Wyschnegradsky - Quarter-Tone Etude on Density and Volume No. 1

[alphabet661]

If you like Blues then you like some microtonal music. Why? The Blues produce 3rd that are in between major and minor and 7ths that is flat the usual 7th.

If you like period performance, then you would be hearing some slight microtonal inflections. If you hear old organs - meantone temperament there are extra keys for microtones.

The difference here is the context. The music is already quite dissonant, so the microtones add or subtract to it.

[ClueBand]

I need help: I like this!

[lamaman94]

I cannot enjoy this kind of "music" I'm sorry.

[BenPumpkinHead]

I'm interested... How did all of you who enjoy microtonal music get into it? I can't imagine immediately picking it up..haha. I just find it strange how "all out" this guy gos with it. Is there any example of a microtonal piece that stays a bit truer to western standards? because to my ears there are really no discernible melodies or hooks of any sort in this. It's more just...well..."tones". Interested to hear anyone's opinions on it.

[pablogregorian]

this is totally weird, my first experience with microtonality! What is the name of the image in the movie?

[kutlessrocker23]

@pablogregorian It's from a woodcut book called Mad Man's Drum.

This is really awesome.

[nianqiao]

i'm totally lost in the aural puzzle

[username122487]

mushroooooms

[Superape613]

Where did the art from this video come from?

[xxxTokioHotelxxxx]

omg i go crazy from this...

[ScottWhitaker95]

I just made the same face as that picture

[shhhiiieeet]

Spooky

[IIIIIawesIIIII]

this song sucks... if there is no way to integrate quarter tones in music you shouldn't try it. but there is a way, like in persian and turkish music. but not like this.

[Misantropo04]

@IIIIIawesIIIII please don´t say shit.

[IIIIIawesIIIII]

@Misantropo04  please say something productive

[hexatonico]

@IIIIIawesIIIII Maybe for you the music is all about "songs"... And maybe you can open your mind a little bit!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[f1f1s]

This is amazing. I have never supposed there is such a piece by Vyshnegradsky. Sounds very anxious... It makes me cover with creeps of horror... because it is a bit similar to Penderecki's "Threnody to the victoms of Hiroshima". Music of 1910 - 1970 really makes me tremble... It was a time of wars, revolutions, suicides, and composers - men with a very fragile soul - were submersed into the den of the nightmare. Can you imagine how much psychologiczl suffer this music carries?

[RoboticusMusic]

Fuck C Major! =D

[RomanianDanIrukandji]

this comment made me laugh :D

[MendelssohnCZ]

Nice music. Excellent picture

[catgumart]

I cant wait till more people stqart "getting" and being able to hear and enjoy 24 tone music.

[Roncsipar]

my brain just melted

[superstition222]

Doubling the number of notes by halving the difference between them does not result, necessarily, in dissonant and unsettling music like this.

It's just as possible to come up with something that likes like Mozart, especially if you have two players and two pianos. The only difference between a quarter tone system and a half tone system is that there is greater spacing between half steps as well as the ability to produce new chords. Some tonal music could actually sound better if revised.

[ch252525]

i don't understand, can someone explain this to me? it is not "out of tune"?

[Hexameron]

Quarter tone (or 24-tone) music is the result of dividing the octave (normally 12-tones) into 24 tones. The two pianos employed here are tuned a quarter tone apart in order to play 24 pitches.

It does sound "out of tune" to our Western ears and I'll admit it's an acquired taste. If you think 24 tones sound strange, there were a few early Soviet modernist composers, like Avraamov and Sabaneev, who actually divided the octave into 53 tones, creating what they called "ultrachromaticism".

[ch252525]

Then how are the notes written?

[Hexameron]

I don't have any scores of Wyschnegradsky's microtonal music, but I believe he uses conventional notation with the addition of special accidentals (half-sharps, half-flats).

[MLAOTNMCC]

In this piece i suppose the two pianists just have ordinary piano notes, but theyre tuned differently. The score is probably the same with a note stating one piano is tuned a quarter tone sharp or flat. My guess.

[addeex1]

Detune piano?:D

This is soooo fantastic!!! Love it

[Starwalker6978]

Very interesting; I'd never much affinity with (micro-tonal) quarter-tone music, but this is definitely the better micro-tonal music written! (though I must admit; the great drawing in the video added to the music)

[Hexameron]

Glad you like the artwork. Lynd Ward is a master and one of my favorite artists. Check out his wordless novels "Gods' Man" and "Mad Man's Drum" for some superior and psychologically intense woodcuts, a truly lost artform. He carved woodcuts like the one in the video to narrate in pictures dark stories of violence, despair, and madness. Somehow, Wyschnegradsky's eerie and disturbing quarter-tonal music seems fitting accompaniment.

[Starwalker6978]

Thanks for the artist's name; Lynd Ward will remain in my memory. Those wordless novels of his, are they easy to lay ones hands on now a days? I am very interested to purchase some of his work.

[Hexameron]

Yes, they have been reprinted by Dover and are quite cheap on amazon

[Starwalker6978]

Thanks, Dover has indeed some good collection of reprints.

[emilygclarinet]

Fascinating piece!

[scriabinwasmydad]

wonderful upload!