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:
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When you listen to gongs and drums, listen to the music; when you listen to someone talk, listen to his tone of voice.”
—Chinese proverb.