Microtonalism in Electronic Music
Electronic music facilitates the use of any kind of microtonal tuning, and sidesteps the need to develop new notational systems (Griffiths, Lindley, and Zannos 2001). In 1954, Karlheinz Stockhausen built his electronic Studie II on an 81-step scale starting from 100 Hz with the interval of 51/25 between steps (Stockhausen 1964, 37), and in Gesang der Jünglinge (1955–56) he used various scales, ranging from seven up to sixty equal divisions of the octave (Decroupet and Ungeheuer 1998, 105, 116, 119–21). In 1955, Ernst Krenek used 13 equal-tempered intervals per octave in his Whitsun oratorio, Spiritus intelligentiae, sanctus (Griffiths, Lindley, and Zannos 2001).
In 1986, Wendy Carlos experimented with many microtonal systems including just intonation, using alternate tuning scales she invented for the album Beauty In the Beast. "This whole formal discovery came a few weeks after I had completed the album, Beauty in the Beast, which is wholly in new tunings and timbres" (Carlos 1989–96).
Read more about this topic: Microtonal Music
Famous quotes containing the words electronic and/or music:
“Ideally, advertising aims at the goal of a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspirations and endeavors. Using handicraft methods, it stretches out toward the ultimate electronic goal of a collective consciousness.”
—Marshall McLuhan (19111980)
“Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside youlike music to the musician or Marxism to the Communistor else it is nothing, an empty formalized bore around which pedants can endlessly drone their notes and explanations.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940)