Techniques of Polytempic Polymicrotonal Composition

  Continuation of part XIIIa: Trisyllabic and Tetrasyllabic feet for intervallic cells As a continuation of part XIIIa, I will provide more notes and examples of prosody as applied to voice leading , intervallic cells, and a type of loose pitch organization as applicable to any microtonal system used in polymicrotonality . The most important aspect of this technique is the specific use of the ultrachromatic cell , prescribed as the unstressed unit "U." According to which smallest intervallic unit your microtonal system is using, for example, the 92.3 cent microchromatic interval of 13tet , becomes arsis U. (All this is presented in part XIIIa) Thesis "—" then contains the remaining group of intervals still within the microtonal system, but are larger than a microchromatic step. Therefore, the third microtonal scale degree , or larger, will be considered as skips, leaps, and jumps to other pitches. The reader may interpret these other larger intervals in the fr...

 Applying Prosody to a Microtonal System What is Prosody, and what the Heck does it have to do with Microtones?   Although Leonard Meyer created a musical analysis approach using simple prosodic elements from the analysis of poetic syllabic feet, I have always been interested in prosody and its close relationship to song and music in general. This morning, as my cat Maximus attacked my face while I was trying to sleep, I had an idea concerning the use of prosody with regard to microtonal systems.  Fig. 1. Disyllabic permutations as applied to microtonal voice leading and pitch cell organization In prosody, poems are written syllabically in a meter, such as in iambic pentameter .  Most English classical poetry is written in iambic pentameter. Take Milton's Paradise Lost , for instance. This epic poem is entirely written in a foot resembling: ∪ — where "∪" is the unstressed syllable, and "—" is the stressed syllable. There are three categories of syllabic feet: ...

  Compression of Harmon y in Polymicrotonality One technique regarding the gradual compression of micro-intervallic structures in the microchromatic line is shown below, in Figure 3, from my String Quartet 12 , Big Bad Mother Fucker From Outer Space, 2019.  Figure 1. Tuning Legend from String Quartet #12 String Quartet 12 is explicitly polymicrotonal , with microtonal systems in full, except for the last one. We start with 20tet at 60 cents, 22tet at 54.5 cents, quartertones at 50 cents, and lastly, 18 of the 26tet gamut , at 46.15 cents. Since a starting pitch needs to be chosen for further divisions of the octave of a pitch class set , and inclusive of all other pitch classes within that octave, and for all microtonal systems within the given octaves of each system, I chose C as "1/1" as indicating the "untouched," pure beginning pitch. In this case, the pitch C is from 12tet and is 261.6 Hz. Any pitch class can be used, including a starting pitch up the over...

  5000 Microtonal Scales Myriad intervals from a plethora of microtonal scales . Considering the wealth of information about this on the internet, this will oddly be my shortest blog entry. As I write these, I am trying not to recreate my own book, Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music , or start another survey of sorts. I would rather just get down to it, but I have to consider whether things are extraneous or redundant.  Ultimately, we are still at the precipice of the eternal argument between Pythagoras and Aristoxenus . Will we use rational unequal tunings , or equal divisions with or without octave equivalence into infinity? Answer: BOTH. I prefer to forget the position of either/or in consideration of a stance that embraces both of these paradigms. So, with precision and concision, I will adroitly say this:  There are choices to be made in polymicrotonal composition (you may use dice for this decision). If we consider the historical, theoretical, and cultural microton...

Examples of Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music are found in my archive . Please explore my Internet Archive.  So, rather than take snapshots of sections out of context and paste them in each blog, I thought that the interested reader would rather look through my work to see how I have used Polytempic Polymicrotonality , polymeter , and polyrhythms and microtones in general.  List of Works in Score Thoegersen freely distributes his scores via the   Internet Archive . Scores for all the works below are available there. Dates indicate composition. Drumset 3:4:5:7, for Solo drumset #1 1995 Solo for Drumset #2 2022 Solo for Drumset #3 2022 Solo for Drumset #4 2022 Solo for Drumset #5 2022 Solo for Drumset VI 2022 STSOMA Drumsolo #7 2022 solo for drumset #8 2022 Solo for Drumset #9 2022 Solo for Drumset X: polymixtures 2022 Drumset solo #11 2022 Vocals and other instruments Always Sleeping 2006 Facebook Song Cycle: What's on your mind, 2017 Solo works Dreams Like Little Movies,...

  What is Polytempo?   What is tempo? First of all, we must understand what tempo is. So I will explore this topic as deliberately, naively, and as guilelessly as I possibly can, to ask the most basic questions without the pomp, rhetoric, and expectations of my doctorate, telling both me that I damn well know what tempo is, when in fact, do I? Jean-Baptiste Lully thought he knew what tempo was when he accidentally crushed his toe with his staff, pounding the tempo onto the floor while conducting Te Deum . Lully was 'tempoed' to death. There is no more concrete example of tempo than this. Now imagine three more Lullys pounding the floor at different rates of speed with their staffs. This is polytempo, and hopefully not the accidental polydeaths of the three additional Lullys.  Today's version of this would not be so much the conductor, but perhaps a drummer? Or more precisely, the click-track pounds the tempo into the ears of hapless musicians via headphones for them to p...