A quarter tone play, is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale, an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which is half a whole tone.
Many composers are known for having written music including quarter tones or the quarter tone scale (24 equal temperament), first proposed by 19th-century music theorist Mikha'il Mishaqah, including: Pierre Boulez, Julián Carrillo, Mildred Couper, Alberto Ginastera, Gérard Grisey, Alois Hába, Ljubica Marić, Charles Ives, Tristan Murail, Krzysztof Penderecki, Giacinto Scelsi, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tui St. George Tucker, Ivan Alexandrovich Wyschnegradsky, and Iannis Xenakis (see List of quarter tone pieces).
Read more about Quarter Tone: Types of Quarter Tones, Playing Quarter Tones On Musical Instruments, Music of The Middle East, In Popular Music, Ancient Greek Tetrachords, Interval Size in Equal Temperament
Famous quotes containing the words quarter and/or tone:
“A quarter of an hour is worth a thousand pieces of gold.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the months labor in the farmers almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)