Harry Partch - BBC Documentary - Part 6 of 6

Part 6 of a documentary about the composer Harry Partch who invented his own compositional method using a 43-tone scale and many instruments that he built by hand. ... (more)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Harry
• Partch
• Composer
• 43-Tone
• Microtonality
• Music
• Tuning
• Intonation
• Instruments
• Inventions
• Experimental
• Creative
• Odd

[gschifini]

thank for the post I have never seen

this great film about Partch

by the way on sept 29 New Band is performing "On the Seventh Day Petals fell in Petaluma" in Montclair NJ.

google New Band

[ShockTheseTrees]

Ooh, nice! Thanks for bringing that up, I didn't know about it. I'm definitely going to try and attend that.

[ShockTheseTrees]

Yes the college is very close to me. I often want to go and see them but I have not yet gotten around to it. I'm glad I have the option tough, who would have thought they'd end up in NJ?

[karlgrossman]

Watched all six parts. What a great open mind Harry Partch had! As for us listeners, it 'might' be the old saying, "it must have been really fun to play" - meaning it wasn't an easy listen. You don't have to 'choose' between Harry's sonic world and harmonic music, but enjoy it all. We CAN hear microtones in a blues guitarist's bends... I love Harry's vision of being 'corporeal' with music, let it move you, and your music will move others

[dahwang12]

Thank you so much for this documentary. Harry Partch is a man that never should be forgotten.

[Enantiodromialist]

@SeadogDriftwood If you’re looking for something less dismissive, “one of the greatest people who ever lived” works just fine. He took one of the oldest, most complex, abstract, and elevated disciplines known to man & literally reinvented it from the ground up to a level of high sophistication (“Castor and Pollux” & “And on the Seventh Day, Petals Fell in Petaluma”, in particular, are supreme marvels of counterpoint and formal elegance that put Bach and Mozart to shame). A hero among heros.

[Enantiodromialist]

To the REAL weirdos like me:

Believe it or not, here is a missing link between Harry Partch and Ferruccio Busoni –

the pianist Gunnar Johannsen (sp?) — student of Egon Petri and grandstudent of Busoni, and one of two people to record the Concerto (that I know of) *before* John Ogdon — was a friend of Partch (I don’t recall how) in his mid-state-California wilderness years, and even gave Partch — of all things — a piano crate to store his instruments in.

[FHUmusic]

Thank you for posting this. I only knew Partch from a textbook. It's nice to put a man with the name.

[jomotok]

i've had a lot of fun listening to a SyZyGys record recently (i guess who make 43-note octave pop tunes with various outside influences) and it's ace to learn about the guy who kicked things off. ta.

[SeadogDriftwood]

One of the - if not THE greatest musical experimenters in history. But that's not saying much, and sounds kinda dismissive.

Y'know, just give a listen to his work "U.S. Highball", and you'll hear what makes him great.

[amatorynumber]

@gmatusk When I said 'the history books' I didn't quite mean the Groves dictionary of music and musicians... Still, thanks for the tip!!! :-)

[gmatusk]

@amatorynumber Two of the standard reference works on music, Groves and Baker's, do not ignore Partch. Nicolas Slonimsky, as editor of "Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians," was obviously enthusiastic about Partch and the subject of non-standard systems of tuning.

[Melechkibitzer]

I understand. and it hurts and it feels great at the same time.

[amatorynumber]

why did the likes of Schönberg make it to the history books and not this guy? I am not saying Schönberg doesnt deserve the honour, but this makes me think history books are wrong... well, I knew it all along, this is just another example. Wonderful man!!!

[Herooftimex]

i learned about this man about 2 hours ago. He is fascinating. great documentary!