CHAPTER 19 | CLASSICAL MUSIC IN THE 1970s 491broadly, as using any pitches not found on an equal-tempered piano. There are
several broad categories of microtonal writing. Some composers simply subdi-
vide the equal tempered system to create a system with quarter steps, sixth steps,
and so on. Others return to the simple numeric ratios that create basic musical
intervals like the fi fth and the third, in some form of just intonation, the tuning
of frequencies as they appear in the overtone series, rather than in the approxi-
mations required by equal temperament. Some composers have used still other
means to compute pitches numerically. Some adopt or modify musical systems
of non-Western cultures. And many composers simply “bend” pitches, as is done
in the blues.
Ives, along with other early twentieth-century modernists, experimented
with doubling the number of pitches per octave by splitting each half step into
two quartertones. Ives did this by writing music for two pianos tuned in equal
temperament but with one instrument pitched a quartertone higher than the
other. The resulting music at fi rst sounds simply out of tune but can begin to
reveal a beauty of its own.
The Californian Lou Harrison (1914–2003) took his inspiration from Indonesian
and other non-Western musics with tuning systems based on ideas distinct from
those of equal temperament, sometimes writing for non-Western instruments
such as the pitched percussion instruments of the gamelan, an Indonesian ensem-
ble, as well as for conventional Western instruments either retuned or requiring
the performers to learn how to produce the slightly different intervals his music
required. His Concerto in Slendro (1961) calls for piano, harp, and percussion tuned
in a pentatonic scale in just intonation, while the violin soloist must learn to locate
those pitches on the instrument’s fi ngerboard. (Slendro is an Indonesian term for
such a scale, though American listeners are likely to associate Harrison’s concerto
with the sound of Chinese classical music, which uses a similar scale.)
The American composer who explored microtonality most thoroughly was
Harry Partch (1901–1974), the son of former missionaries in China who raised him
in various parts of the A merican Southwest. Partch listed Chinese, Mexican, and
Yaqui Indian music among his early infl uences. A pianist trained in the Western
classical traditions, he was dissatisfi ed with the piano’s inability to reproduce the
intervals he heard in the music he loved. Extensive reading in acoustics and
music history acquainted him with the long history of Western tuning systems,
and he became convinced that equal temperament constituted a wrong turn in
the development of music in the West. During the Great Depression of the 1930s
he began to build his own musical instruments and refi ne a system of just into-
nation that divided the octave into forty-three discrete pitches. For part of that
time he lived as a hobo, riding freight trains and working as a transient laborer.
In the 1940s Partch created a variety of string and percussion instruments,
trained other musicians in how to play them, and began to compose ambitious
works for large ensembles. His 1949 book Genesis of a Music sets forth his tuning
system and the philosophy behind it, as well as describing his musical instru-
ments and some of his compositions. His last major composition, Delusion of the
Fury (1966), is a grand theatrical work combining drama, dance, singing, and the
spectacular sound and visual appearance of his orchestra.
Of the younger musicians who worked with Harry Partch, the one who
has gone furthest to create his own microtonal music is Ben Johnston. Born in
Georgia in 1926, Johnston became intrigued by acoustics as a youth. In 1949 he
encountered Partch’s just-published Genesis of a Music, and a year later he was injust intonationLou HarrisonHarry PartchBen Johnston172028_19_468-494_r3_sd.indd 491 23/01/13 11:05 AM