Portrait of insects with 15-tone equal tempered guitar music

Having not posted for awhile, I decided to make another one of my Windows Movie Maker slideshows. This video features many pictures of bees, butterflies, dragonflies, caterpillars, and even a worm. (Yes, I know it's not an insect, but I was limited by the small number of insects I've actually photographed.) The copious bee pictures stem from my wife Tet's fascination with bees when we take walks. Since she delights in photographing the bees, I get inspired to do the same. :)

The video also includes photos of wasps and spiders that made a home in our two new Alberta spruce trees (named Albert and Alberta). I took the pictures of the wasps (yellowjackets) to help me better understand the difference between bees and wasps. (Although I never intended to make artwork out of the wasps, they're one of the few insects I've photographed where there's more than one in the picture.) I think from viewing this video, at the very least you can learn the difference between the fat hairy bee and the meaner looking yellowjacket.

The music I've composed may seem a bit unusual. Instead of the usual 12 pitches, this composition uses 15 equally spaced notes in each octave. That causes the music to sound a bit strange and "out of tune," but I have tried to make drama out of this, so that it can be out of tune "in a good way."

The inspiration of my microtonal compositions stems from a theory class I took years ago with professor Richmond Browne, in which we learned certain mathematical properties of the diatonic set (e.g., pitches used in the major scale and other modes), such as unique multiplicity. My initial reaction was to test this theory in various ways, such as by composing music using other scales that have these properties. Back then, I wrote some pieces with a pentatonic scale embedded within 8 equally tempered notes per octave.

Many years have passed, but on a recent road trip in the Philippines, to pass the time, I created diagrams of similar scales, such as an 8-note scale within 15-note equal temperament (e.g., 15 equally spaced notes per octave instead of 12). My 8-note scale is almost identical to the well-known octatonic scale, but it's less symmetrical and has a different number of occurrences for each interval class.

After the trip, I wanted to see if my Finale software could play microtonal music, and I found it could do so using expressions assigned to specifically calculated pitch bends. To have something fun to do on the Christmas holiday weekend, I composed this piece for 5 guitars, each tuned slightly differently, so that together they can play 15-note equal tempered music.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• microtonal
• music
• 15-note
• equal
• temperament
• guitar
• quintet
• Insects
• worms
• bees
• wasps
• yellowjackets
• spiders
• dragonflies
• photography
• Jonathan
• Rabson
• Niagara
• Butterfly
• Conservatory
• composition
• Finale

[Pymmusic]

Complimenti!

Paolo

[JonathanRabson]

@Pymmusic Grazie :)

[JonathanRabson]

@jailbreakir There must be. I used Finale for this, which is really a notation program. I've been wary of downloading unfamiliar software, but look up Zenharmonic Alliance on Google, and you'll see that there's a Facebook group, and those people are experts on every aspect of microtonal music. Let me know if you find something really good. :)

[jailbreakir]

@JonathanRabson yes, i personally think that 19tet or 19edo could become more popular if the ideas were pushed more. the system is more consonant then 12tet and really opens the door to a lot of different ideas for experimentation while still allowing normal musicians to keep playing in the traditional manner while not sounding too different (from 12tet). would you know of any software that allows you to use microtonal music for composing by the way?

[JonathanRabson]

@jailbreakir It's actually written out for 5 guitars. Each guitar plays an augmented triad only, and they're all tuned differently. Actually, if you look around youtube, you'll see that some people re-fret guitars to do microtonal music. The most popular re-turnings seem to be with 19-EDO. Some people have videos on how to do that. However, the software I used isn't good for simulating re-fretted instruments; it's better for retuning an entire staff.

[jailbreakir]

@JonathanRabson never thought of using serialism in something other than 12 tone, i had this weird feeling that serialism could only be applied to 12 tone, because of the examples of 12 tone rows and such, also how do you come across at 15 tet guitar?

[JonathanRabson]

@jailbreakir I've only used 12-tone occasionally, for an effect, but my understanding of the difference between it & serialism is just that serialism is broader - not restricted to pitch or the number 12. However, historically, I guess there was a progression toward increasing strictness, as you suggest. But it all derives from age-old imitative counterpoint techniques. My piece though goes the opposite direction: all principles of traditional tonality intact, but altered due to microtonality.

[jailbreakir]

@JonathanRabson when i wrote 12 tone, i kind of regretted it because there is repetition of notes, whereas in serialism you arent allowed to do that until you use the other 11 notes, right? what i should have wrote is that there are a lot of chromatics and dissonance to the piece, but that is to be expected though with all these unusual tunings.

[TaterGumfries]

Needs some banjo.

[JonathanRabson]

@jailbreakir Yeah, I can see some reminiscence of Stravinsky in the percussive driving repeated 8th-note gestures with syncopations. Stravinsky liked crispness, & I guess that's one side of me too, whereas my other uploads are more Romantic/flowing. I don't see much in common here with serialism, though tuning in 15-TET can be viewed as "hyper-chromatic." I guess the dev. section might make one think of serialism, which is rooted in imitative counterpoint anyway.