes are the harmonics or subharmonics of a given fixed tone, respectively. An otonality is a collection of pitches which can be expressed in ratios, expressing their relationship to the fixed tone, for example, 1/1, 5/4, and 3/2 form an otonality because they can be written as 4/4, 5/4, 6/4. Every otonality is therefore composed of members of a harmonic series, similarly, the ratios of a utonality share the same numerator. 7/4, 7/5, 7/6, and 1/1 form a utonality, every utonality is therefore composed of members of a subharmonic series. An otonality corresponds to a series of frequencies, or lengths of a vibrating string. Brass instruments naturally produce otonalities, and indeed otonalities are inherent in the harmonics of a fundamental tone. Tuvan Khoomei singers produce otonalities with their vocal tracts, Utonality is the opposite, corresponding to a subharmonic series of frequencies, or an arithmetic series of wavelengths. The arithmetical proportion may be considered as a demonstration of utonality, microtonalists define a just intonation chord as otonal if its odd limit increases on being inverted, utonal if its odd limit decreases, and ambitonal if its odd limit is unchanged. The chord is not inverted in the sense, where C E G becomes E G C or G C E. Instead. A chords odd limit is the largest odd limit of each of the numbers in the chords extended ratio, for example, the major triad 4,5,6 has an odd limit of 5. Its inverse 10,12,15 has an odd limit of 15, Partch said that his 1931 coinage of otonality and utonality was, hastened, by having read Henry Cowells discussion of undertones in New Musical Resources. The 5-limit otonality is simply a just major chord, and the 5-limit utonality is a just minor chord, thus otonality and utonality can be viewed as extensions of major and minor tonality respectively. This chord might be, for example, A♭-C-E♭-G♭ Play, standing alone, it has something of the sound of a dominant seventh, but considerably less dissonant. Utonal chords, while containing the same dyads and roughness as otonal chords, numerary nexus Scale of harmonics Tonality flux Otonality and ADO system at 96-EDO Utonality and EDL system at 96-EDO
7.
Limit (music)
–
In music theory, limit or harmonic limit is a way of characterizing the harmony found in a piece or genre of music, or the harmonies that can be made using a particular scale. The term limit was introduced by Harry Partch, who used it to give an upper bound on the complexity of harmony, roughly speaking, the larger the limit number, the more harmonically complex and potentially dissonant will the intervals of the tuning be perceived. A scale belonging to a prime limit has a distinctive hue that makes it aurally distinguishable from scales with other limits. Harry Partch, Ivor Darreg, and Ralph David Hill are among the many microtonalists to suggest that music has been slowly evolving to employ higher and higher harmonics in its constructs, in medieval music, only chords made of octaves and perfect fifths were considered consonant. In the West, triadic harmony arose around the time of the Renaissance, the major and minor thirds of these triads invoke relationships among the first 5 harmonics. Around the turn of the 20th century, tetrads debuted as fundamental building blocks in African-American music, in conventional music theory pedagogy, these seventh chords are usually explained as chains of major and minor thirds. However, they can also be explained as coming directly from harmonics greater than 5, for example, the dominant 7th chord in 12-ET approximates 4,5,6,7, while the major 7th chord approximates 8,10,12,15. In just intonation, intervals between pitches are drawn from the rational numbers, since Partch, two distinct formulations of the limit concept have emerged, odd limit and prime limit. Odd limit and prime limit n do not include the same even when n is an odd prime. For a positive odd number n, the n-odd-limit contains all rational numbers such that the largest odd number that divides either the numerator or denominator is not greater than n. In Genesis of a Music, Harry Partch considered just intonation rationals according to the size of their numerators and denominators, since octaves correspond to factors of 2, the complexity of any interval may be measured simply by the largest odd factor in its ratio. Partchs theoretical prediction of the dissonance of intervals are very similar to those of theorists including Hermann von Helmholtz, William Sethares. An identity is each of the odd numbers below and including the limit in a tuning, for example, the identities included in 5-limit tuning are 1,3, and 5. The number 9, though not a prime, is nevertheless an identity in music, simply because it is an odd number. Partch defines identity as one of the correlatives, major or minor, in a tonality, one of the odd-number ingredients, odentity and udentity are, short for Over-Identity, and, Under-Identity, respectively. An udentity is an identity of an utonality, for a prime number n, the n-prime-limit contains all rational numbers that can be factored using primes no greater than n. In other words, it is the set of rationals with numerator and denominator both n-smooth, given a prime number p, the subset of Q + consisting of those rational numbers x whose prime factorization has the form x = p 1 α1 p 2 α2. P r ≤ p forms a subgroup of and we say that a scale or system of tuning uses p-limit tuning if all interval ratios between pitches lie in this subgroup
8.
Rational number
–
In mathematics, a rational number is any number that can be expressed as the quotient or fraction p/q of two integers, a numerator p and a non-zero denominator q. Since q may be equal to 1, every integer is a rational number, the decimal expansion of a rational number always either terminates after a finite number of digits or begins to repeat the same finite sequence of digits over and over. Moreover, any repeating or terminating decimal represents a rational number and these statements hold true not just for base 10, but also for any other integer base. A real number that is not rational is called irrational, irrational numbers include √2, π, e, and φ. The decimal expansion of an irrational number continues without repeating, since the set of rational numbers is countable, and the set of real numbers is uncountable, almost all real numbers are irrational. Rational numbers can be defined as equivalence classes of pairs of integers such that q ≠0, for the equivalence relation defined by ~ if. The rational numbers together with addition and multiplication form field which contains the integers and is contained in any field containing the integers, finite extensions of Q are called algebraic number fields, and the algebraic closure of Q is the field of algebraic numbers. In mathematical analysis, the numbers form a dense subset of the real numbers. The real numbers can be constructed from the numbers by completion, using Cauchy sequences, Dedekind cuts. The term rational in reference to the set Q refers to the fact that a number represents a ratio of two integers. In mathematics, rational is often used as a noun abbreviating rational number, the adjective rational sometimes means that the coefficients are rational numbers. However, a curve is not a curve defined over the rationals. Any integer n can be expressed as the rational number n/1, a b = c d if and only if a d = b c. Where both denominators are positive, a b < c d if and only if a d < b c. If either denominator is negative, the fractions must first be converted into equivalent forms with positive denominators, through the equations, − a − b = a b, two fractions are added as follows, a b + c d = a d + b c b d. A b − c d = a d − b c b d, the rule for multiplication is, a b ⋅ c d = a c b d. Where c ≠0, a b ÷ c d = a d b c, note that division is equivalent to multiplying by the reciprocal of the divisor fraction, a d b c = a b × d c. Additive and multiplicative inverses exist in the numbers, − = − a b = a − b and −1 = b a if a ≠0
9.
Fraction (mathematics)
–
A fraction represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, three-quarters. A common, vulgar, or simple fraction consists of an integer numerator displayed above a line, numerators and denominators are also used in fractions that are not common, including compound fractions, complex fractions, and mixed numerals. The numerator represents a number of parts, and the denominator. For example, in the fraction 3/4, the numerator,3, tells us that the fraction represents 3 equal parts, the picture to the right illustrates 34 or ¾ of a cake. Fractional numbers can also be written without using explicit numerators or denominators, by using decimals, percent signs, an integer such as the number 7 can be thought of as having an implicit denominator of one,7 equals 7/1. Other uses for fractions are to represent ratios and to represent division, thus the fraction ¾ is also used to represent the ratio 3,4 and the division 3 ÷4. The test for a number being a number is that it can be written in that form. In a fraction, the number of parts being described is the numerator. Informally, they may be distinguished by placement alone but in formal contexts they are separated by a fraction bar. The fraction bar may be horizontal, oblique, or diagonal and these marks are respectively known as the horizontal bar, the slash or stroke, the division slash, and the fraction slash. In typography, horizontal fractions are known as en or nut fractions and diagonal fractions as em fractions. The denominators of English fractions are expressed as ordinal numbers. When the denominator is 1, it may be expressed in terms of wholes but is commonly ignored. When the numerator is one, it may be omitted, a fraction may be expressed as a single composition, in which case it is hyphenated, or as a number of fractions with a numerator of one, in which case they are not. Fractions should always be hyphenated when used as adjectives, alternatively, a fraction may be described by reading it out as the numerator over the denominator, with the denominator expressed as a cardinal number. The term over is used even in the case of solidus fractions, Fractions with large denominators that are not powers of ten are often rendered in this fashion while those with denominators divisible by ten are typically read in the normal ordinal fashion. A simple fraction is a number written as a/b or a b
10.
Parity (mathematics)
–
Parity is a mathematical term that describes the property of an integers inclusion in one of two categories, even or odd. An integer is even if it is divisible by two and odd if it is not even. For example,6 is even there is no remainder when dividing it by 2. By contrast,3,5,7,21 leave a remainder of 1 when divided by 2, examples of even numbers include −4,0,8, and 1738. In particular, zero is an even number, some examples of odd numbers are −5,3,9, and 73. Parity does not apply to non-integer numbers and this classification applies only to integers, i. e. non-integers like 1/2,4.201, or infinity are neither even nor odd. The sets of even and odd numbers can be defined as following and that is, if the last digit is 1,3,5,7, or 9, then it is odd, otherwise it is even. The same idea will work using any even base, in particular, a number expressed in the binary numeral system is odd if its last digit is 1 and even if its last digit is 0. In an odd base, the number is according to the sum of its digits – it is even if. The following laws can be verified using the properties of divisibility and they are a special case of rules in modular arithmetic, and are commonly used to check if an equality is likely to be correct by testing the parity of each side. As with ordinary arithmetic, multiplication and addition are commutative and associative in modulo 2 arithmetic, however, subtraction in modulo 2 is identical to addition, so subtraction also possesses these properties, which is not true for normal integer arithmetic. The structure is in fact a field with just two elements, the division of two whole numbers does not necessarily result in a whole number. For example,1 divided by 4 equals 1/4, which is neither even nor odd, since the concepts even, but when the quotient is an integer, it will be even if and only if the dividend has more factors of two than the divisor. The ancient Greeks considered 1, the monad, to be neither odd nor fully even. It is this, that two relatively different things or ideas there stands always a third, in a sort of balance. Thus, there is here between odd and even numbers one number which is neither of the two, similarly, in form, the right angle stands between the acute and obtuse angles, and in language, the semi-vowels or aspirants between the mutes and vowels. A thoughtful teacher and a pupil taught to think for himself can scarcely help noticing this, integer coordinates of points in Euclidean spaces of two or more dimensions also have a parity, usually defined as the parity of the sum of the coordinates. For instance, the cubic lattice and its higher-dimensional generalizations
![[1]](http://www.hypercustom.nl/utonaldiagram.jpg){kind=link}
