Added: 3 years ago
From: DieselBodine
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  • i know my brain is conditioned to only recognizing patterns within the 12 tone scale, but can you actually make microtonal music that invokes a sense of beauty or sadness or anything else that doesn't associate with just awkward and freaky(don't get me wrong people i love awkward and freaky too) or do i just need to listen to it more to tune into it and get it? dunno maybe this track actually sad and beautiful and i just hear the notes between the 12 tone scale and assume its weird? :D

  • sounded like something from tom and jerry

  • Interesting! In fact, I like it. I wonder if there is any proposal about how to write down quater-tone music on a music score. In my homeland there's a piano tuned in quarters, but I never played something "decent" on it. By the way, I don't lke Julian Carrillo's compositions that are also composed in quarters, eighths and sixteenths of tone. But this is not bad. Congratulations.

  • Very nice. I love Wyschnegradsy's work. Quarter-tone, in my view, is wonderful since it allows for doubling of the possible emotive stimuli. To deny listening to such a valueable forme is to deny one's self the high calibre of music that is.... quarter-tone.

  • This is pretty cool, even if somewhat unsettling.

  • I dig it.

  • APEXvj

  • What kind of vibes are you guys getting from this song? I feel confusion, uncertainty, lost, and even somewhat haunting vibes. Its a very nice piece!!

  • you know to be able to use these notes and make it sound anything like a song is impressive. sounds super trippy.

  • 2:10 to skip Steve Brule

  • @fuzzydizzle i fucking lol'd

  • Very interesting music, I liked it.

  • Try this:

    /watch?v=B9WPfkXQa_Y&feature=r­elated

    Its a Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Twenty-four preludes in quarter-tone №3

  • it sounds better than i had feared, though i admit it´s still strange. i guess us Westerners have been conditioned from early childhood (and especially at school) to think that as soon as we hear quarter-tones, there must be something wrong with the tuning of the instruments.

  • @harpiyon this song doesnt sound aimless and disgusting because he's treating the quartertone scale as he would treat the wholetone scale.after 4whole tones up you must resolve to first degree.therefore after eight quartertones you must resolve to first degree.any set of 4wholetones or eight quartertones becomes aimless wondering.when youve had enough of the aimlessness just play a halfstep up or down and say dam i'm dizzy whew!where am i?home? or in the neighborhood.heaven is contrastless.

  • @ohmphthschwrhu hello, thanks for the explanation. mabe you confuse me with someone else: i didn´t say it´s aimless or digusting. in fact i think the piece is really good!! and i will keep listening to quarter-tone music to get rid of the conditioning i had in the past.

  • @ohmphthschwrhu- So there is actually a composing logic to this type of music. Now I'm really interested.

  • Great stuff, I'm going to get into using quarter tone scales. A way I've figured out to do it is by using 2 keyboards tuned a quarter tone apart. Do you think i could apply it to some BLUES music?

  • @3vilJ1m blues has used quarter tones from it's very begining, but it us structured around the standard twelve notes. Blues, from slide guitar to the technique of bending strings on guitar to subtle expresive vocal inflections were not found in european style music all involve notes between pitches. Usually however, they are used as aproach notes. however, I recently learned a guitar lick in the style of stevie ray vaughn that resolves on a minor third bent up not quite fully to a major third.

  • I am dying to see the Shepard's scale of this piece!

  • "we don't to too much aerobic music"

  • Very interesting. Didn't sound too weird to me.

  • I have been using quarter-tones for years (I am only 18). I have been trying to compose a metal song(don't stop reading, please) and have wanted a note that doesn't exist according to western music. I have also been singing jazz for a while and when I try to play what I sing it doesn't work. I don't sing out of tune I intend the notes that come out. It is rather interesting. I love the piece, anyway.

  • How does this music capture anything near to the artistry of shruti employed in Indian classical music and the like? A bad bastard music!

  • @Williamjamesdewar86 Oh, get over yourself. I loved it, and thought the only thing missing here was maybe a vocal track from Derek Shulman or even Jon Anderson. It had an awesome, trippy, almost progressive rock sort of feel to it.

  • Should be Krzysztof Penderecki not Krzyztof

  • @Beholderification  Which Meshuggah song uses quarter-tones?? I listen to them and havent noticed anything like that. Not challenging you or anything, just wondering. Thx:D

  • I love the piece! As an aspiring composer, I was wondering how you created this. These sound like midi instruments. What program(s) did you use to get quarter tones? I can't write quarter tones in finale or sibelius can I?

  • doesn't resemble middle eastern music at all

  • This is fantastic, i've only heard that 1/4 tones actually existed earlier today. Tell me do they fit into any western key signatures in any kind of regular, understandable and teachable fashion?

  • I really enjoyed this! Definately need to build guitars/pianos to play quarter tones also! It just adds so much more dynamic to the music! Ive only ventured down the whole microtone thing today, after wondering why the hell 'all' music consists of the 12 notes per octave at the given frequencies.

  • Really good, I have experimented a little with 1/4 tones a little. However, I have not

    got into it as much not as you have here. I have tried writing 24 note rows, and then doing all the permutations (ie retrogrades, inversions etc) but constructing a good row with a strong internal structure is really bewildering.

    This piece has a very simple pulse! (a contrast to the complex harmony)

    I assume this is to make up for the lack of tonal centre?

    I like the ectoplasm around your head.

  • Just my opinion: we can use the microtones-quartertones etc only in some standard positions,depends the tetrachord or music scale we use,like in Byzantine/oriental music,when we play "disconnected" quartertones the resault is realy paranoid/chaotic.If a "psychologically sensitive" person listen to this music for long time,probable he will get paranoia or loose him personality!

  • Meshuggah also uses quater-tone structure in some of their songs.

  • Brilliant video, brilliant compostitions! Just discovered your little treasure trove. Never stop uploading. You didn't include Richard D. James in your list of quarter tone users though. Sacrilege! ;D

  • I'm stunned. That piece was unbelievably good.

  • what program did you use to create quarter tones in playback?

  • Definitely reminiscent of the "Planet Of The Apes" scores; both Goldsmith and Elfman. It's also more like the music I hear in my head, because it isn't reduced by our social norms; it has the flow and variance that's usually just contained within. yeah

  • I was wondering what those were called.

  • This is contemporary music, but it has nothing to do with arabic music. The arabic modes or scales ( maqamat ) are similar to many of the jazz modes, but it contains some notes that are raised by less than a semi tone. In my opinion, the arabic music gives a better idea of what quarter tones are. Take a look at maqam world.

  • The instrumentation and ryhthm makes this really exciting If peopel were aloud to hear more music in their days this would be a favorite.Peopel are begging for something to reflect their real thoughts and lives. This was great fun and worth many listens to see how it was organized. Their is humor here and a macabre sense of fun. I love it!!! Did Ligeti try microtonality.He seemeed to try everything?

  • My guitar teacher just introduced me to microtonal music today. My ears are freaking out because i have not adjusted yet.

  • I think I'm starting to hear it. Interesting indeed.

  • Impressively done, sir. Impressively done.

  • great tune!

  • @L0VECHILDD ~ Thank-you! I have more Quarter-tone pieces on YT, too. This was meant as an introductory video for those not familiar with Quarter-tone music. 8-)

  • Another name to add to the list of quarter-tone composers: Alfred Schnittke. His string quartets make extensive use of them, as does his piano quintet.

    This piece sounds very cinematic, like something from the opening credits of a film. It's very interesting!

  • Nice ... Did Zappa ever get experiment with this .. do you know?

  • I gather these are not live performers but a sample library.

    1) Which library and which notation program are you using?

    2) How did you get them to play quartertones? I use Finale and it can notate quartertones, but as far as I know it is not possible to get it to play quartertones.

  • @ibonyun Sibelius can play quarter tones :) - though you have to turn on one of the plugins to let it do that.

  • subscribed.

  • Love it! Gratz

  • this guy should host a radio station

  • splendid,it sounds very tonal.

  • THIS IS AMAZING.

  • This scared the shit out of my cat!

  • I've noticed so far from the quarter or microtone compositions i've heard that there's a lot of use of notes that follow eachother closely. The effect of ascension or descent much like in your piece.

    Which is a great introduction showing the intervals.

    But I haven't seen more intricate pieces yet...

    Although i'm a fan of early punk rock, and blues...so i do listen to quarter tones all the time as they sometimes play "

    out of tune"

  • @samuelmichaud Ivan Wchnegradsky or whatever his name is uses quartertones in regular patterns, not just ascension and decension etc. - check him out!

  • @HandyTheXxxX sweeeet

    thx

  • @samuelmichaud I agree with you samuel. I think the reason these sort or pieces sound eerie is not that they use quarter tones but rather because they are chromatic

  • This is pretty unsettling...........

  • everyone skip to 2:10

  • i use quarter tones but not very often

    i need more practice writing with them

  • I think even the eastern world would think this sounds weird, Arabic music usually uses just one or two microtones, this is far more chromatic. I like it though, but I think it will only ever be popular among us Avante-Garde people.

  • @BrightonInWindsor you're right. I'm from arabia and I find this pretty weird. microtonal scales in mideast evolved to be more listenable. though this piece rocks ,atleast for avant-garde fans

  • imagine wat flight of the bumblebee would sound like quartertonically, that would increase the chaos the music emphasises lol

  • u talk...fairly slow lol no offense

  • actually it sounds like something Koji Kondo would write for a Zelda game. It's very cool.

  • Very nice piece... :-)

  • @pdragonproductions ~ Thank-you, pdragonproductions. Feel free to check out my other Quarter-tone pieces, if you haven't already. 8-)

  • This is a really cool idea especially since I have always been taught that if you're a quater tone apart you need to ajust your tuning.

  • @101494ryanm ~ Thanks, 101494ryanm. It's a matter of evolving one's listening skills to follow the smaller intervals. Ears will get used to it and the brain can follow suit, if one puts aside the learned expectations for hearing only 12 notes per octave.

  • i doubt this will become popular in the west anytime soon, for many historical and cultural reasons.

  • for some reason i think of tom and jerry

  • Quarter tone music is not strange.

  • sooo, what would the quarternote between, say, Eb and E be called?

  • E quarter flat.

  • @ElVeintitres2323 Actually E-demiflat

  • cute

  • Jesus, just pause the video until the giant talkin head finishes talking. Far too much talkin and not enough music. Music was good, shorten the video with less talkin next time

  • hahaha reminds me of crash bandicoot for some reason :P..

  • @MigJazzMan03 haha yeah completely like crash bandicoot

  • yeah Crash Bandicoot too

  • In Indian music and in Eastern traditions the coloring of the sound through the instrument, the strings, etc adds the most integral part when you subdivide semitones. To me, the argument that we aren't used to listening to quarter tone music has a fault if it isn't represented correctly. A pure and mathematical rendering of the notes loses it's effect when there is no rich/subtle coloring of the tones.

  • I love how entertaining you make use of this new set of notes. You are really a great advocate for this.-- Its like the 12 note scale, it obviously can and has been used in 1,000s of different ways by composers across the centuries. It just a set of materials and its up to composer to make something musical out of it. Yay for you, Scott.

  • It sort of reminds me of listening to music while i was tripping on a large dose of magic mushrooms, all the pitches warping and strange emotions being revealed. It's certainly a new language of music that you have to sort-of commit to understanding if you really want to enjoy it, I think it's awesome, to be honest. You just have to get used to it to get past the weirdness factor.

  • Awesome man, really beautiful music. I used to associate microtonal music with being 'crap' but the more I listen to more obscure musics the more I can appreciate 'unusual' sounding stuff. Great man.

  • i usually hear quarter tones in a lot of indian music. Marty Friedman's guitar playing has some quarter tones too in his bends

  • i like it

  • I don't like this much, that's good that people tries sth other than 12TET but why most of the pieces along with harmonic order losts all posibble clarity becoming totalli chaotic/random notes madness? That's my biggest charge to this and many (NOT all) microtonal pieces.

  • I agree with you. Take a look at

    watch?v=eM3cFodNHws.

    It is microtonal... and pretty!

    I don't mean microtonal music is ugly, I mean most of the microtonal music found on YT when searching for "microtonal" are bizarre approaches like this one.

  • lol i didnt wacth the whole video b4 i posted that...he mentions the other smaller intervals

  • u think quarter tones are trippy?

    there is a guitar neck that is a sixth tone guitar, so instead of 12 notes per octave, or 24 notes per octave like this guy is talking about, there is 36.

    it blew my fuckin mind when i seen that.

    could you imagine doing finger tapping with that many frets and intervals?

  • I have one question, I hope will be answered; to my ears all athmosphere that this music, and generally piano 1/4 tone compositions create in my head is fear and anguish, is it only me , or would getting used to this music help? Cos it only seems good for dramatic theatral or movie moments to me. Even though I show the highest espect to the players : D!

  • I think it must be because the dissonnance is really present here, wich makes really strange harmonies. And the harmonies gives us emotions, and it makes us remembers things of life, but the quarter tone is totally unknow by the ears and the brain, there is something that's not right somewhere, and the brain try to find it.

    It may be wrong, but that's what I think.

  • I agree with Roflmop. It's a type of fear of the unknown. I studied this in college in the 80s and this piece doesn't sound "that wierd" compared to some of the stuff I've heard. Another reason it illicits dark emotions is that composers tend to push the more dissonant intervals because they are exploring; trying to go more outside. Quarter tones, more than most other micro tonal intervals, are hard to write with and NOT sound dissonant.

  • This sounds really good if you ask me.

    Very cool sound.

  • I wake up in the morning, get ready for school... sit my ass on the computer, see this, watch it, Holy shit I feel high

  • can someone send me the piano shee.... oh wait...

  • You can actually create QT intervals and triads on a standard guitar with a little bending and barres.

  • Sounds like cartoon music. Neat. It could be beautiful if they werent strung together chromatically in clusters for the wholepeice. These qts would make damn fine tension builders in regular 12 tet music. People are probably a lot more familiar with qts than they realize. People speak in microtones.

  • There should be a system of scales and microtonal chords in this quarter tone setup that sound more natural. You don't have to play the notes one after the other like a chromatic scale, even though I really liked this, it's exciting.

  • strange way to start my day

  • I actually love this! Awesome man! Although I'm a bit suspicious, some of those 'instruments' sound dangerously electronic ;-)...

    I think quarter tone music can be beautiful, and Indian Raga melodies DO use quarter tones - although their scales may only have 8 or 9 notes

  • I think this is fascinating, and can't get enough microtones. Keep at it hard, friend, like the great Ives would say.

  • ugh. chromatics are bad enough on the 12 note scale.

    Hearing them here is just torture.

  • This is borderline disturbing

  • or maybe BORDERLINE AWESOME!

  • reminds me of bumblefoot

  • This music would be outlawed if it were heard in the Middle Ages lol

  • how mischievous. i like it.

  • can you even transcribe this?

  • can you even describe this?

  • FLOATTING HEAD MAN MAEKS DA MUSIC GUD

  • i was laughing about that, but once the music started i just started dying laughing... this is GOLD

  • Why everything related to microtonal music looks so weird? Weird people, weird video images, weird sounds... why don't they try to make something beautiful instead of all those creepy crappy sounds?

  • Because, when using harmonic timbres, we recieve little to no relevant tonal information from quarter tones. The 12 tones we use reasonably well approxamate their locations of consonance that sound like they have tonal function, like how a fifth sounds like a leading tone etc, but the ones in between tend not to. Doesn't mean it can't sound good though!

    Good just has to be defined as "cool", "neat", or "interesting" and not strictly "pretty" or even "tonal".

  • it would probably be dificult to make it beutiful because the sounds and scales used to form the song would be so abstract that it would seem ugly to most. It's probably better to make it abstract to stick with the abstract concept of quarter tones. Nontheless, could be done

  • I'm very interested in quarter tone music and I enjoy your composition!

  • the way you talk is really awkward, I almost fell asleep listening to the first two minutes, I suggest you improve your speech skills or make a video with only your music and put your preface as text

  • I thought it was very relaxing.

  • even if arabic and eastern music has quarter-tones. They are only for illustrative purposes. If you listen to indian raga's the melody is entirely quartertone free, they are only illustrations.

  • This is good, reminds me of Looney Toons., kind of like one micro song by another guy- 'speaking into the air'. Liked that one too.

  • this can be like ome shit when your stuck in a maze in liek zelda or some shit lmfao

  • Kevin?

  • @westdyolf rofl i c wat u mean like the kinda confusion and chaos music

  • great, great! awesome piece! what i probably like the most is its simple structure - its really accesible and a fun piece, the ives - pieces are superb, but quite hard to listen to, your piece opens a new experience also for not so "trained" classical listeners! I wonder, how did you train your imagination? do you listen to a lot of quarter -tone music or what did you do? and what accidentals do you use? penderecki's, you know, like one half of the common sharp sign for one quarter - tone sharp?

  • Great music Diesel, very interesting.  What software did you use for this piece?

  • I'll stick with Ives. Not bad though

  • I suggest you to keep in touch with one my italian friend (see on youtube under pymmusic), maybe it's interesting to both

  • the quarter tones are very interesting, but we have to learn songs ang modes from the orient before other things. It's like jazz with complicated chords. We have to learn to play well the jazz if we want to use that. It's the same thing with music in quarter tones.

  • Los invito a la nueva web de microtonalismo:

    microtonalismo punto com

    Tambien hay musica y videos de microtonalismo a todo dar.

  • This is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I'm sorry but I think it will probably sound silly no matter how many times I hear it.

    Did he really "just" write that thing in one day? I guess I could belive it. It was pretty silly. But It's hard to believe he inputed all that midi stuff in a day, you know?

    If people are interested in microtonality, they should know that a good amount of it doesn't so overtly exploit chromaticism and glissando effects. Listen to ALOIS HABA.

  • wow you are stoned huh?

  • whooooaaaaaaa

    this is like weed x 666

  • Los invito a la nueva web de microtonalismo: MICROTONALISMO punto COM

    Tambien hay musica y videos de microtonalismo.

    Saludos

  • WHY ARE YOU GLOWING D:

  • why isn't he going?

  • I meant glowing....lol

  • Can I get an mp3 of this?

  • Holy shit, that was awesome.

  • I wonder how this would sound in odd meter. =)

  • This song reminds me somewhat of Steely Dan's "Through With Buzz"

  • cool vid and music.

    +nice yellow glow, reminds me of the spirit of obi-wan kenobi :)

  • this is so excelent!!! :D

  • i wonder what the glow around him has to do with quarter tones

  • quarter tones just does that to you.

  • I think quarter-tone music sounds "wrong" partially because so many composers try to write "tonally" with quarter-tones...and much of tonality was designed for traditional equal-temperment. By the way, listen to Harry Partch if you want to hear some really unique stuff. :)

    Adam

  • tonality was around way before equal temperament was implemented

  • Julián Carrillo Microtonality is different... He doesnt use the equal-temperament. He searched for sounds more pure, so its interesting also, that could be like a search for a tonality before the temperament.

  • You're speaking of Just Intonation. The scale of which is derived from complex timbre, (harmonics, overtones) of an object. Harry Partch scale was 42 notes 2 the octave. Whereas Ives Quarter tones R neatly fit between the temopered western scale making 24 notes to the octave, Interestingly much of just intonation sounds very consonant rather than dissonant example a 7th is considered dissonant in tempered scale but in Just intonation scale its consonant.

  • this is nice but why you didn't mention Julian Carrillo!!!

  • This was wonderful. Do you have any resources where I could learn more about quarter tone theory and composition?

  • There is a reason no one writes music in quarter tones...

  • There is. Because we are not used to... A but stupid huh?

  • It is what is wrong with modernism...everyone has to be different and origonal...

  • you did a great job with this. really peaked my interest. i will be investigating quarter tones further.

  • Sounds out of tune

  • Of course it does...idiot.

  • why do people not write music in quarter tones

  • 2:20 - nice.

  • music starts at 2:10 btw

  • this is amazing. sooo much to be explored

  • I want to break out of 12-TET music. This sounds so liberating to play!

  • Dude sounds drunk when he's talking. Music is fantastic though.

  • Hey, that was good,

    Thanks

  • wow 24 per octave thats like there are between sharps as well as between e and f for example this is insane...

  • this is so trippy... horror movie directors should look into this sort of thing more

  • i wished my programme could play quarter-tones... which programm do you use?

  • thats freaky...

  • woah that's psychedelic.

  • Reminds me of a sort of relentless Kurt Weil.

  • The Italian Renaissance composer and theorist Nicola Vicentino (1511-1576) experimented with microintervals and built a keyboard with 36 keys to the octave, known as the archicembalo.[citation needed] However Vicentino's experiments were primarily motivated by his research (as he saw it) on the ancient Greek genera, and by his desire to have beatless intervals (when played with near-harmonic-series timbres) available within chromatic compositions.

  • I complitly understand because I make microtonal music, hehehe. You're welcome on my profil. Cheers from Slovenia, Actooon ;)

  • interesting.. it would sound so much better with real instruments, but good luck finding musicians willing to learn, and play this kind of thing!

    but have you considered using quarter-tones more sparingly, within a framework of mostly "normal" tuned stuff? for example, if you want to spice up your food with salt, you pour on just a little, rather than dump the whole container on.

  • I'm confused...doesn't an octave have 8 tones?