But what is the point of this 'genius and great art' ,how this is helping people? ok,it is new it is different, that does not mean it is necessary good. Blame me on the conservative minded ,but this is not engaging my spirit ,soul and emotional core in any way. What is wrong with J.S. Bach,Pergolesi, Beethoven and so.... ?
I think Barstow is one of my favorite pieces. I'm writing up all this stuff on flaky classical music right now, and it seems so detached from reality, like all these composers were hatched from eggs and grew up in big echo chambers in New York where they never saw sunlight. Maybe I'll be dropping out of school sometime soon too.
the noise that we ear in background , that 's what he call music ? of course you can do whatever you want and say you like it , it s relative . But do be an artist is to give emotion to other people with your work , and there i can't see nobody who would feel anything else then sickness
@Ashuiegi Well, that only exposes the limits of your vision (or hearing, to be exact), I'm afraid. I get much joy from the music of Harry Partch (for example 'Barstow') and I'm certainly not alone. I don't agree with Partch's assumption of music in general (calling my beloved Händel & co. a 'mistake' is borderline heresy) but that mindset made him introduce a totally fresh perspective which is always a good thing - especially when married with such creative talent.
@Muzikman127 How? By creating his own instruments? Or by envisioning his own scales? I'm sorry, I do not agree....he was yearning to break free of our oppressive systems, and by my ears, he did.
"Everything about the last 300 years of music is a mistake". Some might argue that the music of many modern composers was a mistake based on intellectual ideas and mathematical concepts that have nothing to do with music. Beethoven's music followed on naturally from Haydn and Mozart, he referred only to music itself and to his ear. Music was evolving quite naturally until composers started looking outside music. I'm just playing Devil's advocate by the way...
when i was a kid and i used to play on my nan's piano, i always thought that they used every single key, so when she used to show me chords and things it never made any sense, and it still doesnt really. I guess thats why i like Harry Partch.
What we get in exchange for those equal tempered notes is the whole world of chord changes and sophistication in music, which possibly even increased our intelligence upon listening to it, compared to the primitive tribes which didn't make the leap to the 12th root of 2. I praise the 12th root of 2, the equal interval of frequency change spanning a scale evenly.
partch was hugely important in the awakening of interest in just intonation and many other systems of tuning. regardless of whether one appreciates partch's compositions, his influence is much broader than as a composer. most late-twentieth-century composers who work in systems other than equal-twelve acknowledge their debt to harry partch.
some of partch's works lean heavily on some intervals which are the basis of other scales: 8/7 is quite common in china, while we westerners NEVER hear it. 12/11 is crucial to arabic music: it is almost exactly the quarter-tone between a minor second and a major second. if you can find helmholtz's work "on the sensations of tone" you will find AMAZING appendices which portray the richness of possibilities.
Western orchestral music is not "a narrow period of history", it is the BEST that history has to offer. Full chordal interrelationships of equal-tempered tones, co-ordination of 120+ musicians in an orchestra; the little undisciplined XBox generation won't match it in their grunge or their even sillier hip-hop. I was raised in the 70's period of longhairs and guitar and I reject it, it is a marijuana-addled dead end.
western "classical" grandeur has its place as an amazing style, but my spirit is much more deeply moved by a small ensemble of singers and instrumentalists whose subtlety reaches parts of the musical landscape which orchestras cannot. much of the spectrum of the best of the world's music is WAY beyond the twelve-tone pallette which we consider "normal".
There are physical reasons for notes being pleasing in combination, having to do with fractional relations between the frequencies. But not too COMPLEX a fraction! You may want to give examples to prove your point; YouTube limits permitting.
Holy fuckin shit!! That sounds horrible. I give it to him... It takes some kinda talent to create something so utterly non-melodic and disharmonious. But hey...God forbid anyone should actually enjoy it and possibly spend a few bucks to buy it.
Keep listening. It starts to make sense once you get past your own prejudices about how music should sound, which you learned sometime after you were born. Cheers
I dont think anyone will question the practicality of equal temperament, but its objectivity should be questioned. Objectivity in tuning comes from Pythagorean ratios which creates a system closer to just intonation. ET compromises the mathematical underpinnings of music for what is essentially an arbitrary decision based on taste. If you want to use keys ET works, but there are many other approaches to music that are as completely logical and internally consistent as tonality.
i fully agree. there are MANY ways of tuning other than the "normal" twelve-tone. the subtle differences are brilliant! partch goes into uncharted realms, but his works have opened up important explorations into medieval, renaissance and baroque music based on historical tuning systems. partch's work allows us to appreciate indonesian tuning systems etc.... the world of microtunings is HUGE now, and many modern composers owe a great deal to harry partch....
Third-World tuning systems are symptomatic of why the Third-World is the Third-World. I fight the PC current and am openly contemptuous of their culture, they are dead ends. The Equal Temperament is something the ear can easily adjust to, and it opens up a new world of key-changes, music in turn may have an effect on increasing intelligence and creativity. And it did, for a whole people.
What's a country's "Third World" status got to do with musical ability? America is the most powerful country in the world and it produces the second most bland, banal music as well as great bands... why would Third Worlds be any different in terms of quality? Your arrogant and ignorant generalisations are from the mind of a cunt. Tinariwen, eastern group but produce great music.
I do think that a country's "Third World" status does have some effect on the music there. I lived in East Africa. Traditional music has all but disappeared and is really only played for tourists. Further, there is no money for anyone to really have an instrument, let alone a musical education. The only music left is a few genres: shitty choir music accompanied by a synthesizer, "rock" music plagiarized from the Congo and rap music plagiarized from the US.
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I can't stand Harry Partch's philosophies. How can he legitimately feel as though the 12 TET system is anything but extremely practical? Obviously it was invented to make all keys equally possible, not to simply create mediocrity in music by denying the human ear the pleasure of just intonation. He is a quack and I can't stand the way his brain works. That being said, I still enjoy some of the music he wrote.
Barely anyone ever appreciates the geniuses during or around the time of their lives. New ideas and styles are scary when they're first introduced. A composer coming along and saying to hell with all the normal rules scares a lot of people because it moves us as musicians and music lovers into a new territory. Composers like Partch, Cage, Schoenberg, Penderecki, and Webern were all at least a hundred years before their time, but their music has influenced nearly every facet of Western music.
Certain friends of mine in 'noise' bands who are into this sort of thing are merely too lazy to learn music theory. I think what partch is doing is wonderful, but it's novelty really. What musician hasn't imagined creating wild new instruments? Still, Partch shows too much contempt. I believe that you can't really change the world without knowing how it works. As for the fans of this stuff. Well, whatever floats your boat.
I don't like this guy. But I like it that he came up with this concept and I am appy for him that he found his way. I think many of his ideas will be used in the future.
I'm sorry. I guess I have been conditioned over the years but I don't like this music at all. If you look at other separate cultures that aren't influenced by western culture, they still have musical pitch that is appealing to our brains. We, as humans, have certain tones that are appealing and aren't appealing. Harry Partch's sounds aren't received well in the human brain.
There's no such thing as a appealing sound as such. Music is about organisation of pitches. The tones are the elements that are organised.
There are 24 tone scales as far as i know and in this case, it's an even finer scale. Just like eastern quarter tones sound weird to the western ear, this may sound weird to yours. Open mindedness is the key here, because what seperates is a difference in pitch differentiation. I for one find this extremely interesting and i would compose in this scale.
Music has no evolutionary reason to be special to humans, yet to quite a lot of us it is. There is no good or bad music in the same way that some food is healthy and some is poisonous. There's no such thing as music that's "received well in the human brain". It's just about what you've grown up listening to and getting lazy and not wanting to hear anything challenging. Which is fair enough, but DON'T think you have the right to talk crap about someone like Partch.
kingquinnerz- I haven't read every post on here, and I'm sure someone ignorantly commented on the listenability of Partch's music. Anyway, I loved your analogy with food. Makes perfect sense. However, the human brain part puzzles me constantly. Have you ever scene Bernstein lecture on how the human ear might have naturally devised the common intervals we know of through the overtone series? It's a fascinating concept.
@kingquinnerz89 I disagree with this, In general music is just sounds, and sounds can have very positive effects or very negative effects on emotion. Many believe this is evolutionary, for example when the birds are singing the area is generaly safe.
i agree with tarhun. microtonal music exists almost everywhere except in euro-centric "classical" harmony. as a matter of fact, it did exist at one time in the west. listen to any music made in just intonation which is what european music was before the conventions of 12 tones. just intonation is microtonal. it is not merely an "effect." it IS music before the editing of the temperate scale which was a dumbed down version to edit out the "wrong" notes. no wrong notes, only closed minds.
True creativity is defined by being able hiding your sources. How much music sounds like this? He had an incredible knowledge of music. He went back to the beginning of music and created something new.
unordered chaotic noise? wow, what an arrogant load of shite. first, your assumption is that there's something wrong with disorder, choas and noise. welcome to the real world, heinrich. in case, you don't understand that reference, there was certain group of germans who also disliked chaos and valued order above all else. i can only assume based on that statement that you have an extremely boring mainstream collection of musical pablum. remind me to not ask what's in rotation on your turntable.
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In my opinion (an incredibly musically educated one) art can be measured by talent. We have to ask ourselves how much talent did it take to create this?
It may be a white insitutionalised notion, but please consider that Beethoven wrote masterful music based on this so called 'fallacy'. If its such a fallacy, why oh why do genius composers 'waste' their time with it?
You retard. Music plays a huge role in one's life. To say that Partch wastes his time making music is just a testament to your own narrowminded thoughts
Damian your level of maturity with your comments is perhaps pure evidence alone of not being able to differentiate that pple are here to enjoy Harry Partch and his life, and your so-called "IT'S JUST MUSIC" in general. If "EVERYONE CAN DO IT", why the fuck are you still on youtube? Shouldn't you be in the pages of history? SHOULDN'T WE BE WATCHING YOU?
?????????????Don't Get Your Knickers in a Twist...IT'S ONLY FECKIN MUSIC!!lol. Anyways....John Cage takes it to a higher level and made the tee-shirt. And as far as promoting MY sounds to the pages of history is concerned...!?? Duh! Every schoolboy knows that all Music IS history the second it's noise dissipates. p.s. I Can't find any musical contributions by YOU to YouTube. I'm Glad I made you write!!
"MUSIC!!lol", "John Cage takes it to a higher level..", why are you trying so pathetically hard to prove yourself to me?
"Music IS history the second it's noise dissipates." Posing with artiness isn't going to cover your naked exposed ass. You have no idea what you look like from here.
"Can't find any contributions by YOU on Youtube", well, I make mine for the National Geographic Channel. I do hope to move to feature films soon. Be aware of your 'arenas'.
Hi Thelkara! I compelled YOU to contribute a piece of 'wastemytime' as well, I see!? You use your knowledge of grammar as badly as 'TheArthen' does!. We can't both be 'both tits'.lol
YOU are wastin your time ya pruckin fick. Go home and play with your xylophone. Look at the no. of times ya posted. Nothin better to do?? Sausage-brain. lol.
Read what I said 'hellocharlien'!!! Did I mention 'wasting his time'? Did I even mention 'Partch'? I think you should brush up on your English Comprehension skills. As far as being a retard is concerned.....most americans like yourself have the monopoly on that!
Do you spend all day trolling for videos to theorize about? Yes, we get it, you hate anyone even remotely near the avant-garde. Enough already.
Also, if you had actually read some of Partch's writing, you would know that, while considering the last 300 years of music a "mistake", he did not say that this invalidates all of the music. He even says he enjoys some of the music out there. I guess postulating on the state of modern classical music does take up a lot of one's time...
Partch himself, claims that our 300 year tradition of Western music was "a mistake". The veracity of this notion, of course, is quite untestable and at best, philosophically sophmoric, and its formulation and practice, I believe, is best understood in socio/psychological terms, rather than in any theory of aesthetics - and may be nothing more than the "spirit of rebellion" as found in the work by Cage and an entire generation of "composers" which followed in his wake.
How many parts do you need for your run on sentence? It's funny that you mention Cage. If you bothered to watch the documentary, you would know Partch did not approve of his methods.
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The appeal of Partch's music, like drugs, is quite understandable - and equally destructive to civilization (strong words - I know). There is nothing wrong with intuition and indeterminacy as components within artistic creations, but, if these are not subordinated to historically validated forms and structures, it risks bringing us back to pre-historic forms of expression - I would call that regression - for that we have nature, which does it much more elegantly.
certain forms of african and eastern european music are more sophisticated than much of the classical music that succeeded it. this is a fact. polyrhythm and microtonality is not regression... it can be argued that this is a more sophisticated form of composition than the classical form. i argue that categorizing things so plainly is fascist and regressive.
And, in the most simple sense, you might think that dividing an octave to 12 pitches is a result of progressive evolution, but I call this regression. Music is organised "sound". And if you want to be able to name all the sounds while you are creating music, then well... You are not progressing, you are losing the essence.
you might be right but if simplifying scales is evolution then could you say that the ultimate evolution is the scale is just a single string with no frets or semitones?
There's a reason we use the 12 tone scale. It's better. I don't think I even need to justify myself, just listen to the results of 12 tone music compared to this.
There's a reason why, though 12 tone equal temperament was known for centuries, it was avoided. It's dull. (in itself, it can be base to exciting music of course). I don't think I can justify myself through words, you should open up your ears to understand.
I didn't mean 12tone equal temperament was dull because it contained just those 'few' notes, but because it didn't have the natural harmonic notes. If you have more notes (in an equally tempered scale) you can get closer to the naturally 'nice sounding' intervals. The claim for such huge scales was raised by the fact that some instruments are just can't be retuned very easily, so if you want to use them in different keys you have to have all the notes in the same time on the instrument.
Clearly, Partch didn't only use microtonality to get closer to the harmonious intervals. Still I don't think it was a waste of time. For his artistic purposes, which were different than Tchaikovsky's, the use of microtonal scales was essential.
Tchaikovsky wrote swan lake. What did Harry Partch do? He may hav fulfilled his own artistic ambitions, but he won't be remembered hundreds of years after his death now will he?
you're ridiculous. just shut up and accept that everything in life is subjective and that things like taste are contingent on environmental and social circumstances including what sounds are "pleasing" to the human ear.
there is never any right or wrong and anyone who argues otherwise is a boring waste of time with no perspective.
The point of the composer is to distinguish between right and wrong. Out of all the other possiblities of melody and harmony, Tschaikovksy wrote the Swan Lake, because he was VERY good at distinguishing between right and wrong.
no, that is not the "point" of the composer. the composer can do whatever the fuck they want to make whatever point they want. "right" and "wrong" is not objective. that's fascist, actually. no one thing is inherently better than anything else. partch isn't trying to achieve the same thing as tschaikovskly. partch challenges the notion of beauty itself. why do you find tschaikovsky beautiful? why is there only one type of acceptable beauty?
also, concepts of tonality and the system used to measure it are entirely human constructs. beauty is subjective. if people find meaning and beauty in the work of partch who the fuck are you to tell them that they're wrong?
Hey I'm not saying you are wrong to find beauty in Partch, (although I personally don't) but that Tschaikovsky is objectively better.
There are measures of objectivity in music. For example : use of harmony, part writing, orchestration, melodic inventiveness, counter-point. Subjectivity is your opinion, and that is fine. Objectivity, is that Tschaikovsky and Wagner are far more talented than this man could ever be, and that is blindingly obvious.
Of course it is. If a person with no musical ability whatsoever, it would be objectively worse than Mozart. Why do you want to live in a world where everything is good? Part of life is enjoying liking music, the other is enjoying hating it.
i don't want to live in a world where everything is good. i want to live in a world where people don't judge art based on quantitative assessments of merit.
No, your musically liberal world is one of fallacy! It cannot exist because everybody judges music subconsciously whether they know they are doing it or not. For example, when you listen to this music, you decided you liked it, and there HAD to be a reason for that. I decided I didn't like it, and there WAS a reason for that.
If we submit to your world, we might as well just brush aside all the great works. The fact is they ARE great, and we must NOT forget it!
Everything is judged subconsciously on quantitive assessment. A composer does this consciously because they have more analytical tools at their disposal.
What? So now its racist to say orchestral music is the best. What kind of liberal minded nonsense is that? I am not forcing everybody to listen to orchestral music. I am not forcing everybody to like it! I am simply stating the obvious fact that it is better. Whether an orchestral piece is written by a black man or a white man has nothing to do with it.
no, it's not racist. but classical music is widely regarded (sometimes correctly) as a superior form of art because it is such an elite institutionalized form (which just happens to be 99% white) and that's stupid.
whether art is good or bad depends on how effectively it communicates what it intends to communicate. liking only things that sound pretty closes doors on other meaningful types of communication that you would do well to investigate without the bias. people fucking HATED wagner too.
Not everybody hated Wagner, I mean he was incredibly successful and his work is still remembered, and he is often credited for kick starting the modern movement with his Tristan chord etc etc
I think you are right in what you are saying, but I cannot afford to be open minded. I want to be a successful orchestral composer, and I have far more to gain from listening to Wagner than I do from listening to John Cage or some other experiment.
i had similar problem for a while, revoltz. you should work on accepting music that is unlike how you want to make your music. analyze it, and compare to things to you do like. you'll find more similarities than you might think. there are probably elements in partch's music that make others love it that are in the music that makes you love it. as for microtonality as a basis for melody and not an effect (which you should really consider), check out Glenn Branca's Symphony No. 13 at high volume
fallacious argument - the only reason you prefer 12 TET is because it is what your ear has been conditioned to hearing. There have been studies that have demonstrated this: that the more conventional musical training an individual has, the less able they are to appreciate the consonance inherent in any consonant intervals from outside that system. I feel sorry for you, I truly do, if you are unable to appreciate microtonality. It must be like being colour blind.
"the more conventional musical training an individual has, the less able they are to appreciate the consonance inherent in any consonant intervals from outside that system."
Well I don't necassarily agree with that. I think the ability to hear microtones is more to do with your natural given ear than the environment. Your opinion on dissonance has a lot to do with your environment, since if you listen to nothing but Mozart something even like Tschaikovsky might seem dissonant in places.
Also, microtonality is often used in film scores to create an effect, and personally I can't see what other uses microtonality has other than being used as an effect.
Listen to this piece : threnody for the victims of hiroshima. It doesn't conform to the 12 semi-tone system, but its really just one collection of big musical effects.
And if everyone believed that musical training was actually disadvantageous, then nobody would have written anything of signifigant musical merit ever.
you're right microtonality is used in more experimental ambient stuff by western musicians just as a "weird" sounding effect, which is a shame. I suggest you listen instead to some Balinese or Javan Gamelan music; it is microtonal from a western point of view but is a fully fledged functioning art form; not just used as an "effect".
I've heard some Gamelan before, but I was taught (probably wrongly) that the gamelan instruments were tuned slightly out of tune purposefully, in order to produce an effect. I wasn't sure if the scales themselves were microtonal by Western standards, is that the case?
Gamelan tuning is very complex and I don't know all the details myself; but as I understand it there are basically two main scales, Pelog and Slendro. Pelog is a 5 note to the octave scale similar, but not identical to, 5 tone equal temperament. Slendro is a 7 tone scale that is roughly a subset of 9 tone equal temperament, although most gamelans only ever use 5 out of the 7 slendro tones (which 5 depend on the specific type of gamelan, it's roughly similar to the western concept of modes).
The specific intervals used for tuning vary from gamelan to gamelan but within a gamelan the instruments are usually all tuned to the same "version" of the scales. The exception is in some Balinese gamelans where instruments are purposefully tuned using slightly different versions of the scales to produce a distinctive inteference beat. This is presumably what you are referring to by saying they are purposefully "out of tune", however this is by no means the norm for all gamelans.
Gracias por estos videos. Se me ha dificultado conseguir su musica por aca, y mas informacion acerca de él, y con esto resuelvo muchos suposiciones y curiosidades. Gracias otra vez.
This is the sort of thing that I love finding on YouTube. I just searched on Partch on a whim, wondering what I'd find, and this popped up. What a treat! I remember discovering a Harry Partch record in my junior high school library in 1967. From this video I'm learning things about him I never knew. Thanks for posting.
I'm certainly no expert on documentary films, but in my estimation this is one of the best I've ever seen. It's a dream come true, really. I never even knew this existed. STT, thank you SO much!!!
I'm not sure how old this is. I downloaded the whole thing as a torrent. I was unsettled by the lack of Partch clips on youtube, so I just had to add it to the table.
But what is the point of this 'genius and great art' ,how this is helping people? ok,it is new it is different, that does not mean it is necessary good. Blame me on the conservative minded ,but this is not engaging my spirit ,soul and emotional core in any way. What is wrong with J.S. Bach,Pergolesi, Beethoven and so.... ?
di6na 1 month ago
sexist, ageist pig.
sptfgpn 3 months ago
he says i wont be straitjacketed
by anyone
b2ready1 4 months ago
@Adzymakesmusic Thanks! :D
TheModCon 6 months ago
@Adzymakesmusic I have no idea, and I'd really like to know! Because it's an amazing clip, would really be interesting to listen to the whole piece.
TheModCon 6 months ago
I wonder if he could get away with this terrible music nowadays. Really pulled a fast one on you old farts. ;)
RoboticusMusic 7 months ago
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Harry reminds us of why we hear.
captbeeefheart 8 months ago
I know quite a few blue-haired ladies who are unable to appreciate Bach more than they appreciate Partch.
I guess it's more a matter of innate aesthetic sense than of conformism, dominance or hair-dyeing.
alexdrudigmail 9 months ago
I think Barstow is one of my favorite pieces. I'm writing up all this stuff on flaky classical music right now, and it seems so detached from reality, like all these composers were hatched from eggs and grew up in big echo chambers in New York where they never saw sunlight. Maybe I'll be dropping out of school sometime soon too.
tayloreh 10 months ago
i hate bbc...
pizzaROX 11 months ago
as of now may 2011 there are only 3 ww1 vets left
mastaODI56 11 months ago
the noise that we ear in background , that 's what he call music ? of course you can do whatever you want and say you like it , it s relative . But do be an artist is to give emotion to other people with your work , and there i can't see nobody who would feel anything else then sickness
Ashuiegi 1 year ago
@Ashuiegi Well, that only exposes the limits of your vision (or hearing, to be exact), I'm afraid. I get much joy from the music of Harry Partch (for example 'Barstow') and I'm certainly not alone. I don't agree with Partch's assumption of music in general (calling my beloved Händel & co. a 'mistake' is borderline heresy) but that mindset made him introduce a totally fresh perspective which is always a good thing - especially when married with such creative talent.
janchor 1 year ago
@Ashuiegi your ears are just tuned to the 12 tone system. You probably dont like indian music either.
Tabla461 1 year ago
partch is brilliant
bhaleraopramod15 1 year ago
let me take that back. What an interesting concept :D
Muzikman127 1 year ago
He straightjackets himself. Doesn't need anyone to do that for him
Muzikman127 1 year ago
@Muzikman127 How? By creating his own instruments? Or by envisioning his own scales? I'm sorry, I do not agree....he was yearning to break free of our oppressive systems, and by my ears, he did.
Ghoopty 9 months ago
"Everything about the last 300 years of music is a mistake". Some might argue that the music of many modern composers was a mistake based on intellectual ideas and mathematical concepts that have nothing to do with music. Beethoven's music followed on naturally from Haydn and Mozart, he referred only to music itself and to his ear. Music was evolving quite naturally until composers started looking outside music. I'm just playing Devil's advocate by the way...
spectralmusic 1 year ago
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spectralmusic 1 year ago
Why is that genus and craziness go together so well.
seroyer2 1 year ago
@Accisma
hmm quite, banal and insipid....
notjohndoe2 1 year ago
Thanks for posting!
1507spinacino 1 year ago
Thanks so much for posting!
1507spinacino 1 year ago
That's really interesting. Too bad all his stuff sounds like absolute shite, the old weird beard.
lowfiwhiteguy 1 year ago
This guy is really cool. A lot of outsider music doesn't sound good, but this guy has a good sound.
whitetrashoutlaw 2 years ago
The "two studies on ancient greek scales" is from the Kronos Quartet. I forget the album name, but its something to do with Partch
ZachHale8 2 years ago
cool guy, I also am curious about that beck EP/single which is a homage to him
GehennaNL 2 years ago
Does anybody know what recording of "two studies on ancient greek scales" is at the beggining and if it can be found?
cristinelu13 2 years ago
when i was a kid and i used to play on my nan's piano, i always thought that they used every single key, so when she used to show me chords and things it never made any sense, and it still doesnt really. I guess thats why i like Harry Partch.
TheIkaraCult 2 years ago
Your name-calling is not an accepted scientific technique in journals. Please, then, explain, how the other musics are our equals.
Dracopol 2 years ago
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What we get in exchange for those equal tempered notes is the whole world of chord changes and sophistication in music, which possibly even increased our intelligence upon listening to it, compared to the primitive tribes which didn't make the leap to the 12th root of 2. I praise the 12th root of 2, the equal interval of frequency change spanning a scale evenly.
Dracopol 2 years ago
i don't even see how someone could be so unique after going to university
freakyteakyterrorist 2 years ago
Ups? Do the think nobody has ever heard of the phytagoreian komma, and why we have equal temperament?
statist0815 2 years ago
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Los invito a la nueva web de microtonalismo:
microtonalismo punto com
Tambien hay musica y videos de microtonalismo a todo dar.
musicool 2 years ago
what is the name of the composition beginning at 0:50?
synestheticmusic 2 years ago
partch was hugely important in the awakening of interest in just intonation and many other systems of tuning. regardless of whether one appreciates partch's compositions, his influence is much broader than as a composer. most late-twentieth-century composers who work in systems other than equal-twelve acknowledge their debt to harry partch.
mikoformiko 2 years ago
even though in other cultures they had been using microtones WAY before that!
IpkisStanley 2 years ago
some of partch's works lean heavily on some intervals which are the basis of other scales: 8/7 is quite common in china, while we westerners NEVER hear it. 12/11 is crucial to arabic music: it is almost exactly the quarter-tone between a minor second and a major second. if you can find helmholtz's work "on the sensations of tone" you will find AMAZING appendices which portray the richness of possibilities.
mikoformiko 2 years ago
Western orchestral music is not "a narrow period of history", it is the BEST that history has to offer. Full chordal interrelationships of equal-tempered tones, co-ordination of 120+ musicians in an orchestra; the little undisciplined XBox generation won't match it in their grunge or their even sillier hip-hop. I was raised in the 70's period of longhairs and guitar and I reject it, it is a marijuana-addled dead end.
Dracopol 2 years ago
western "classical" grandeur has its place as an amazing style, but my spirit is much more deeply moved by a small ensemble of singers and instrumentalists whose subtlety reaches parts of the musical landscape which orchestras cannot. much of the spectrum of the best of the world's music is WAY beyond the twelve-tone pallette which we consider "normal".
mikoformiko 2 years ago
There are physical reasons for notes being pleasing in combination, having to do with fractional relations between the frequencies. But not too COMPLEX a fraction! You may want to give examples to prove your point; YouTube limits permitting.
Dracopol 2 years ago
Holy fuckin shit!! That sounds horrible. I give it to him... It takes some kinda talent to create something so utterly non-melodic and disharmonious. But hey...God forbid anyone should actually enjoy it and possibly spend a few bucks to buy it.
ScreenJunkie 2 years ago
Keep listening. It starts to make sense once you get past your own prejudices about how music should sound, which you learned sometime after you were born. Cheers
boilingsand 2 years ago 2
Bloody brilliant!
gwalkron 2 years ago 3
I dont think anyone will question the practicality of equal temperament, but its objectivity should be questioned. Objectivity in tuning comes from Pythagorean ratios which creates a system closer to just intonation. ET compromises the mathematical underpinnings of music for what is essentially an arbitrary decision based on taste. If you want to use keys ET works, but there are many other approaches to music that are as completely logical and internally consistent as tonality.
rhallsax 2 years ago 2
i fully agree. there are MANY ways of tuning other than the "normal" twelve-tone. the subtle differences are brilliant! partch goes into uncharted realms, but his works have opened up important explorations into medieval, renaissance and baroque music based on historical tuning systems. partch's work allows us to appreciate indonesian tuning systems etc.... the world of microtunings is HUGE now, and many modern composers owe a great deal to harry partch....
mikoformiko 2 years ago
Third-World tuning systems are symptomatic of why the Third-World is the Third-World. I fight the PC current and am openly contemptuous of their culture, they are dead ends. The Equal Temperament is something the ear can easily adjust to, and it opens up a new world of key-changes, music in turn may have an effect on increasing intelligence and creativity. And it did, for a whole people.
Dracopol 2 years ago
What's a country's "Third World" status got to do with musical ability? America is the most powerful country in the world and it produces the second most bland, banal music as well as great bands... why would Third Worlds be any different in terms of quality? Your arrogant and ignorant generalisations are from the mind of a cunt. Tinariwen, eastern group but produce great music.
PS Your Pitman Shorthand videos are shit.
kingquinnerz89 2 years ago
Your absolutely right....also the only music that is indigenous to the united states is bluegrass I believe...sorry for the randomness of that lol
brianismynamo55 2 years ago
Jazz is indigenous to the States XD
Ozarkeree 1 year ago
I do think that a country's "Third World" status does have some effect on the music there. I lived in East Africa. Traditional music has all but disappeared and is really only played for tourists. Further, there is no money for anyone to really have an instrument, let alone a musical education. The only music left is a few genres: shitty choir music accompanied by a synthesizer, "rock" music plagiarized from the Congo and rap music plagiarized from the US.
pawnticket 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I can't stand Harry Partch's philosophies. How can he legitimately feel as though the 12 TET system is anything but extremely practical? Obviously it was invented to make all keys equally possible, not to simply create mediocrity in music by denying the human ear the pleasure of just intonation. He is a quack and I can't stand the way his brain works. That being said, I still enjoy some of the music he wrote.
zylphite 2 years ago
Barely anyone ever appreciates the geniuses during or around the time of their lives. New ideas and styles are scary when they're first introduced. A composer coming along and saying to hell with all the normal rules scares a lot of people because it moves us as musicians and music lovers into a new territory. Composers like Partch, Cage, Schoenberg, Penderecki, and Webern were all at least a hundred years before their time, but their music has influenced nearly every facet of Western music.
zenrarity 2 years ago 2
Certain friends of mine in 'noise' bands who are into this sort of thing are merely too lazy to learn music theory. I think what partch is doing is wonderful, but it's novelty really. What musician hasn't imagined creating wild new instruments? Still, Partch shows too much contempt. I believe that you can't really change the world without knowing how it works. As for the fans of this stuff. Well, whatever floats your boat.
nodestudio 2 years ago
I take back some of my earlier remarks. I can understand partch's bitterness. Sometimes elitists can be real turds.
nodestudio 2 years ago 2
its like dr seuss :P
love it
nis3r 3 years ago
I love the part where he's splashing around in the ocean...he's like a little kid!
I've always had mixed feeling's about Partch's music, but you can't deny the man's sheer originality and audacity.
JeeRant 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
looney..and his music is just crap
Erycantoaneta 3 years ago
Wrong on all accounts. Why'd you even bother looking it up just to say that? Next time don't bother, best to just stick with Eminem eh?
drplbiftin 3 years ago
looks like a crazy genius.
hellmuth26 3 years ago 2
Finally i found some one who i can identify with
JesustheLizard 3 years ago 11
@JesustheLizard you are so sweet...
asderso 1 year ago
I don't like this guy. But I like it that he came up with this concept and I am appy for him that he found his way. I think many of his ideas will be used in the future.
EveryPennyofIt 3 years ago
what does he say in minute 1:52?
"(1:52)and I said in their eye
I will not be ???????? by anyone,
I´m going to be completely free"
robertronics 3 years ago
"(1:52)and I said right then and there
'I will not be straitjacketed by anyone,
I´m going to be completely free.'"
ShockTheseTrees 3 years ago 4
@robertronics ' and conceive of dramatical situations.'
faunflynn 1 year ago
he looks like a crazy old kook...but i guess sometimes geniuses do...
6stringplaya77 3 years ago
OMG! I know Philip Blackburn. Well, I know who he is and he knows who I am...
SweetSweetWaldo 3 years ago
what is the word in minute 3:50?
"...but he quickly became desillusioned
with the whole ????? with the concert music..."
what is that word?
robertronics 3 years ago
"...but he quickly became disillusioned
with the whole ethos of the concert music..."
ShockTheseTrees 3 years ago
@robertronics 'Ethos of the concert music.'
faunflynn 1 year ago
what are his words in the beginning?
after the part of: "when I was pretty young
I´ve been going outside ever since
I went outside......country"
something like that
I´m trying to translate this into spanish, so help me out please!
robertronics 3 years ago
in the big ranch country of Arizona
oberryconnection 3 years ago 3
THANK YOU!!!!!!!
it´s very unusual to see someone helping here in youtube, thanks a lot mate.
I have a few more doubts, sorry (:P)
In minute 1:15: "from working outside the contraints of the mainstream
Harry Partch ......? flied on it
what´s that word?
and another one....in 1:50
"but I when 14 I began to write music
and conceive dramatic ??????"
what does Harry say there?
robertronics 3 years ago
Minute 1:15: "...Harry Partch positively thrived on it."
Minute 1:50: "...and conceive of dramatic (situations?)..."
Dracopol 3 years ago
hmmm
I don´t think the words were "positively"
but thx anways!!!!
come on people!!! help me out please!
robertronics 3 years ago
It definitely is 'positively thrived', and conceive of dramatic situations is spot on too.
mrbraund 3 years ago 2
I'm sorry. I guess I have been conditioned over the years but I don't like this music at all. If you look at other separate cultures that aren't influenced by western culture, they still have musical pitch that is appealing to our brains. We, as humans, have certain tones that are appealing and aren't appealing. Harry Partch's sounds aren't received well in the human brain.
crazygolfer333 3 years ago
There's no such thing as a appealing sound as such. Music is about organisation of pitches. The tones are the elements that are organised.
There are 24 tone scales as far as i know and in this case, it's an even finer scale. Just like eastern quarter tones sound weird to the western ear, this may sound weird to yours. Open mindedness is the key here, because what seperates is a difference in pitch differentiation. I for one find this extremely interesting and i would compose in this scale.
radurak 3 years ago 2
"Music is about organisation of pitches"
not only pitches
not all music
robertronics 3 years ago 2
Music has no evolutionary reason to be special to humans, yet to quite a lot of us it is. There is no good or bad music in the same way that some food is healthy and some is poisonous. There's no such thing as music that's "received well in the human brain". It's just about what you've grown up listening to and getting lazy and not wanting to hear anything challenging. Which is fair enough, but DON'T think you have the right to talk crap about someone like Partch.
kingquinnerz89 2 years ago
kingquinnerz- I haven't read every post on here, and I'm sure someone ignorantly commented on the listenability of Partch's music. Anyway, I loved your analogy with food. Makes perfect sense. However, the human brain part puzzles me constantly. Have you ever scene Bernstein lecture on how the human ear might have naturally devised the common intervals we know of through the overtone series? It's a fascinating concept.
ginsbergnflow 2 years ago
Oh no, I haven't seen that but thanks for pointing me to it. I shall look it up now :).
kingquinnerz89 2 years ago
@kingquinnerz89 I disagree with this, In general music is just sounds, and sounds can have very positive effects or very negative effects on emotion. Many believe this is evolutionary, for example when the birds are singing the area is generaly safe.
TheKturner05 1 year ago
@TheKturner05 Wow are you gonna be disappointed with my response, seeing as it's 3 months late! Anyway, here it is...
Good point.
kingquinnerz89 1 year ago
i agree with tarhun. microtonal music exists almost everywhere except in euro-centric "classical" harmony. as a matter of fact, it did exist at one time in the west. listen to any music made in just intonation which is what european music was before the conventions of 12 tones. just intonation is microtonal. it is not merely an "effect." it IS music before the editing of the temperate scale which was a dumbed down version to edit out the "wrong" notes. no wrong notes, only closed minds.
halfmonk 3 years ago
If you like experimental music, just try TACUARA NOD, available on youtube
uhj4 3 years ago
True creativity is defined by being able hiding your sources. How much music sounds like this? He had an incredible knowledge of music. He went back to the beginning of music and created something new.
spinach43 3 years ago
There is nothing new about unordered, chaotic noise. If you think there is, by all means waste your time.
revoltz7 3 years ago
I don't understand. "Unordered chaotic noise"? what are you talking about? Because you're clearly not talking about Partch's music.
tarhun 3 years ago 2
unordered chaotic noise? wow, what an arrogant load of shite. first, your assumption is that there's something wrong with disorder, choas and noise. welcome to the real world, heinrich. in case, you don't understand that reference, there was certain group of germans who also disliked chaos and valued order above all else. i can only assume based on that statement that you have an extremely boring mainstream collection of musical pablum. remind me to not ask what's in rotation on your turntable.
halfmonk 3 years ago
This is the best thing I've ever seen on YouTube. :P
54spiritedwill54 3 years ago 2
This comment has received too many negative votes show
In my opinion (an incredibly musically educated one) art can be measured by talent. We have to ask ourselves how much talent did it take to create this?
Swan Lake took immesurably more talent than this.
revoltz7 3 years ago
Talent is the antithesis of Genius!
sabrinaeden 3 years ago
It may be a white insitutionalised notion, but please consider that Beethoven wrote masterful music based on this so called 'fallacy'. If its such a fallacy, why oh why do genius composers 'waste' their time with it?
revoltz7 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
What very interesting comments on this page! NOT!! GET A LIFE...IT'S ONLY MUSIC.
DamianNixon 4 years ago
You retard. Music plays a huge role in one's life. To say that Partch wastes his time making music is just a testament to your own narrowminded thoughts
hellocharlien 4 years ago 2
This comment has received too many negative votes show
OOOhoooHooooH! Touched a wee raw nerve have we? IT'S ONLY FECKIN MUSIC YA PRICK....EVERYONE CAN DO IT! IF YOU CAN'T, THEN YOU'RE THE RETARD.
DamianNixon 4 years ago
Damian your level of maturity with your comments is perhaps pure evidence alone of not being able to differentiate that pple are here to enjoy Harry Partch and his life, and your so-called "IT'S JUST MUSIC" in general. If "EVERYONE CAN DO IT", why the fuck are you still on youtube? Shouldn't you be in the pages of history? SHOULDN'T WE BE WATCHING YOU?
TheArthen 4 years ago
?????????????Don't Get Your Knickers in a Twist...IT'S ONLY FECKIN MUSIC!!lol. Anyways....John Cage takes it to a higher level and made the tee-shirt. And as far as promoting MY sounds to the pages of history is concerned...!?? Duh! Every schoolboy knows that all Music IS history the second it's noise dissipates. p.s. I Can't find any musical contributions by YOU to YouTube. I'm Glad I made you write!!
DamianNixon 4 years ago
...and your grammar is as bad as your musical tastes.
DamianNixon 4 years ago
"MUSIC!!lol", "John Cage takes it to a higher level..", why are you trying so pathetically hard to prove yourself to me?
"Music IS history the second it's noise dissipates." Posing with artiness isn't going to cover your naked exposed ass. You have no idea what you look like from here.
TheArthen 4 years ago
"Can't find any contributions by YOU on Youtube", well, I make mine for the National Geographic Channel. I do hope to move to feature films soon. Be aware of your 'arenas'.
"Glad I made you write!!", you SHOULD be.
TheArthen 4 years ago
Grow up. Maintain some of that inner childishness though, you'll really need it in your musical journey. No kidding.
TheArthen 4 years ago
Made you write (ungrammatically, again) FOUR times. lol. (You are a bit of a lonesome wanker really aren't you...Jimmy No-Mates?)
DamianNixon 4 years ago
Hey Numb-Nuts. Repeating everything one says is not regarded as writing, in any kind of 'arena'.
I know of one arena that would befit you and your ilk though, ya CLOWN!
DamianNixon 4 years ago
you are both tits
TheIkaraCult 4 years ago 5
Hi Thelkara! I compelled YOU to contribute a piece of 'wastemytime' as well, I see!? You use your knowledge of grammar as badly as 'TheArthen' does!. We can't both be 'both tits'.lol
DamianNixon 4 years ago
Living well and being successful is the best revenge. Hehe don't bother about Ikara, Damian. All the best in your music!
TheArthen 4 years ago
hey, it's only the internet. you're wasting YOUR time, fucking prick
drplbiftin 3 years ago
YOU are wastin your time ya pruckin fick. Go home and play with your xylophone. Look at the no. of times ya posted. Nothin better to do?? Sausage-brain. lol.
DonsRecklessSon 3 years ago
Read what I said 'hellocharlien'!!! Did I mention 'wasting his time'? Did I even mention 'Partch'? I think you should brush up on your English Comprehension skills. As far as being a retard is concerned.....most americans like yourself have the monopoly on that!
DamianNixon 4 years ago
harry partch is one of the greatest figures of the 20th century. what a mind.
FellmanBaines 4 years ago
i dont know anything about technical music composition but i appreciate good art/music. and this guy is a genius.
vivalar3volucion 4 years ago 2
Awesome Documentary.
Shame that the sound quality isn't so good.
aquamammal 4 years ago
i love his music
thisis great
thanks for posting!
richragsdale 4 years ago
part 3
They have littered our culture with artifacts, noises and pretensions that should be disdained by the artistically enlightened. A great misfortune!
lourak 4 years ago
Do you spend all day trolling for videos to theorize about? Yes, we get it, you hate anyone even remotely near the avant-garde. Enough already.
Also, if you had actually read some of Partch's writing, you would know that, while considering the last 300 years of music a "mistake", he did not say that this invalidates all of the music. He even says he enjoys some of the music out there. I guess postulating on the state of modern classical music does take up a lot of one's time...
tubafatness 4 years ago 2
part 2
Partch himself, claims that our 300 year tradition of Western music was "a mistake". The veracity of this notion, of course, is quite untestable and at best, philosophically sophmoric, and its formulation and practice, I believe, is best understood in socio/psychological terms, rather than in any theory of aesthetics - and may be nothing more than the "spirit of rebellion" as found in the work by Cage and an entire generation of "composers" which followed in his wake.
lourak 4 years ago
How many parts do you need for your run on sentence? It's funny that you mention Cage. If you bothered to watch the documentary, you would know Partch did not approve of his methods.
wabashii 4 years ago 2
This comment has received too many negative votes show
The appeal of Partch's music, like drugs, is quite understandable - and equally destructive to civilization (strong words - I know). There is nothing wrong with intuition and indeterminacy as components within artistic creations, but, if these are not subordinated to historically validated forms and structures, it risks bringing us back to pre-historic forms of expression - I would call that regression - for that we have nature, which does it much more elegantly.
lourak 4 years ago
Fascist pig!
juliandunn 4 years ago 3
certain forms of african and eastern european music are more sophisticated than much of the classical music that succeeded it. this is a fact. polyrhythm and microtonality is not regression... it can be argued that this is a more sophisticated form of composition than the classical form. i argue that categorizing things so plainly is fascist and regressive.
ladyghosthunter 4 years ago 7
Bravo for that!
drplbiftin 3 years ago
You are thinking that "change" equals to progression, and that is all you can think about.
People you flame "think" more about if changes yield to progression or not.
noissez 4 years ago
And, in the most simple sense, you might think that dividing an octave to 12 pitches is a result of progressive evolution, but I call this regression. Music is organised "sound". And if you want to be able to name all the sounds while you are creating music, then well... You are not progressing, you are losing the essence.
You'd need to think about that though...
noissez 4 years ago
you might be right but if simplifying scales is evolution then could you say that the ultimate evolution is the scale is just a single string with no frets or semitones?
d3p3ch3mod3 4 years ago 2
There's a reason we use the 12 tone scale. It's better. I don't think I even need to justify myself, just listen to the results of 12 tone music compared to this.
revoltz7 3 years ago
There's a reason why, though 12 tone equal temperament was known for centuries, it was avoided. It's dull. (in itself, it can be base to exciting music of course). I don't think I can justify myself through words, you should open up your ears to understand.
taxemzott 3 years ago
Yes but I think Harry Partch is just wasting his time. I mean technically a 44 tone scale is dull in the face of a 100 tone scale.
At the end of the day, the 12 tone scale is responsible for Swan Lake, i think that pretty much ends the debate no?
revoltz7 3 years ago
I didn't mean 12tone equal temperament was dull because it contained just those 'few' notes, but because it didn't have the natural harmonic notes. If you have more notes (in an equally tempered scale) you can get closer to the naturally 'nice sounding' intervals. The claim for such huge scales was raised by the fact that some instruments are just can't be retuned very easily, so if you want to use them in different keys you have to have all the notes in the same time on the instrument.
taxemzott 3 years ago
Clearly, Partch didn't only use microtonality to get closer to the harmonious intervals. Still I don't think it was a waste of time. For his artistic purposes, which were different than Tchaikovsky's, the use of microtonal scales was essential.
taxemzott 3 years ago
Tchaikovsky wrote swan lake. What did Harry Partch do? He may hav fulfilled his own artistic ambitions, but he won't be remembered hundreds of years after his death now will he?
revoltz7 3 years ago
you're ridiculous. just shut up and accept that everything in life is subjective and that things like taste are contingent on environmental and social circumstances including what sounds are "pleasing" to the human ear.
there is never any right or wrong and anyone who argues otherwise is a boring waste of time with no perspective.
jessejamesladeroute 3 years ago
The point of the composer is to distinguish between right and wrong. Out of all the other possiblities of melody and harmony, Tschaikovksy wrote the Swan Lake, because he was VERY good at distinguishing between right and wrong.
revoltz7 3 years ago
no, that is not the "point" of the composer. the composer can do whatever the fuck they want to make whatever point they want. "right" and "wrong" is not objective. that's fascist, actually. no one thing is inherently better than anything else. partch isn't trying to achieve the same thing as tschaikovskly. partch challenges the notion of beauty itself. why do you find tschaikovsky beautiful? why is there only one type of acceptable beauty?
jessejamesladeroute 3 years ago
also, concepts of tonality and the system used to measure it are entirely human constructs. beauty is subjective. if people find meaning and beauty in the work of partch who the fuck are you to tell them that they're wrong?
jessejamesladeroute 3 years ago
Hey I'm not saying you are wrong to find beauty in Partch, (although I personally don't) but that Tschaikovsky is objectively better.
There are measures of objectivity in music. For example : use of harmony, part writing, orchestration, melodic inventiveness, counter-point. Subjectivity is your opinion, and that is fine. Objectivity, is that Tschaikovsky and Wagner are far more talented than this man could ever be, and that is blindingly obvious.
revoltz7 3 years ago
no. nothing is objective. ever. i'm sorry. i just don't agree with you.
jessejamesladeroute 3 years ago 2
Of course it is. If a person with no musical ability whatsoever, it would be objectively worse than Mozart. Why do you want to live in a world where everything is good? Part of life is enjoying liking music, the other is enjoying hating it.
revoltz7 3 years ago
i don't want to live in a world where everything is good. i want to live in a world where people don't judge art based on quantitative assessments of merit.
jessejamesladeroute 3 years ago
No, your musically liberal world is one of fallacy! It cannot exist because everybody judges music subconsciously whether they know they are doing it or not. For example, when you listen to this music, you decided you liked it, and there HAD to be a reason for that. I decided I didn't like it, and there WAS a reason for that.
If we submit to your world, we might as well just brush aside all the great works. The fact is they ARE great, and we must NOT forget it!
revoltz7 3 years ago
Everything is judged subconsciously on quantitive assessment. A composer does this consciously because they have more analytical tools at their disposal.
revoltz7 3 years ago
the fallacy is in submitting to white institutionalized notions of what constitutes "proper" music.
jessejamesladeroute 3 years ago
What? So now its racist to say orchestral music is the best. What kind of liberal minded nonsense is that? I am not forcing everybody to listen to orchestral music. I am not forcing everybody to like it! I am simply stating the obvious fact that it is better. Whether an orchestral piece is written by a black man or a white man has nothing to do with it.
revoltz7 3 years ago
no, it's not racist. but classical music is widely regarded (sometimes correctly) as a superior form of art because it is such an elite institutionalized form (which just happens to be 99% white) and that's stupid.
whether art is good or bad depends on how effectively it communicates what it intends to communicate. liking only things that sound pretty closes doors on other meaningful types of communication that you would do well to investigate without the bias. people fucking HATED wagner too.
jessejamesladeroute 3 years ago
Not everybody hated Wagner, I mean he was incredibly successful and his work is still remembered, and he is often credited for kick starting the modern movement with his Tristan chord etc etc
I think you are right in what you are saying, but I cannot afford to be open minded. I want to be a successful orchestral composer, and I have far more to gain from listening to Wagner than I do from listening to John Cage or some other experiment.
revoltz7 3 years ago
and that's fair.
i don't think it's fair to say that partch won't be remembered. there's a bbc documentary about him, isn't there? not bad for a gay hobo.
jessejamesladeroute 3 years ago
Yes, and there isn't one about me......
...yet
revoltz7 3 years ago
i had similar problem for a while, revoltz. you should work on accepting music that is unlike how you want to make your music. analyze it, and compare to things to you do like. you'll find more similarities than you might think. there are probably elements in partch's music that make others love it that are in the music that makes you love it. as for microtonality as a basis for melody and not an effect (which you should really consider), check out Glenn Branca's Symphony No. 13 at high volume
TheSwampCarbondale 2 years ago
What you just said is exactly the reason Partch made his music the way it is, because what you just said is bullshit.
drplbiftin 3 years ago
fallacious argument - the only reason you prefer 12 TET is because it is what your ear has been conditioned to hearing. There have been studies that have demonstrated this: that the more conventional musical training an individual has, the less able they are to appreciate the consonance inherent in any consonant intervals from outside that system. I feel sorry for you, I truly do, if you are unable to appreciate microtonality. It must be like being colour blind.
tarhun 3 years ago
"the more conventional musical training an individual has, the less able they are to appreciate the consonance inherent in any consonant intervals from outside that system."
Well I don't necassarily agree with that. I think the ability to hear microtones is more to do with your natural given ear than the environment. Your opinion on dissonance has a lot to do with your environment, since if you listen to nothing but Mozart something even like Tschaikovsky might seem dissonant in places.
revoltz7 3 years ago
Also, microtonality is often used in film scores to create an effect, and personally I can't see what other uses microtonality has other than being used as an effect.
Listen to this piece : threnody for the victims of hiroshima. It doesn't conform to the 12 semi-tone system, but its really just one collection of big musical effects.
And if everyone believed that musical training was actually disadvantageous, then nobody would have written anything of signifigant musical merit ever.
revoltz7 3 years ago
you're right microtonality is used in more experimental ambient stuff by western musicians just as a "weird" sounding effect, which is a shame. I suggest you listen instead to some Balinese or Javan Gamelan music; it is microtonal from a western point of view but is a fully fledged functioning art form; not just used as an "effect".
tarhun 3 years ago
I've heard some Gamelan before, but I was taught (probably wrongly) that the gamelan instruments were tuned slightly out of tune purposefully, in order to produce an effect. I wasn't sure if the scales themselves were microtonal by Western standards, is that the case?
revoltz7 3 years ago
Gamelan tuning is very complex and I don't know all the details myself; but as I understand it there are basically two main scales, Pelog and Slendro. Pelog is a 5 note to the octave scale similar, but not identical to, 5 tone equal temperament. Slendro is a 7 tone scale that is roughly a subset of 9 tone equal temperament, although most gamelans only ever use 5 out of the 7 slendro tones (which 5 depend on the specific type of gamelan, it's roughly similar to the western concept of modes).
tarhun 3 years ago
The specific intervals used for tuning vary from gamelan to gamelan but within a gamelan the instruments are usually all tuned to the same "version" of the scales. The exception is in some Balinese gamelans where instruments are purposefully tuned using slightly different versions of the scales to produce a distinctive inteference beat. This is presumably what you are referring to by saying they are purposefully "out of tune", however this is by no means the norm for all gamelans.
tarhun 3 years ago
(whoops, got Slendro and Pelog the wrong way round; Pelog is the 7 tone one, Slendro is the 5 tone one. Told you I didn't quite understand it ;) )
tarhun 3 years ago
Gracias por estos videos. Se me ha dificultado conseguir su musica por aca, y mas informacion acerca de él, y con esto resuelvo muchos suposiciones y curiosidades. Gracias otra vez.
RunTerranova 4 years ago
This is the sort of thing that I love finding on YouTube. I just searched on Partch on a whim, wondering what I'd find, and this popped up. What a treat! I remember discovering a Harry Partch record in my junior high school library in 1967. From this video I'm learning things about him I never knew. Thanks for posting.
mervynpeek 4 years ago
can anyone post the bewitched?
bowieschild 4 years ago
This is the best thing I've ever seen on YouTube. Many, many thanks.
Anarcissie 4 years ago
thank you for posting...i watched 1-6 yesterday...and i recently acquired my 1st Partch piece..."The Delusion of the Fury." spellbinding! yessss!
ADURG1 4 years ago
yeah, thanks a lot for these videos, from the heart
mendali 5 years ago
Thank you for this. Truly inspiring.
ionahoopii 5 years ago
My god, I've been waiting to see some concrete story of partch since I started listening to Tom Waits when i was fifteen. Thank you so much.
-evan athsma
evanathsma 5 years ago
I'm certainly no expert on documentary films, but in my estimation this is one of the best I've ever seen. It's a dream come true, really. I never even knew this existed. STT, thank you SO much!!!
kenrubes 5 years ago
Yes it was a great find! A very well done dcumentary. You're welcome! I'm glad to share it.
ShockTheseTrees 5 years ago
oh shit! when was this shown!?
pigshavebeards 5 years ago
I'm not sure how old this is. I downloaded the whole thing as a torrent. I was unsettled by the lack of Partch clips on youtube, so I just had to add it to the table.
ShockTheseTrees 5 years ago