Harry Partch - BBC Documentary - Part 3 of 6

[RoboticusMusic]

Gay music.

[Mazurada]

I'm wondering, even though his instruments are microtonal, it looks like he doesn't sing microtonal (sorry, I'm not an expert) - well, those singing melodies don't sound like that - is that correct? I wonder how hard it is to sing in microtonal pitches...

[Muzikman127]

@Mazurada Yes they are microtonal- it's just that it's a scale based off of the natural intonation of the human voice, so it sounds quite natural

[Muzikman127]

this is really interesting. It's a shame that this hasn't been developed any further- I guess it's just too much work to unlearn a lifetime of 12-TET and build a new instrument and start afresh.

[TheReasonableLogic]

@Muzikman127 Electronic instruments such as samplers and synthesizers are capable of this,. You don't necessarily have to build a traditional instrument. All you need is creativity.

[Muzikman127]

@TheReasonableLogic

true- but when I play and listen to 12 TET music I don't rely exclsively on synthesisers. You do kind of limit yourself so weird electronic music when the only resources available to you are messed about with electronic instruments

[lovesGenet]

We admire him but it's an experiment that does not bear fruit. The rythyms are still common grounded in standard time but these pitches .who can remember them .The melodies have intrinsic shape but dubious value.He is simply a footnote.Schoenberg's system bore fruit !

[JLMoriart]

@lovesGenet The only reason Scoenberg's system "bore fruit" is because is was supported by 12-edo and current western instruments. Partch was simply unfortunate. He was a little too early for microtuning, getting here just before technology like isomorphic keyboards and theory like linear temperament theory unified tuning into a more simple and powerful paradigm. Therefore he had to make his own more difficult instruments that would not be mass produced.

[Bass5el]

I find it interesting that whilst his harmonic sense is unique, his rhythms are strangely conventional. Which is very different from composers working with twelve semi-tones playing with odd metres.

[mrxranch]

according to ABBA fans, there producer is the reason for there sucsess, maybe to proove these people  right he can produce this music

[Paullove89]

His first step would be to transpose it to 12TET.

[themightycelestial]

0:34

I also don't believe in work as an ethic for myself.

And I can prove this by the sloppy, sloth-riddened & substantial girth of my fat ass which is largely due in major part by the amount of my life that I've wasted sitting on it in front of the computer, downloading onion-booty porn, posting girlfight videos on this site & emptily commiseratin' with my fellow youtubers.

[rovercrew]

you are the slacker messiah :D

[MincentValloy]

if i wasnt as antisocial as you seem to be we´d be best friends hahaha

[RedOnChrome]

i bow down before you, master of the inert.

[lastrevolv]

@themightycelestial no offense but in my opinion youre no diferent from those who work, youre time is consumed by nonesense social sistem activities...

dont get this the wrong way i dont mean to offend you, i just want you to hear my opinion in and if it helps you then even better

[Composerland]

@themightycelestial :Yeah, I've been wondering about that, myself. we have it easy.

[15ips]

@themightycelestial My interpretation is that he doesn't see the value of work as a vehicle for wealth creation; instead he sees it as a way to get by and to live a modest, uncluttered life.

[seroyer2]

the music is muscly corrected, but it is so weird. but Partch is a very strange person, but genus. it seems to me that many people that are genus are looked at as strange because they see something that none of us can see.

[robertronics]

what does he say in 7:00?

"One of the very famous experimenters

was Timotheus, from Sparta, ?????"

I can´t make that part out

[ShockTheseTrees]

"One of the very famous experimenters

was Timotheus, from Sparta, of all places"

[crazygolfer333]

If he's so "counterculture" why does he speak english? That seems very ironic to me. He doesn't believe in their music and yet he recites their language. Truth is, he's a drunken lunatic hobo...with no talent.

[Llewxen]

What does that have to do with his music?

[crazygolfer333]

The irony that he speaks english in his music?

He's against western forms of art, language (spoken word, poetry) is art.

Or that he's a drunken lunatic hobo?

That easily influences music.

Which one are you talking about?

[thomasmatus]

Partch might have said, like Oscar Wilde, "I put my talent into my poetry, and my genius into my life." Go listen to the Kronos Quartet recording of "Barstow" and tell us if Partch the drunken lunatic hobo had genius or not ("talent" isn't worth a widow's mite anymore). By the way, why do you write in English?

[crazygolfer333]

I write in English for many reasons.

[robertronics]

man you just don´t get it. Just shut up and listen, and then tell me

[robertronics]

what has to do music with language?

[robertronics]

what does language have to do with music?

[crazygolfer333]

Language doesn't have anything to do with the new scale he invented. Language has a lot to do with musical composition. I just thought that, if you would go through the trouble of inventing a new scale, why not invent a new language as well? Have you heard of the Icelandic Band, Sigur Ros? They've created a non-traditional language.

The English language was developed by the same people that invented the conventional scale that we are accustomed to hearing everyday. THAT'S MY POINT.

[alifatschi]

Certainly, sigur ros is a wonderful (an wonderful unpretentious) band, but to advise them: is it realy necessary to play name dropping and scene shifting here in this place? What for? What is the profit? Distinction?

In reference to the further discussion: Music can only gradually abandon itself from tradition, otherwise something evolves you can find (as the name droppers market has allready opend) very well described in "Modern Music Is Growing Old" by Adorno.

[alifatschi]

that was @crazygolfer333

[tarhun]

I'm fairly certain the origins of 12 tone equal temperments are in Renaissance Germany, not England... And btw, I have some knowledge of linguistics (and have attempted to construct languages several times!), and Sigur Ros' so called "language" is really just nonsense syllables using icelandic phonology. Real constructed languages are *extremely* difficult to create if you're really trying to be break away from "Western"/Indo-European grammar and syntax rules.

[crazygolfer333]

The English language also has Germanic ties to it, does it not?

I'm just trying to start a debate not trying to downgrade Harry Partch.

For those that asked what language has to do with music tarhun answered it for you.

About Sigur Ros, I know it's gibberish and not a complete language. Great band nonetheless.

[tarhun]

Actually I've since done some research and I was mistaken, 12 tone equal temperment was first suggested in it's present form by Italians, not Germans ;)

[tarhun]

All pedanticism aside, I think it's interesting that in some of Partch's work he used ancient Chinese poetry translated into English. IMO this shows that he thought of the meaning of the lyrics as being as important as the music itself; to obscure it using a language his audience wouldn't have understood would have harmed the music. Similar to his views on "corporeality", that the movement and interaction of the musician with the instrument was as important as the music being produced.

[JesustheLizard]

Just listen to Americans talk, they speak with a guttural sense that is closer to German than the nasal romantic languages. It was a close decision to speak English or German at the formation of the US

[IpkisStanley]

lololol. are you serious?

[michaelopp19]

@JesustheLizard  You realize that English is a Germanic language, right?

[tarhun]

language ability and musical ability have been linked in a number of studies, as well as research that suggests that the parts of the brain that deal with language are also used to recognize music.

[robertronics]

my question was kind..."critical", in a way.

Of course, music has always been linked to language (western traditional music developed from religious chants), but I think that music itself (in its pure form) does not have anything to do with language, unless we link it consciuously.

It depends on who you read

[tarhun]

You may have a point about the language thing, however I believe Partch may have instead thought that using the tongue of the common people brought "classical" music closer to them rather than making it something seperate from their everyday experience that they couldn't relate to.

[Agileonyx]

Not to put Harry Partch's music down, because i've always encouraged people to pursue what they like, but to me personally his music sounds very tribal and very base and instinctual, which is a stage i think Western Musicians and humans in general have musically progressed through already.

[tarhun]

isn't that the point though? I don't think Partch believed it was really possible to "progress" beyond something so basic to humanity, and I would agree. We're denying our roots and our very nature by pretending that we're these enlightened rational machines, because deep down, on a genetic level, we're still the same tribal, instinctual, "base" animals we've always been.

[Agileonyx]

if he doesnt believe in progression i like him even less, because we're only here because of progression, yes we started as base beings, but we've evolved quite far away from it, even though youre right we are at roots base creatures. but theres no arguing we're past that stage, even the most tribal places now are more intelligent than they used to be.

[tarhun]

evolution is a biological process, and it's one that takes a very, *very* long time. Human beings have only had civilization for ~9,000 years, which is not nearly long enough for evolution to change us in any meaningful way. The fact is we are still on a genetic level hunter gatherers; slightly less hairy chimps, if you will ;) But so what? IMO we should accept and even celebrate this fact. I know I'd rather listen to avowedly human music like this than music that treats me like a robot.

[Agileonyx]

well youre really drawing this away from my comments main point with your adamance. My opinion is that this sounds tribal and basic, and argue what you will, but we've progressed past this stage and this seems to me like musical regression, though he's experimenting. He's brave i give him that, and technically accomplished in his creation of new instruments, but musically i think he lacks talent.

[tarhun]

Well the question of musical talent is a bit more subjective, but I do recomend you listen closer as I have exhorted others to do in these comments. Just because his music sounds "tribal" does not mean he lacks talent; on the contrary, his scales show a very deep understanding of musical aesthetics. If you must think in terms of "progress", then think of it like a Rennaissance. Going back to the truth of the Classical era after the dark ages. Not so much regression, more restoration :)

[hultonclint]

Back on the bum again!

[DrSanders00]

ha, youtube can't handle the marimba eroica.

[robertronics]

to the people who don´t enjoy this: the problem is in YOU!, not in the music.

I don´t care about your problems, so go complain some place else.

Harry Partch was a musical universe, a truly model for artists who encourage themselves to make sth new and different

[Amelia1965]

I agree, It sounds absolutely shit. No intellectualizing will deceive me my ears. Just listen to it! Its shit!

[spinach43]

Amelia, you are a narrow minded twit. You couldn't even begin to understand what goes into his tones. If it is so bad, lets see you recreate his sounds.

[Amelia1965]

Why would I want to recreate his sounds. They are, as I said before, shit. The only functions these sounds have are a) to remind me which road not to take to achieve beauty and b) to reconfirm how far North Americans' heads are up their own arses when visiting the cultural and sublime :-)

[spinach43]

It would be a sad state in music when artists never did anything new or interesting. His music is heavily influenced by tribal and asian music. Basically you are insulting everything that isn't just north american music. Obviously you have a limited idea of beauty. Don't be jealous of USA's one shining attribute, which is our ever diverse music movements. Not so say that europe didn't bring anything new, but no country can touch us. Your idea of bad is just a limited opinion.

[tarhun]

hah! intellectualizing!? Partch was *rejected* by the intellectual elite, and he rejected them back! he believed in taking music and art back to their human roots, not using intellectual bullshit to seperate music from reality even further. Listen closer!

[DrFrankenstein1]

Big deal, he was tone def and made instruments that sounded like shit. His page in history is that he innovated horribly sour notes with even more sour vocals.

[DesecratedProduction]

I think you missed the point. Try going to wikipedia and reading about harry, you might understand more why you feel that the notes are sour.

[DrFrankenstein1]

I know plenty about the guy. He tried to develop his own scales and prove that what sounds bad, isn't necessarily wrong. Problem is, his instruments were poorly designed and he takes sour notes to a whole new level. Personally I think this was his lame attempt to get his name in the history books. I'm a musician and now a good musician can make the wrong notes sound right. His instruments didn't even allow for that. It literally sounds like they were built by a retard person.

[CelloHate9]

cant wait to watch the rest after work...

[Jazzguitar00]

Extremely interesting! There is, however, little music I've heard that is interesting...I still have great respect for him.

[Mahavishnu80]

most musicians today should take a leaf out of his book. music is still so regimented.

[PapitantryTV]

Takes a special kind of man to take the frets off a guitar.

[Soniclife91]

Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth did it it put bass strings on his guitar tuned them BB F#F# and played it with a drumstick

[wutrain]

sure awesome. but the dude was pretty crazy around the head you know.

[zkafel]

AWESOME. simply awesome