Category: Columns

Building Audiences for Post-Genre Artists

Posted on September 29, 2017 by - Columns

Over the past two weeks, I have outlined a post-genre framework for characterizing music and posed questions that I have been grappling with in my own thinking. In my first post, my focus was on language and how we could realistically create a cohesive vocabulary to describe and discuss music in the absence of genre-based terms. In my second post, I dug into the role of listeners and how their pre-existing associations surrounding genre may or may not confound post-genre thinking. With these questions in mind, what I am left wondering about the most is how to build audiences for post-genre artists.

The main issue regarding audience-building centers around sources of funding. While conducting research on a vocal group called Roomful of Teeth this past summer, I was able to discuss this issue at length with Bill Brittelle. Brittelle, a strong proponent of post-genre thinking, is a commissioned composer for Roomful of Teeth and a co-founder of New Amsterdam Records.

There are a number of similarities between the music I have explored in my research by composers such as Brittelle and Missy Mazzoli, who are often lumped into the “classical” category, and the music that I listen to outside of my research, much of which is lumped into the “indie” or “alternative” category. One of my favorite bands, Dirty Projectors, comes to mind as a group that is unafraid to make new sounds and experiment with their music-making in a way that I connect with the music of some of my favorite “new music” composers. The difference between them, aside from the genre that their music is labeled under, lies in the way that it’s monetized. In our conversation, Brittelle described the following scenario:

We’ve talked about this a lot at New Amsterdam. There are two separate worlds of monetization, and there are these cliffs around what is monetized through the commercial marketplace versus what is monetized through the nonprofit world. Everything I do is essentially supported by a nonprofit. Anytime I’m presented at a performing arts center or I’m commissioned, there’s a nonprofit source somewhere back there. But let’s take David Longstreth [of Dirty Projectors] as another example—almost everything he does is supported by some kind of commercial entity. The volume of people he’s able to reach is very different because of that network.

We discussed his frustration that while post-genre music existing on the nonprofit model often struggles to find its audience, equally innovative and experimental bands are able to develop devoted audiences on the commercial model. He described it like this:

We look at the music and it’s not that different. I analyzed “Useful Chamber” by Dirty Projectors in a post-genre class that I taught. It’s an incredible piece of composed music, but it also has to do with the way that it lives out in the world and who it reaches through commercial channels instead of nonprofit channels.

Would shifting the way that post-genre music is funded actually build its listener base?

So not only does genre-based language mislead listeners about post-genre music, but it also affects how the music itself is monetized and thus how artists make their living and find their audiences. This presents a double loss for composers of post-genre music that are assigned a “classical” label, as the system of monetization they are engaged with may not be the right option for their music. The connection between systems of monetization and audience-building has to do with the types of people who engage with the music being funded by the two systems. Part of it may have to do with age; the nonprofit system is a donor-based model, and older people are typically the people with the money. The commercial model is based more on consumption, which is arguably more relevant to younger audiences. These two groups are on opposite ends of the age spectrum. But it also certainly has to do with the network and the types of publicity that result depending on which system of monetization the music is placed under. When it comes to the type of music that Brittelle is writing, much of which draws on synthesizers and drum machines, the ideal audience would likely be those listening to more commercially produced music that also draws on these types of sounds, rather than the types of audiences that read the classical music section of The New York Times and frequently attend performances put on by nonprofit organizations like opera houses and symphony orchestras. Therefore, perhaps a way to build audiences for music like Brittelle’s is to shift it over to a for-profit commercial system of monetization. The network that this would provide him and his music, along with the base of listeners that would be more accessible as a result, would certainly be beneficial. But then the questions become: How do we go about taking genre out of the way music is monetized? And moreover, would shifting the way that post-genre music is funded actually build its listener base?

We have already seen that this is a difficult shift to make. New Amsterdam Records, founded by Brittelle, Judd Greenstein, and Sarah Kirkland Snider, has aimed to do essentially this. They founded a record label whose aim was to promote classically trained musicians who fall between traditional genre boundaries on a for-profit model. An article in the Wall Street Journal last year described how, despite creating a much-needed outlet for post-genre music, operating on a for-profit model has proved to be difficult. A record that sells well for New Amsterdam will still only sell around 5,000 copies, which they explained is barely enough to cover the cost of production.

NewAm Founders

New Amsterdam Co-Founders Judd Greenstein, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Bill Brittelle.

While the minimal monetary success that New Amsterdam has had despite the switch to a for-profit model is discouraging, I believe that it does not mean that such an operation will not be more widely successful in the future. This issue is intrinsically tied to genre being central in musical criticism and promotion; even if the music that New Amsterdam is pumping out is accessible and innovative and could potentially appeal to a large number of listeners throughout the world, the fact that many of its recorded artists are still tied into the “classical” label to some degree will still deter people from listening and hinder efforts to create opportunities for post-genre artists to build their audiences and lead more sustainable lifestyles. Thus, the process of finding a fitting place for post-genre music and artists will be a multi-step process. Once we are able to create a cohesive language and fully understand how to discuss music in the absence of genre-based language, we can begin to shift the way that music is promoted and critiqued. Once the shift occurs in music promotion and critique, I hope that post-genre thinking will slowly begin to spread to audiences and listeners. And once this way of thinking about music gains some traction, I hope that listeners will begin to explore the music that they would have separated themselves from back when we labeled it as “classical.” These shifts could create the draw that post-genre composers need to build their audiences and create a fully successful for-profit post-genre label.

The Role of Listeners in a Post-Genre Context

Posted on September 21, 2017 by - Columns

Last week, I spent some time grappling with issues of language in a post-genre musical framework. I was left wondering how we could realistically create a cohesive language to describe, appraise, and promote music in the absence of genre-related terms. Is that even possible? The prevalence of genre in our current characterization of music, as well as the important role of the composer within this framework (which I also delved into in my previous post), led me to another issue that I have yet to fully resolve. Namely, I have been struggling to fully understand the role of the listener in post-genre.

There is no doubt that all listeners have pre-existing connotations surrounding certain types of sounds.

As I described in my previous post, post-genre thinking seeks to move away from objective methods of characterizing music, instead focusing on a more subjective method within which music is viewed piece by piece with an emphasis on the intention and background of the composer. If a composer has no intent of writing within the “classical” genre label, then attempting to understand the piece through a classical lens is irrelevant. But what about the listener? There is no doubt that all listeners have pre-existing connotations surrounding certain types of sounds. Realistically, because we have discussed music in terms of these genre constructions for so long, a listener’s experience is likely to naturally include elements of: “This moment in this piece of music reminds me of X genre, which makes me think of Y connotation.” For example, imagine a situation in which a composer uses strings in a way that reminds a listener of “classical” music. The composer may have had no stylistic/genre-based intent, but that does not stop the listener from making this association. Does this detract from a composer’s intent in any way? What impact do these associations have on a person’s listening experience when it involves a piece written by a composer who has no intent of associating with any element of genre? This issue can be highlighted by taking a look at the piece Otherwise by Brad Wells, founder and conductor of Roomful of Teeth.

Wells’s piece draws on Sardinian cantu a tenore and belting, both of which are vocal techniques that are commonly employed by the group’s composers due to the singers’ vocal training in them. The score for this piece also instructs Dashon Burton, who sings baritone for the group, to sing his lines “bel canto.” The first instance of this bel canto singing happens just past the one-minute mark in the recording.

Wells has talked about his use of these different vocal techniques and styles in a previous interview, mentioning that he views them as different gears and colors for his compositions. While I was visiting the group at MASS MoCA, I had the opportunity to speak with him and was able to dig a bit more into his opinions on the stylistic implications in Otherwise. We talked about his decision to combine bel canto, belting, and Sardinian cantu a tenore, and I asked him whether he was interested in intentionally taking two specific and separate styles and combining them as a means of comparing them, or if his interest was purely in exploring colors and gears. He responded:

It’s purely in color. But for me, I think about it as if you were doing something visual. Say you were making a collage piece and you had some pattern that you got from a particular tradition that is super vibrant, and you wanted to put a stretch of that alongside something else. The origin of it, what it represents, is not at all how I would think about it. But the emotional charge that it brings is very much a part of it… What happens when you bring them together? What emotions are evoked? But speaking to Otherwise—part of it was just about brilliance, too. The belt-y sound that the three women do alongside the high bel canto baritone—they can keep up with him. That’s a pretty balanced spectral range going through both techniques, but they’re very different.

What I take away from Wells’s response is that, when writing using these stylistic influences and vocal techniques, his interest is not necessarily in the styles themselves, but rather in the emotional charge and specific color that each brings to the table, as well as how their combination allows for new colors and emotional charges. This is the individual intent behind the piece he wrote. However, when I hear Dashon singing his bel canto baritone lines, my first response as a listener is, “Wow, listen to that opera singer!” So despite Wells’s emotional charge and color-focused intent, the listener’s experience likely still centers, to some degree, around genre and stylistic labeling.

One of the outside walls of MASS MoCA which is partially covered with posters for exhibitions: Sol Lewitt, Federico Urbe, UNTL.

How do we reconcile the role of the listener, who may naturally use genre and style to label what they hear, within a post-genre framework? Does this confound the entire post-genre concept? In the future of developing a more concrete framework, it will be extremely important to address the role of listeners and how their pre-existing understanding of genre and style may affect their listening experience despite a composer’s intent. The way that I currently imagine the role of the listener working together with the intent of the composer is by emphasizing that post-genre thinking does not seek to entirely eliminate the existence of genre and style distinctions. It would be utopian to imagine a world where genre disappeared in a puff of smoke and no longer impacted how we processed music; currently, these types of associations are pretty intrinsically tied to people’s listening experiences.

Genre can be viewed as something that inherently shapes our liking and disliking of a certain piece of music.

However, perhaps by reframing the implications of genre, we can reconcile the role of listeners without ignoring these elements of their experience. For example, we could begin to think of “genres” as concepts that carry certain emotional or experiential implications on an individual basis. In this way, genre can be viewed as something that inherently shapes our liking and disliking of a certain piece of music, instead of as bins that pieces of music and composers must comment on. Rather than hearing a moment in a piece that reminds us of “classical” music and subsequently filing the piece away under the “classical” label and associating it with the historical classical tradition, we can reframe and think, “The sounds in that moment are reminiscent of what I think of as “classical” music, which makes me feel X feeling, which affects my experience of this piece and how much I like it.” In this scenario, the listener’s association does not involve them placing the piece into a genre categorization. Instead, the focus is on the individual experience of the piece and how the sounds in the piece affect how much they like it. This allows the music to exist on a piece-by-piece basis as opposed to being tied into a tradition or an institution. Of course, there is no way to get into people’s minds and actually change the way that they think about the music they hear; I believe that the more direct shift will come in conjunction with the development of a more cohesive non-genre-focused language. As artists and music critics/promoters shift their conversations about music, this way of thinking will likely seep into the minds of listeners to some degree. But for now, at the very least, this reframing of genre’s role in listening may serve as a way for composers and critics to rationalize the listener’s experience. As we move forward, we cannot disregard the listener’s potential tendencies towards genre-based thinking. We must figure out a way to understand what it means to think about genre in post-genre music.

Thinking About Language in a Post-Genre Context

Posted on September 14, 2017 by - Columns

I spent this summer immersed in the music of Roomful of Teeth, a “vocal band” consisting of eight singers with a commitment to exploring the expressive potential of the human voice. I was doing research in order to better understand how and why composers were using what—at that point—I was describing as “polystylism.” I spent my time labeling non-Western classical elements in the group’s pieces, gathering information on the composers’ backgrounds and “non-classical” experience (like Wally Gunn’s time spent in a punk band), interviewing the composers about their opinions relating to this topic, and eventually observing the group’s rehearsals at MASS MoCA during their intensive annual summer residency. Some time into my research, I grew uncertain about the basis of my research question; as I continued to wonder what the varied stylistic elements in each composer’s pieces meant, I also began to question whether they really had to mean anything at all. What if the composers just wanted to write this way, without any interest in “polystylism” or what their use of different styles means? Maybe this music, and the music these composers are writing outside of Roomful of Teeth, has nothing to do with stylistic elements at all.

Roomful of Teeth

Roomful of Teeth

A conversation with William Brittelle at MASS MoCA addressed many of these qualms. Brittelle, composer and co-founder of New Amsterdam Records, is a big proponent of a post-genre way of thinking about music and has had a large impact on my understanding of the post-genre framework. These ideas seem necessary and are surprisingly intuitive.

Post-genre thinking seeks to move away from objective judgment of music towards a subjective reality, where the emphasis is no longer on whether a certain piece fits/does not fit a pre-conceptualized “bin.”

At its most simple, this is a system of thinking about music that steps away from using genre as the main method of characterization and appraisal. Post-genre thinking seeks to move away from objective judgment of music towards a subjective reality, where the emphasis is no longer on whether a certain piece fits/does not fit a pre-conceptualized genre “bin.” Instead, the emphasis is on the individual intent of the composer. The individual is quite important to post-genre thinking. This framework focuses on viewing individual pieces separately from what other composers are creating as well as from preexisting expectations, allowing composers to write whatever it is they want to write. It is not about rebelling against existing genre conventions, but instead about allowing full expression of an individual composer’s musical worldviews. What is most appealing to me about post-genre thinking is that it does not seek to create a new musical movement or shift our music-making; in actuality, it serves as a more accurate representation of much of the music already being created today, and seeks to provide a better fitting system for discussing this music.

While there is still much work to be done in terms of devising a concrete theoretical framework for post-genre and understanding how this framework would be applied widely in the musical world, it has already served as a helpful tool for my thinking about new music. Prior to my shift towards this post-genre mentality, much of my analysis of Roomful of Teeth had to do with how non-Western classical stylistic elements broke the convention of what we’d expect from a group of classically trained musicians. Take Wally Gunn’s The Ascendant for example, a piece written for Roomful of Teeth and drum kit.

When first exploring the piece, I wondered why Gunn had decided to use the drum kit. What statement was he making by throwing a drum kit, more typically associated with pop/rock projects, into this group of singers? Was he actively trying to genre blend and expand classical music to include this type of instrumentation? My shift towards a post-genre aesthetic allowed me to rethink this analysis. My assumption that a composer’s use of drum kit had to mean something related to stylistic commentary is a problematic one within this framework; instead, by looking at Wally Gunn’s background and speaking with him about intent, I was able to gain a better understanding about this piece as an individual entity, rather than as a part of a collective genre-based musical identity.

The need for a shift toward post-genre seems most evident to me whenever I try to find language to discuss much of the music that interests me as a performer, composer, and listener. When asked by friends and family what kind of music I am interested in, I usually end up giving a rather vague description like, “I guess it’s ‘classical’ (always said with air quotes), but it’s not like Mahler or anything like that. It’s really cool. You’ll like it; I promise.” The word “classical” does not serve to accurately describe much of the music that is shoved under its label. I’m talking about music by many of the composers who have written for Roomful of Teeth, including Brittelle, Missy Mazzoli, and Sarah Kirkland Snider, as well as other composers such as Ted Hearne and Jodie Landau.

In my conversations with these composers, a central topic was genre-based language’s inability to capture what it is that they feel their music is doing. One of the composers I spoke with was Missy Mazzoli, who composed Vesper Sparrow for the group, and is also the leader of her own band, Victoire.

In our conversation, we discussed how she believed we, as a musical community stemming from the classical tradition, could go about breaking out of the classical bubble and getting people who may not typically engage with a string quartet to try out music like her own. She thought that language had quite a bit to do with it. According to her, using words like “new classical” is not exciting. She herself is an example of attempts at shifting the language surrounding emerging music; her group Victoire calls itself a band, and she often resists association with the term “classical.” When I asked how she talks about the music that she engages with, she responded:

I identify with the word composer, because I do come out of the classical tradition. I like that term, but anything beyond that, I feel like it’s always used against me to confine or associate my work with music that doesn’t belong with it or has nothing to do with it.

This pushing back against the “classical” label due to the fact that it confines composers and misleads listeners may be at the root of how a post-genre mentality can make its way into the mainstream. In our conversation, Brittelle addressed the importance of this, stating:

I think we have to get really aggressive about deconstruction. Every single time somebody tries to put you in that box, and tries to make things objective, you just have to push back on it. Every single time.

My response: That sounds exhausting. But perhaps by committing to a more active resistance to objective and genre-based language, conversations can begin about post-genre thinking in favor of a more accurate, individual intent-based characterization. My overarching question is then, what language do we use to discuss music instead of genre-based language? Or, more specifically, in a framework so focused on the individual, how do we create cohesive language that can be realistically used in the world of music to discuss and promote music? It may be helpful to look at postgenderism, which has worked to shift the language we use and how we discuss gender. I certainly do not have all of the answers yet, but continuing to ask questions about how we discuss the music we create and resisting genre-based language that we don’t identify with seem like steps in the right direction.

Hannah Schiller

Hannah Schiller

Hannah Schiller is a senior in the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. Her research interests center around the current musical moment; she is particularly drawn to post-genre concepts and music emerging from classically trained musicians that is difficult to categorize. She recently received an undergraduate research grant from Northwestern to study the work of Roomful of Teeth and was chosen as an Alumnae of Northwestern University Undergraduate Research Scholar as a result of her work. Hannah is also a singer, arranger, and composer of a wide variety of music.

Composing Xenharmonic Music

Posted on August 24, 2017 by - Columns

A very important aspect of music composition is, of course, that of consonance and dissonance. Consonant chords sound clean and smooth, whereas dissonant chords sound harsher and generally have an audible “beating,” like a fast tremolo. Dissonance lends the feeling of an unanswered question (such as a dominant 7th chord), and consonance gives us the feeling that it has been answered (such as a major triad). This basic concept of various musical passages leading us through question-and-answer or tension-and-release feelings should be as valid in xenharmonic music as it is in standard twelve-tone music. But it’s a challenge!

Let’s begin with the fact that you can throw most of the harmony lessons you’ve ever had right out the window when composing xenharmonic music. We don’t necessarily hear standard concepts like “major” or “minor” or “dominant” in other tunings. Instead, each tuning is its own alien world ripe with unexplored territory, each with its own set of melodies, chords, and progressions waiting to be discovered and theorized. When we do stumble upon note combinations that remind us of standard chords, they may sound a bit “off,” or else the transition from one chord to another may feel slightly different than what we’re used to. That kind of push and pull on our traditionally trained music brains is what I personally enjoy.

You can throw most of the harmony lessons you’ve ever had right out the window when composing xenharmonic music.

Xenharmonic purists tend to focus on the mathematics of tunings, expressing tonal relationships as interval ratios. They generate beautiful mathematical charts, entropy maps, and latices, which deeply inspire xenharmonic composers, including those of us who aren’t purists! However, many xenharmonic musicians take the desire for pure ratios to an extreme, wanting everything to be perfectly in tune. This leads to an interest in “just tunings” (unequal temperaments based on pure ratios), or using a zillion-notes-per-octave or even “dynamic tunings” that offer a constant stream of perfect chords–as free as possible from any beating. The more pure the ratios (low number integer ratios are purest), the cleaner and smoother the sound.

Harmonic entropy plotted for triads.

Harmonic entropy is plotted for triads. See the original post on The Xenharmonic Alliance.

In my mind, however, the more important angle to consider is how we perceive one note or chord leading into the next. We hear music over time as a series of notes and chords, after all. Harmonic movement is where emotion and meaning comes alive in a composition. That is far more important to me than whether each individual snapshot in time is in tune or not. It is all a matter of taste and aesthetic, but I don’t usually enjoy music that is based on pure ratios throughout, because it sounds one dimensional to my ears. It misses the boat on dissonance, which is just as important as consonance. Yin and yang, light and dark, tension and release!

Dissonance is just as important as consonance.

Beating or not, partly what contributes to our sense of consonance and dissonance is simply what we’re used to. In the Western world we’ve heard our imperfect twelve-tone equal temperament all our lives, and therefore may perceive perfectly in-tune 3rds and 6ths as sounding worse than their tempered counterparts, which have more beating. That simple fact has sparked much curiosity and debate about how our brains actually perceive consonance and dissonance.

It may be a surprise to learn that modern research shows strong evidence that beating is not the best measure of whether chords and intervals sound pleasant or in tune (Edward Large et al.). Our brains don’t directly decipher in tune-ness from beating. What actually happens when we hear musical sound is that our neurons begin oscillating, and this “neural resonance” dynamically “pulls” intervals into tune, as long as the frequencies are within proximity to ratios of the harmonic series. In chaos theory speak, our neural oscillations become an “attractor.” In musician speak, if it’s close enough for rock’n’roll, it will sound in tune!

In musician speak, if it’s close enough for rock’n’roll, it will sound in tune!

I think this is good news all around. For one, the research shows that our sense of consonance is indeed driven by our preference for the harmonic series, and therefore all of our traditional musical ideas still stand. But more profoundly, it shows that our traditional harmony is a mere branch of something larger. With every new research paper in this field, we can begin to see the outlines of a universal harmonic theory, implying that we can develop unique but related “harmonic rules” for any tuning.

Now enter my world as an equal-temperament composer. I believe that music composition in equal temperaments is easier and simpler than using “just” tunings or other options and that it’s an entirely legitimate means of music composition. For me, personally, equal temperaments have offered decades of fascinating exploration—messy ratios and all. I prefer to fully explore equal-tempered tunings that have a very limited number of notes, such as 10edo, 16edo, 17edo, or 19edo, and discovering their particular “flavor”, as opposed to working with something like 53edo that has so many choices of frequencies that it doesn’t, in itself, offer a distinct flavor.

What are these flavors I speak of? In general, microtonal scales (smaller than half steps) offer a tenser vibe, and macrotonal scales (larger than half steps) have a more open and alien feel. Any tuning can just as easily sound ugly or exotic or beautiful. It really truly depends on how it is used. When I’m trying out a new tuning, it always starts off on the ugly end of the spectrum until I mess around for quite a while, eventually discovering chord combinations and nifty melodic lines, and what intervals to avoid.

Any tuning can just as easily sound ugly or exotic or beautiful.

It really helps to have a proper instrument to discover your new tuning on. Even if you aren’t a piano player, keyboard “controllers” (meaning no internal sounds–just keys) are a very flexible and relatively inexpensive way for anyone to get into xenharmonic composition or to expand the setup you may already have. And this goes hand in hand with the “virtual instrument” synthesizers I reviewed last week. I have collected several keyboards over the years and have rearranged the black/white keys for each of my favorite tunings.

The current trend is to use M-Audio Keystations (49, 61, or 88 keys), which can be had for anywhere from $50-$200 on eBay and other online stores. If you can afford it, buy more than one so that you will have extra keys. You’ll need them if you’re going to dive in and rearrange the keys! Some tunings will need extra black notes, and some will need extra white notes. It’s cheaper in the long run to buy extra keyboards rather than extra individual keys, which are usually marked way up in price.

Here is a video that shows how I remove and rearrange keys on an 88 note Keystation–in this case, for a 15-note tuning which requires lots of black keys! As you’ll see, you only need a screwdriver, needle nose pliers, and possibly a sander of some sort.

One deciding factor in choosing a tuning is the level of difficulty in building a keyboard. Scales that require a smaller ratio of white notes than normal are easier to put together. White keys have a wider area to contend with and trying to squeeze more of them on the keyboard causes a need for them to be thinner. I have sanded many white keys thinner in my day. It works but is not ideal, as pianists are used to uniformly sized white keys. On the other hand, using more black keys than normal results in gaps between the keys, and thus a wider spacing than normal.

I will show a few keyboard examples here along with music links for each, and perhaps you’ll see/hear something that attracts you. Then you can either build one yourself, or ask one of us to build one for you!

10edo is one of my all-time favorites, and yet it gets a bad rap for its impure ratios. Here is something I wrote in 10edo. The diatonic scale in 10edo has larger half and whole steps than 12edo, and the thirds are right in between Major and minor, lending to its alien feel. The diatonic scale has a harmonic minor vibe to it. In a perfect world, a ten-tone keyboard would look like this:

An idealized 10-tone keyboard

However, putting three white keys in a row would involve skipping some of the keyboard contacts where there would normally be a black note. One solution is to make the C a black note painted white. However, it would be a bit strange since C is the first note of the diatonic scale.

Otherwise, here is my “cheater way,” as I call it: Sawing off the wide part of the white keys allows any desired black/white key arrangement. For this style of keyboard, I remove the entire keyboard cover and build my own handle onto the back. It looks prettier than having a big gap where the white keys are chopped off, but fashioning the handle itself is work! I would not judge anyone who leaves it in the original casing.

10 tone "Jupitar" Vertical Keyboard


10 tone “Jupitar” Vertical Keyboard by Elaine Walker

19edo is highly recommended for anyone who feels a bit intimidated by xenharmonic music composition and would like to ease into it. It is a good “transition tuning,” as it offers something close to our 12-tone diatonic scale but with more pure 3rds and 6ths. Mind you, it has worse 4ths and 5ths–there is always a tradeoff. The experience of 19edo is like an exotic version of 12edo, with some extra black notes for ornamentation. Here is one of my 19edo songs from the ‘90s.

The most typical 19edo keyboard, however, requires doubled up black keys, which leaves unsightly gaps. But again, who’s going to judge? Not I! Simply play a whole step instead of a half step, and a minor third instead of a whole step, and you’ll see the relationship to 12edo!

19-tone keyboard

19-tone keyboard by Darren McDougall. Having more black notes than usual creates gaps between the white keys.

The 17edo keyboard is easy to make, as it has the same ratio of black:white keys as 12edo. It looks like a surreal piano. I thought 17edo sounded terrible until I got used to it, and now it is one of my favorites. 17edo is also a clear favorite in the xenharmonic community. Here is something I composed in 17edo.

17-tone "Insanetar" Vertical Keyboard

17-tone “Insanetar” Vertical Keyboard by Elaine Walker. The keys fit perfectly since it has the same ratio of white and black keys as a standard piano.

Here is a 13edo keyboard which has some white keys shaved thinner. 13edo music is neuron-bending since it is just slightly off from 12edo. Enjoy this 13edo music by Aaron Andrew Hunt. I would not suggest trying this at home. I mainly wanted to show this crazy keyboard with the squished white keys around the single black notes.

13-tone keyboard

13-tone keyboard by Elaine Walker. Having more white notes than normal causes them to not fit. Some white keys are sanded thinner.

When you start looking around The Xenharmonic Alliance and other websites, you will notice many other keyboard options, such as isomorphic keyboards, although they tend to be quite pricy and largely unavailable. My favorite of these is a specific type of hexagon keyboard, known as a sonome (which is like saying “hexagon piano”). If you can get your hands on something cool like this, do it! It will open up a world of xenharmonic improvisation that isn’t as easy on a regular keyboard. Having a five octave reach, seeing chords as “shapes,” and being able to transpose while maintaining the same fingering, can make xenharmonic composition a much smoother experience.

I suggest that you not worry about theory.

Whichever tuning or instrument you choose to compose with, I suggest that you not worry about theory and just improvise by ear for as much time as you can spare. Don’t fret over the specifics of your timbres beyond whether they sound good to you–that is, if you want to compose truly beautiful xenharmonic music. At some point you will want to see what theory is “out there” for your tuning, if any, and it will be interesting to compare it to what you come up with on your own. Share your music and findings with the xenharmonic community. It is always exciting when someone posts new music. Don’t be shy about asking questions. We’re all happy to help and we even build keyboards for each other.

I will leave you with some more informative links:

My page on microtonality
My FAU lecture on microtonality
The Xenharmonic Alliance
My personal website

Xenharmonic performance at Berklee

Xenharmonic performance at Berklee College of Music, 2010

Essential Tools for Xenharmonic Music

Posted on August 17, 2017 by - Columns

Are you itching to dive in and compose some xenharmonic music, that is, to use scales that have more, or less, notes per octave than our standard twelve-tone tuning? I sure hope so because it is a largely unexplored musical universe with a lot of room for composers to find their niche.

There are many directions to explore, and it really depends on the mindset of each musician as to where to begin. One area is that of “just tunings” where most intervals are perfect ratio combinations of the harmonic series, so that chords are as in tune as possible with very little beating. This is where the mathematically inclined musical purists gravitate.

Another direction to explore is that of equal temperaments where tunings consist of an octave divided equally by any number of scale degrees. We say “19edo” to mean 19 equal divisions of the octave. (Back in the ’90s and early 2000s, it was more popular to say “19-tone equal temperament” or “19tet”.) My favorites are 10edo, 16edo, and 17edo. This is my world, where there is no need to sweat over ratios or technicalities, but to just play by ear and enjoy the distinct flavor of each tuning.

In the past it was easier to find synthesizers that could be tuned to equal temperament than ones that allowed for the full tuning of individual notes across the keyboard. But nowadays many synthesizers will do either one just as easily. Technology is certainly further along than when I began composing xenharmonic music. In 1990, I used hardware synthesizers and standard keyboards. It was so exciting that it didn’t seem like too much trouble at the time, but nowadays it is a far more streamlined experience.

For example, it used to seem normal to put stickers on my keyboard keys to keep track of where the octaves were for any given tuning. It’s easy to see where octaves are on a piano because of the black/white note pattern of the keys–a well-thought-out decision of long ago. Xenharmonic tunings would not only need a greater or lesser number of keys per octave, but the musician has a choice as to which keys are the “diatonic keys” (white keys) and which should be “accidentals” (black keys), and therefore what the black/white note pattern should be. I will talk more about this in my final post next week, but just imagine staring at a regular piano keyboard and trying to write 17-note-per-octave music. It was strange, but we used to do it that way–with stickers!

And I used to patiently navigate through the maze of editing pages on my hardware synthesizers’ tiny screens to access the “slope” or “keytracking” or “keyfollow” of each oscillator, in order to adjust how much the pitch rises as one plays up the keyboard. Depending on the synthesizer, the slope might anchor on a different arbitrary “root note” (such as middle C or A440). So different synths wouldn’t be in tune with each other until their individual “master tuning” was adjusted by ear, tuning the whole keyboard up or down uniformly until it audibly matched every other synthesizer. “It’s close enough for rock’n’roll,” I would say. And it was! But the whole experience was not for the weak willed. Only we musicians who were determined and slightly eccentric thought it was fun.

A rack of 1980s hardware synths

The old days of hardware synths. Or maybe you’re a geek like me. I sometimes still use them!

But things are way easier now! These days many of us rearrange the black and white keys on our keyboards to match each specific tuning. Inexpensive lightweight keyboard controllers didn’t exist back in the day, nor did eBay, but now it’s not hard for someone with a tight budget to eventually collect a few $50 keyboards and arrange them for their favorite tunings (or ask one of us in The Xenharmonic Alliance community to rearrange a keyboard for you). As for sounds, now we simply call up a “tuning file” on any number of software synthesizers that can be had for a fraction of what we used to pay for hardware synthesizers–and the tunings are accurate!

Nowadays anyone can dive right in and give xenharmonic music a shot.

Indeed, nowadays anyone can dive right in and give xenharmonic music a shot. But before you get started, you’ll need a starting place. Are you a just intonation-minded person, or an equal temperament type? Are you an acoustic musician, an electronic musician, or interested in both? Many xenharmonic composers intermix with different types of musicians, partly because there are so few xenharmonic musicians around, but also because the mix of electronic production and the organic expression of the acoustic world can mesh very nicely.

Let’s start with your own acoustic instrument if you have one that doesn’t have fixed frets or keys, such as a violin, cello, harp, trombone, slide guitar, or your voice, etc. For advice on what tunings would be best to try for your specific instrument, and advice for how to tune your instrument if need be, I would highly suggest posting a note to The Xenharmonic Alliance on Facebook. You will get answers fast. Don’t be shy! It is a very friendly and helpful community. Perhaps you want to try building a custom instrument? The community can help you with that, too.

For acoustic instruments, you will need a list of frequencies for whichever tuning you’d like to try.  If you don’t manage to get this info directly by asking The Xenharmonic Alliance community, software such as Custom Scale Editor for Macintosh, or Scala for Windows or Linux, will allow you to generate tuning charts. Once you figure out what tuning you want to try, and how best to tune your instrument, I suggest using a hardware or software Hertz-reading tuner and a microphone to tune your instrument. A laptop with a built-in microphone would be most handy for that. Another approach is to use a VST synthesizer with your tuning loaded, and with a clean sound, tune your acoustic instrument by ear to match the synthesizer notes.

What is a VST synthesizer? It’s an opportunity to get free xenharmonic-friendly synthesizers, that’s what! It stands for Virtual Studio Technology and is an audio plugin standard created by Steinberg in 1996 that allows third parties to create their own software plugins for free or commercial use, so there are a gazillion of them out there. There are other virtual synthesizer formats, but none have as many free instruments available or work with as many different music programs, so I will just list VST-capable synths here.

I suggest expanding your xenharmonic universe into the digital world because there will be more choices of tunings and sounds.

Even if you are an acoustic musician, I suggest expanding your xenharmonic universe into the digital world because there will be more choices of tunings and sounds. And vice versa. Synthesizers are my world, but I very much enjoy the organic nature of performing alongside acoustic musicians.

You’ll need a VST host software application in order to load and play VST synths. Normally this would be a sequencing program such as a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). Ableton Live, Logic Pro (Macintosh-only), and FL Studio (PC-only) are highly recommended. These programs will not only allow you to record MIDI tracks (also known as Instrument tracks) but will also allow you to record audio tracks of your acoustic instruments. Here is a bigger list of VST host music software. I personally use Ableton now, and it’s nice because it has a built-in tutorial that steps you through the learning curve using its own demo song. I used Pro Tools for a number of years, and Ableton is a bit different, but the tutorial made it easy to make the transition.

A screenshot of Ableton Live

Ableton Live (the VST host software, or “DAW” that I use) and the options page of LinPlug’s Morphox synthesizer, showing where the tuning file is selected.

And below I will list a few VST synthesizers that I either own myself or that have gotten great reviews from trusted musician friends. As I mentioned earlier, you can simply call up a tuning file (.tun) from each synthesizer, which will automatically tune it. No more fiddling around with the individual controls to get each synthesizer microtuned in addition to getting each synth in tune with the rest. With tuning files, all of your synths will have the same “root note” frequency from which the entire tuning is based, and therefore your synths will match each other.

Many synthesizers can navigate to any directory to grab tuning files (such as 19edo.tun, bohlen-pierce-scale.tun, etc.), so I recommend having one master “Tuning Files” folder for all of your synths to share, except for the ones that need the tuning files to be in a specific directory. While we’re on the topic, go ahead and download this folder of Tuning Files and put it somewhere that you’ll remember, such as your music directory. For the more picky synthesizers, I will include the directory path where you’ll need to place your tuning files, because that piece of the puzzle can be hard to find in any documentation or online search.

Linplug’s Morphox is my current favorite VST. When you open Morphox you will see the main synthesizer controls, which you can ignore for now. Simply click on the “Options” button on the bottom right to open the back panel. Here you will find the “Microtonal Scale” section. Click the “Open” button next to it and navigate to your tuning files folder, then select the tuning you want. On the main page, click on “Demo Presets” at the bottom and explore the different factory sounds! Some of the arpeggiated sounds may sound a bit off because they were programmed for twelve tones, but this can all be adjusted once you get to know the synth a bit better. For now, just stick to the ones that sound good.

U-He’s Zebra2 is another favorite of mine. Zebra needs a tuning folder to be located here for PC: /program files/u-he/Tunefiles, or for Macintosh: /Library/Application Support/u-he/Tunefiles. When you open Zebra, you will see the “Voice MicroTuning” menu in the “Global” section on the bottom left. Click to open that window, and if it looks blank or you’re having trouble seeing the tuning file that you want in particular, control-click on “User” and select “Reveal in Finder”. The directory where the tuning files need to be will pop up. Copy your .tun files from you master tuning files folder here, and you’ll be good to go.

Alchemy is the most powerful sample-manipulation instrument in Logic Pro. Load your micro tuning files into the tuning folder located here: Program Files/Camel Audio/Alchemy/Libraries/Tuning.

Spectrasonics Omnisphere2 is highly recommended by my brother who is a top notch Las Vegas musician, composer, and producer. Omnisphere is one of his favorites. Load your micro tuning files for Windows here: Program Files/Spectrasonics/STEAM/Omnisphere/Settings Library/Presets/Tuning File. Or, for Macintosh: Library/Application Support/Spectrasonics/STEAM/Omnisphere/Settings Library/Presets/Tuning File/. Make a new folder in this tuning file folder, and place your .tun files there.

So there you have it. Get hold of a music-sequencing program that works for you and a synthesizer or two that reads .tun files. And if you are an acoustic musician, get ready to experience your instrument in a whole new way. Next week I will talk more about specific tunings that are great for the beginner and xenharmonic composition techniques. I will also show you how to rearrange the keys on an affordable MIDI keyboard controller and more.

The Science of Sound and Tunings

Posted on August 10, 2017 by - Columns

As a composer, what drew me to use scales that have more, or less, notes per octave than our standard twelve-tone tuning–or xenharmonic music–was the boredom that crept up on me over the years of using the same twelve notes over and over, plus a curiosity about other possible tunings and what emotional chords they might strike. Many xenharmonic composers are driven by the artistic urge to break down arbitrary barriers of creative expression. And many who are mathematically inclined explore the vast possibilities of xenharmonic tunings because the mathematics is beautiful.

In order to appreciate anyone’s desire to explore the world outside of the common twelve-tone tuning, it helps to understand where this tuning standard came from and how it is somewhat arbitrary and not even mathematically pure. This calls for a short discussion of the science of sound.

Twelve-tone tuning is somewhat arbitrary and not even mathematically pure.

To start with, there is nothing special about any particular note or “frequency” (unless a person has absolute pitch). It’s all relative. That is, the relationships between frequencies are what matters. A musical interval is the difference in frequency–the ratio–between two notes, and the way two frequencies interact has special mathematical and psychoacoustic qualities.

Our twelve-tone tuning was derived from interval ratios between the first sixteen harmonics. Harmonics were not an invention but a discovery about the natural resonant vibrations of musical instruments. Our twelve-tone tuning being related to the spectra of musical instruments results in intervals and chords that sound “in tune.”

The simplest and purest vibration is a single sine wave frequency. Sine waves are common in electronic music. Very low-pitched sine waves are often used as “sub bass” and high sine waves add “sparkle.” However, most sounds contain multiple sine-wave frequencies combined into a complex waveform. Think of tossing differently sized rocks into a pond and observing how the waves combine into an intricate pattern. Some waves reinforce to create larger ones, while others cancel out. Sound combines in this way, whether through air pressure waves interacting, or fluctuating voltage adding and subtracting in a digital mix.

Any sound that we hear, whether “musical” or not, can theoretically be broken down into individual sine waves. But most musical instrument sounds are pitched, and this is because they naturally vibrate at whole number multiples of the main frequency, creating the harmonic series. Any sine waves that fall in-between the neat and tidy harmonics are perceived as noise elements, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The “noise” might be the scrape of a violin bow, or the hammer sound of a piano key, or the pluck of a guitar, or the grit in a synthesizer sound.

As a typical illustration of the harmonic series, think about plucking a guitar string. The entire string vibrates back and forth at a certain speed (the fundamental frequency), and we perceive that vibration as the pitch of the note. At the same time, the string also vibrates in halves, thirds, fourths, fifths, and so on. This series of higher and higher frequencies, at shorter and shorter wavelengths, is the harmonic series.

Harmonic String Vibrations

Figure 1: Harmonic String Vibrations

We don’t have to probe very deep into the harmonic series to see a fundamental relationship to our historical musical preferences. If we approximate the first dozen harmonics on a staff (Figure 2) or piano keyboard (Figure 3), we can quickly see some standard musical relationships. I say “approximate” because the harmonic series doesn’t perfectly align with the intervals in our twelve-tone tuning. If you have a piano handy, try playing these harmonics. In fact, you can do this on any instrument as long as it has a range of a few octaves.

The intervals between the first several harmonics are a very solid basis for our tuning, but the series continues with smaller and smaller intervals ad infinitum. Once we get past the 18th harmonic, the intervals become microtonal, meaning smaller than half steps.

An approximation of the harmonic series on a musical staff

Figure 2. An approximation of the harmonic series on a musical staff, starting with C up to the 12th harmonic.

An approximation of the harmonic series on a piano.


Figure 3. An approximation of the harmonic series on a piano, starting with C up to the 12th harmonic.

If we begin with a low C (32.703 Hz) as the fundamental frequency, then an approximation of the first seven harmonics would be the notes C1, C2, G2, C3, E3, G3, Bb3. Just these first five harmonics alone when transposed into the same octave range are enough to build a Major triad–C/E/G–the most used chord in all of Western music. Using the first seven harmonics allows us to build a dominant 7th chord–C/E/G/Bb–the chord most often used for an ending cadence leading into a Major triad.

It’s nontrivial that the first and second harmonics are an octave apart. An octave has the strongest psychoacoustic relationship of any musical interval. It is an extremely interesting musical phenomena that octaves sound like higher and lower versions of the same note. Our twelve-tone tuning is “framed” by this very special interval, as are most (but not all) xenharmonic tunings. This is why our standard tuning includes twelve notes “per octave.” Notice that every time the harmonics double in frequency (harmonics 1, 2, 4, 8, etc.) we have another octave.

The second and third harmonics form an interval of a fifth, which is the next strongest interval to our ears after the octave. Fifths frame our triad chords, and the cadence that I mentioned earlier “resolves down a fifth,” meaning that the root notes move down a fifth interval. The third and fourth harmonics form a fourth, the next strongest interval. The peaceful “Amen” cadence resolves down a fourth, which doesn’t sound as final as resolving down a fifth, but is still a strong cadence. Fourths and fifths are a staple for rhythm guitarists who often strum those intervals as a musical pedal.

The fourth and fifth harmonics form a Major 3rd, and the fifth and sixth harmonics form a minor 3rd. The sixth and seventh harmonics form a slightly smaller minor 3rd. Thirds are another very important interval in Western harmony. Stacking a Major 3rd and a minor 3rd creates a Major triad, and stacking them the other way around creates a minor triad–the second most popular chord in all of Western harmony. So there we have it–at least most of it–as the first seven harmonics provide most of our well-established intervals.

The seventh and eighth harmonics vaguely approximate a Major 2nd (a “whole step”), and the same goes for the next few harmonics, although by slightly smaller intervals each time. The eleventh and twelfth harmonics vaguely approximate a minor 2nd (a “half step”), although it is quite a bit larger than the half steps we use in our twelve-tone tuning. Harmonics 17 and 18 come closest to approximating our standard half step. After that, the harmonics form smaller and smaller microtonal intervals that were simply not chosen to be part of our musical scale.

So, with the first several harmonics transposed into the same octave range, we get these scale degrees: C, __, __, __, E, __, __, G, __, __, Bb, __, C. There are other interval relationships that played a part, such as harmonics 5 and 8 which form a minor 6th (E to C). If transposed down to the root note, we get C to A. Adding the A to our scale then reveals another whole step between G and A, reinforcing the idea of a whole step, and so on. It was found that chopping a whole step into a “half step” was close in pitch ratio to the 17th and 18th harmonics. This interval could somewhat neatly fill in the remaining blanks to form our twelve-tone scale of half steps–C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, Bb, B, C.

Well, almost. We don’t end up with equally sized half steps if we keep the pure harmonic ratios that originally inspired the scale. By around 200 years ago, the scale intervals were adjusted and “evened out” so that every half step had the same frequency ratio of 1:1.05946–not exactly a simple or ideal ratio. This is called “equal temperament,” and it’s how our modern pianos are tuned. It is quite useful in enabling a person to play a song in any key, and to transpose chords during the course of a song without the worry of clashing intervals.

If our ancestors had chosen to base our scale off of the first 36 harmonics, we may have ended up with 24-note-per-octave instruments involving “quarter tone” intervals instead of half steps. Pianos and other instruments would have been much more complicated to build. If we had used 25 or so harmonics, we could have ended up with 19-note-per-octave instruments. In fact, we could have easily ended up with any number of tunings, with plenty of ways to justify them as being the “best” decision.

Twelve notes per octave was probably the best decision for the time, especially considering that it simplified instrument building, yet had plenty of notes for creating a wide variety of expressive musical styles. But just as the ears of average people have adjusted to more and more complexity and variety in musical chords, styles, timbre, and rhythm over the millennia, we can now add new tonalities to the list.

 

What is Xenharmonic Music?

Posted on August 3, 2017 by - Columns

One might think that by this day and age, musicians on the whole have explored just about every aspect of music and pushed every thinkable musical boundary. Over the centuries, and especially in modern times, composers have experimented with every crazy rhythm, every unconventional time signature, every possible chord and chord combination, and every exotic new sound using every possible synthesis technique and sample manipulation. But one aspect that most musicians overlook is the prospect of using a completely new tonality–a different number of notes per octave.

Imagine squeezing extra keys in between other piano keys, or scooting the frets on a guitar closer together or farther apart and attempting to make music with it. It would be impossible to play any standard songs because the normal notes and note relationships have been shifted. “Xenharmonic” is the generic term that we use to refer to scales that have more, or less, notes per octave than our standard twelve-tone tuning. The pitches in xenharmonic scales are either too close together or too far apart to fit any familiar melody we’ve ever known. However, it is possible to write new music with new harmonic relationships that humankind has never heard before.

It is possible to write new music with new harmonic relationships that humankind has never heard before.

In the early ’80s, I was a curious teenager getting into writing pop songs. I had that typical feeling of wanting to push the boundaries. The tools of the time, for the most part, offered limitless potential. The sounds that came out of my synthesizers seemed unlimited, and clearly there was nothing stopping anyone from composing any possible rhythm. Nothing was stopping any musician from inventing new musical genres. I had no qualms about writing weird chord progressions and unnaturally leaping melodies to push the boundaries of pop music tonality. Being weird fit with the times after all.

But during the course of composing two music albums, I began to feel the monotony of using the same twelve notes over and over, no matter what quirky combinations I came up with. And that felt like an actual boundary. It was such a hard boundary brainwashed into my musically trained mind that I’m not sure I realized it was an artificial one. It felt more like an inevitable law of physics. After all, there were only twelve notes that I knew of in the world. There were twelve notes per octave on pianos, electric keyboards, guitars, and most instruments in the Western hemisphere. There were twelve notes per octave on any sheet music that I had ever seen. Surely there was a fundamental scientific reason for it.

It’s true that I could slide to any note with my voice or cello, and my mom could slide notes on her viola and even do some cool slides on her clarinet. But anyone with any sense would surely land on a regular note after inserting a bluesy slide here and there. I recall asking my mother, “What about the notes in between piano notes?” She explained that of course there are an infinite number of pitches, but that for historical and acoustical reasons a twelve-tone scale was derived long ago and we have used it ever since. So pianos and most other instruments are fixed in that tuning. Mom’s answer was satisfying enough–until some years later when I was hit over the head with xenharmonic music!

At Berklee College of Music in 1990, my professor, Dr. Richard Boulanger, played and sang a piece he had written in a xenharmonic tuning. My professor’s music washed over me like an exotic alien atmosphere, and my hair stood on end. I decided almost instantly that I would never write in a twelve-tone tuning ever again. I didn’t entirely keep that promise to myself, as I inevitably experienced the difficulties involved in re-tuning my synthesizer sounds, the fact that any new tuning was unrelated to the black and white keyboard pattern, and the bewilderment of writing music with no theoretical knowledge of the tuning. I had spent my life learning “music theory,” and there was no theory that I knew of for any other tunings. For all these reasons, it was much faster to write with only twelve tones. But eventually I would come to write exclusively in xenharmonic tunings.

I started with 19 notes per octave since it contains 12 notes that closely resemble our regular tuning. That makes it easier! I tried the Bohlen-Pierce scale. I tried 10 notes per octave, 16, 17, and—to my horror—13. I have been composing xenharmonic music for more than 25 years and haven’t even tried all of the tunings I’d like to try. It’s an endless universe.

Elaine and friend holding xenharmonic Vertical Keyboards.

Elaine (right) and friend with xenharmonic Vertical Keyboards.

Take some time now to listen to some xenharmonic music to let the very idea of it sink in. In my long experience of subjecting new listeners to xenharmonic music, I find that it usually takes 30 seconds to a minute for someone’s ears to relax enough to accept the new notes and chords. Some begin to enjoy the music at this point, and some reject it. Some hear it as amazing notes from outer space, some just hear it as “normal,” some hear it as being out of tune, and some are utterly repulsed by it. I assure you, this music is indeed fully in tune, according to the scale it is written in. But it can be a shock to uninitiated ears.

My music:

http://ziaspace.com/_music/discography/zia_drumnspace/
http://ziaspace.com/elaine/chaos/1minusrxsquared/movement1.mp3

My Berklee professor’s music:

http://www.ziaspace.com/elaine/BP/BPmusic/DrB/BP2010_DrB_SolemnSong.mp3
http://boulangerlabs.com

Sean Archibald and others:

http://sevish.com
http://split-notes.com

Like everything else, we are all different in the way we perceive music. When I was getting my master’s degree from New York University, I conducted a number of listening tests for a particular xenharmonic tuning. The subjects were asked to listen to a series of chord progressions and rate how well each one resolved, whether the first and last chords sounded like a tonic, how well they could decipher a key change, etc. They were also asked to rate similar aspects of composed xenharmonic music. The opinions on almost every question were all across the board. It depends on what we’re used to, what culture we are from, what musical styles we’re into, whether we are musically trained, whether we have perfect pitch, and generally how musically open-minded or adventurous we are. Psychoacoustics is a very complicated field.

There are enough musicians in the world composing music with twelve tones that the world does not need me to write more of it.

The way I see it is that there are enough musicians in the world composing music with twelve tones that the world does not need me personally to write more of it. I seem to have a rare knack for composing in xenharmonic tunings, and I am personally drawn to it, so I feel that it’s my calling.

In general, it is the most ignored possibility in musical composition. Western composers over the ages have made many attempts to break out of our tonal system, but usually opted to do so by using unconventional compositional techniques with the same old twelve notes. Twelve-tone serialism, atonal composition, and randomly generated music all manage to completely erase our sense of tonality or “key” that we are accustomed to. But the point of xenharmonic music is not to do away with tonality, but to try new and different tonalities.

Join 2300 other musicians and enthusiasts on the Xenharmonic Alliance Facebook group.

Elaine Walker fingering a chord on a Jupitar retuned electric keyboard

Elaine Walker

Elaine Walker is an electronic musician, microtonal composer, and builds new types of music keyboards. She is also the author of a physics/philosophy book, Matter Over Mind: Cosmos, Chaos, and Curiosity.

Mentor, Me—Mentoring is Hard

Posted on July 31, 2017 by - Columns

This is the final post in a four-part series about the important role female mentors have played in developing my artistic and civic identity.

I mentioned in my previous article that advice at the right moment or the spontaneous outreach of compassion can turn anyone into a mentor. Of course, the opposite can happen. Tina Tallon recently shared a moving story—worth reading in full—about an all-too-familiar mentorship blunder:

The presenters asked if any of the students composed music, and only two people reacted…They were a seven-year-old girl in the front row, right in front of the presenters, and an older boy (probably 12 or 13) off to the side. The girl shyly raised her hand to about shoulder height, and the boy’s hand shot up in the air and he said “Oh, totally!” So the presenters of course turned and started up a conversation with him, asking him what instrument he played and whether he wrote music for himself or other people. He responded that he played violin, but that he wrote music for full orchestra. They noted how awesome that was and continued asking him questions and complimenting him, all while the girl looked more and more disappointed. By the end of the conversation, she was looking at the floor. The presenters then turned back to the center of the room and asked if there was anyone else, and this time, she didn’t raise her hand at all. She just kept looking at the floor.

Tallon came to the rescue by approaching the young girl after this exchange. She offered the enthusiasm and support the youngster had been denied in a public forum. Tallon also offers poignant cautionary advice to her readers: “It became very apparent that even the seemingly smallest of actions might have significant consequences… especially when working with the youngest members of our community, we need to be very clear about offering encouragement to everyone, not just the most gregarious (or whitest or male-est) students.”

This article is not about the countless studies that show men to be more talkative than women or more likely to interrupt their peers, garnering more attention than their female counterparts. Nor is it about the very real confidence gap that begins to distinguish genders at a very young age. But I can’t write about benefiting from strong female mentorship and reflect on my own teaching unless these cultural, historical, and sociological realities are recognized.

A view of Dublin Lake

Dublin Lake, where I have often sat and thought about teaching when I’m at The Walden School.

I can’t write about benefiting from strong female mentorship and reflect on my own teaching unless cultural, historical, and sociological realities are recognized.

As a young and very green teacher of both classroom and private students, I have no illusions about making mistakes in my teaching. But Tallon’s story made me reflect on one teaching moment in particular.

At Bard Prep, where I teach music theory and composition, my most advanced music theory class this semester was comprised of four very loud, confident preteen boys and a shy, subdued, slightly younger girl—I’ll call her Alice. The boys had a common interest in composition, and they would often leave the classroom talking excitedly at each other about their projects.

Alice was an engaged but quiet participant, clearly listening but only contributing if explicitly called upon. While I was definitely sensitive to Alice’s timidity in the midst of this garrulous boy-dominated classroom environment, I didn’t want to make her feel self-conscious by singling her out, nor did I want to disrupt what I thought was relatively productive management of a high-energy class.

After the last class of the semester, Alice stayed behind and asked if she could show me a piece she’d written. Of course, I was elated! One of her classmates, I’ll call him Pat, overheard this exchange and asked if he could stay and listen to Alice’s composition, because “he too was a composer and very interested to hear what she’d come up with.” At first, I hesitated, thinking that perhaps Alice would retreat into shyness if she felt judged by a peer. But Alice consented and proceeded to play a gorgeous blues-y piano piece. Pat, in his sincere excitement, began explaining what he heard and appreciated, which quickly digressed into a monologue about what he likes to compose. When I tried to shift attention back to Alice by suggesting that she and I do a blues improvisation together, Pat automatically inserted himself into the activity.

I felt totally stuck as a teacher in this moment. On the one hand, I was petrified that Pat’s overbearing presence would make Alice feel insignificant in a moment of vulnerability. On the other hand, I didn’t want to exclude or shun Pat, who didn’t understand why his behavior might have been inconsiderate. Moreover, I also did not feel that this was the moment to address issues of peer listening with Pat, as this would further shift the interaction away from Alice’s music and towards Pat’s behavior. Add to that the fear of inappropriately projecting these anxieties onto what should be a positive musical experience, encouraging Alice to share her talents again (and again and again). Might my poor management of this situation create detrimental consequences for the impressionable Alice’s psyche? Gah!!

In the end, I was able to strongly connect with Alice and saw in her a newfound confidence and joy in music making.

This scenario contained several valuable lessons. First, I am ashamed to confess that if Alice had not approached me on that last day of class, I would not have known about her compositional interests because I did not ask. This reveals common challenges that teachers face in managing many different personalities in a classroom, particularly in equating vocality with interest or aptitude. I’m sad that I wasn’t able to identify and then overcome this challenge. I’m also glad to have gotten a chance to discover and try to remedy the situation.

Teachers face challenges in managing many different personalities in a classroom, particularly in equating vocality with interest or aptitude.

Second, just because I can’t ignore or brush aside the implications of this moment’s gender dynamics and their potential consequences doesn’t mean Alice is not enjoying herself. She was having a blast sharing music—she was not burdened by my baggage, sensitivity, awareness, etc., of the scenario at play. I have to be careful about imposing my anxieties onto her and Pat, making more out of a situation than is perhaps warranted. But maybe I am making the right amount of fuss about it. I just don’t know, and not knowing is why mentoring is so hard.

In what ways should we be vigilant as mentors, and how extreme should our vigilance make us? How do we best nurture a creative person’s individuality? What is our part in shaping that individual into a confident, compassionate community member? I think these are some of the questions that the mentors I’ve written about have considered with great care. As they were mentoring me, they were undoubtedly observing situations like these and making decisions about vigilance. For this I am grateful.

my classroom white board the last day of class. The students would keep track of what they called “Katie’s quotable quotes” and when ever I said something silly or dumb or amusing they’d write it down.

My classroom white board the last day of class. The students would keep track of what they called “Katie’s quotable quotes” and when ever I said something silly or dumb or amusing they’d write it down.

Building Curriculum Diversity: Technique, History, and Performance

Posted on July 27, 2017 by - Columns

I believe in the power of music as an art form to create a space for people to communally experience empathy. Classical music is a field that historically began in Europe, but I find it vital to think about the future of classical music. How do we serve our communities? How do we serve our art form? Commuting in New York City, I see the global community in a single subway car. How does classical music reflect, include, and give voice to all of these life experiences?

Violinist Jennifer Koh speaks with great clarity. She and I are sitting in her living room, the faint sound of traffic a gentle reminder of the city. We’ve been talking about commissioning and programming as advocacy for diversity over the past several days, and I’ve been bouncing some ideas off of her for this series. I’m nervous—as I always am before my writing is published—and her encouragement to speak about these issues is centering. She continues:

It is our responsibility as artists to advocate for artists and composers who happen to be women or people of color. I feel that we as artists and as an industry need to model and advocate for our entire community. And frankly, diversifying programming is the only way that classical music will survive. If our programming does not reflect the diversity of our society, then we are not serving our community and by extension, we are actively making ourselves irrelevant to society.

Jennifer Koh

Jennifer Koh

In this series on curriculum diversity, I’ve discussed how stereotype threat impedes performance, and suggested that students need role models and precedents to fight that threat. I interviewed various scholars, performers, and educators to show examples of people who are creating resources to help build curriculum diversity. As stated in the previous posts, many of these scholars noted that in order to make curriculum relevant to our students and our communities, we need to not only help them find role models, but also give them permission to achieve. In this final installment of the series on building curriculum diversity, I focus on how the inclusion of achievements by musicians that reflect the students’ racial and gender diversity empowers this younger generation of musicians to have permission to be successful.

By not only commissioning new works, but also programming historic ones and writing about composers of the past, Jackson is contributing to the body of knowledge that celebrates the precedent of great composers of color.

Ashley Jackson is another performer who has used both her scholarship and her decisions about programming to advocate for diversity. Her doctoral dissertation is an examination of the collaboration between composer Margaret Bonds and Langston Hughes within the greater context of the New Negro Movement (here is a wonderful article Jackson wrote for NewMusicBox earlier this year, and she is looking forward to expanding her research to include a biography of Bonds). Jackson noted of her scholarship on black composers that it was important to “tell their stories in the same way, with the same honor.” As a performer, Jackson advocates for diversity both by programming her own concerts and by working to build a community of musical activists. Her latest performance project, Electric Lady, is a series devoted to works by female composers. In addition, she is the deputy director of The Dream Unfinished, a collective of classical musicians whose concerts promote civil rights and community organizations based in New York. By not only commissioning new works, but also programming historic ones and writing about composers of the past, Jackson is contributing to the body of knowledge that celebrates the precedent of great composers of color.

Ashley Jackson

Ashley Jackson

The experience of concerts celebrating diversity is a topic close to Jackson’s heart. In our interview, she described the first time she went to see the Boston Symphony Orchestra when she was a little girl. Ann Hobson Pilot, the first black woman hired by the BSO, was playing harp. Jackson said, “When you see role models that look like you, that leaves a strong impression. At the time, I didn’t understand the significance of that experience, but in retrospect I realize it was a brilliant move on my parents’ part. That inspiration goes a long way—not just seeing someone do it, but seeing them succeed at such a high level.”

One electronic musician who has both inspired and paved the way for younger generations is Wendy Carlos. Carlos is perhaps most famous for her 1968 work Switched-On Bach, a reimagining of Bach’s work on Moog synthesizer that won three Grammys (and will be the subject of an upcoming book in the Bloomsbury 33 ⅓ series by Roshanak Kheshti). On her website, Carlos says of the work, “I began my young experience as a composer realizing that what I had to offer [electronic music] was generally hated. But I thought that if I offered people a little bit of traditional music, and they could clearly hear the melody, harmony, rhythm and all the older values, they’d finally see that this was really a pretty neat new medium, and would then be less antipathetic to my more adventurous efforts.” Even if you’ve never heard of Carlos, you’ve probably heard some of her “more adventurous efforts” in music for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, or her scores for Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange or the 1982 Disney film Tron. Her example and her success show that audiences were ready for new sounds and new ways of presenting music, and her unique perspective allowed for an entire generation of listeners to become enthralled with contemporary music made by the latest technology through her film scores and records.

In addition to programming, another way performers can share the knowledge of their craft is by creating technique books or videos. This not only highlights their presence on stage as individuals, but shows how they are experts. Sound artist and abstract turntablist Maria Chavez’s wonderful book Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable explains different techniques that Chavez has developed through her career as a performer. What I love about Chavez’s music is that she takes found objects from the environment and finds their beauty through focused listening and attention in her sets. The records Chavez uses are mostly found damaged and would otherwise have been discarded. Taking these objects and turning them into a vital part of avant-garde DJing is what makes Chavez’s music so unique. Giving the objects a new voice points to the idea that forgotten or discarded peoples can be empowered to have a voice through advocacy.

Maria Chavez

Maria Chavez

When I asked Chavez why is it important to include women and people of color in curriculums or histories of electronic music, and why it is important that those contributions are visible, she responded:

I don’t think it’s necessarily important to have them in curriculum, I think it’s simply short sighted to ignore the fact that works by different humans EXIST. . . . We are past the time when European cultures were questioning whether the indigenous people had souls or if African slaves should be considered people. To be in a part of history where it’s clear how asinine these kinds of questions truly are, I think asking the question of importance should be redefined as a question of why the original history was allowed to be discussed without including the works of others in the first place. To say something is important, in regards to this question, is to still say the works are unique to the history. I disagree, the works were always there, they just weren’t given the focus as the other works were given. When works are presented equally then the beauty of the true history of electronic music can really shine for what it really is.

Once you hear that silence, you hear it everywhere.

One author who has helped refocus history to highlight forgotten composers through her recent work is Anna Beer. Beer teaches creative writing at the University of Oxford. While she is not a musician by trade, she studied music until she was 18, and she has continued to listen to and research music as a part of her life. As she was doing research about Francesca Caccini, she realized women composers were rarely represented in concert halls. Beer said, “Once you hear that silence, you hear it everywhere.” She decided that she wanted to write something that gave a voice to women who had been silenced in the past. Her advocacy became her recent book Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music. The book details the lives of composers such as Barbara Strozzi and Lili Boulanger. Beer said that her favorite piece that she discovered out of the research was Fanny Hensel’s Das Jahr, which Beer called an “amazing, rich, astonishing work.”

While Sounds and Sweet Airs began as a standalone project, it has turned into lecture appearances and other engagements. Beer said that it has felt important to do concert lectures alongside live performance because it meant talking directly to people. She continued, “Music has to live; it needs a platform and it has to be voiced—that is the most important task. One lieder or anything small that is programmed and heard increases momentum. It helps it live.” Beer reiterated the importance of “giving permission to the next generation to validate their curiosity. It’s not just about having role models but actively giving them permission. It enables people.”

We need to show students the achievements of all people in music. To do that, we must build greater gender and racial diversity into curriculums and concert programs so that students may see themselves in history. By taking concrete action to provide this context of both living role models and historical precedent, students can be empowered to go on to achieve in any area they are interested in. Perhaps, they will even become the positive role models they needed when they were younger.

Mentor, Me—Momentary Mentorship

Posted on July 24, 2017 by - Columns

This is the third in a four-part series about the important role female mentors have played in developing my artistic and civic identity.

In October of last year, Ashley Fure became a mentor to me without her knowing it. Fure was a guest faculty member for the LA Philharmonic’s National Composer’s Intensive, a weeklong workshop with wildUp culminating in a day of performances on the Phil’s Noon to Midnight Festival. I had known and admired some of Fure’s music and was looking forward to matching her personality to her sounds. Additionally, my Facebook news feed had been abuzz with citations of her piercingly eloquent article about gender, risk, aesthetic politics, and pigeonholing.

Ashley Fure

Ashley Fure

When Fure presented her recently premiered piece Bound to the Bow for orchestra and electronics, I was mesmerized. It was exactly the inspiration I needed after about eight months of not composing much, and not composing anything I was particularly happy with (including the piece to be performed later that week). Descriptions of music I love always feel trivial, but for the sake of this anecdote, I’ll mention that I was struck by its timeless fluidity and completely engaging sense of pacing. The propeller-like sound source that was the basis for the seamless integration of orchestra and electronics was hypnotic, as was the way this sound melted into and filled the cracks of lush harmonies and timbres.

Beyond the striking impression of the music, I was moved by Fure’s comments about it. She described how her brother’s vocation as an architect was often a source of inspiration to her. A designer of buildings, she explained, creates a sturdy foundation, immobile and rooted in solid ground from which a structure can be erected. A designer of ships, however, has eyes for flexible rather than rigid foundations. Yielding to currents from every direction, a hull too rigid is bound to break.

A drawing of the hull for a ship.

Fure likens this architectural approach to malleability to her musical approach to time passing. She imagines her music bending to and tolerating resistance from a twisting chronology. Time is Fure’s ocean, and her music exists in its expansive mutability.

Time is Fure’s ocean, and her music exists in its expansive mutability.

This metaphor resonated with something that’s been nagging at me in my work ever since I can remember: my music and general modus operandi suffer from a stringency that can result in a sense predictability and constraint by the logic I’ve imposed upon it. I am building cement foundations, not hulls. I’d been mulling over this analogy when Fure congratulated me on the performance of my piece a few days later, and I confessed to her that I felt it was unsuccessful. Fure thought carefully about this, and ultimately suggested that maybe I was dissatisfied with my music because I didn’t allow room for chaos. While it is my habit to associate the musical detail I love with order, maybe I might search for disorder in my details instead and see what forms emerge.

Mentorship moments cannot be planned or predicted.

Fure didn’t realize it, but she touched me to the core with her advice. Ideally, I want my music to wail an emphatic “yes” to bold expression. But I have yet to reconcile the inherent instability there is in such a cry with the conviction inherent in the vociferous “yes” that, for example, called out from Fure’s Bound to the Bow. The timing of Fure’s comment, mingled with respect for her artistry and amiability, has really shaped the way I’ve thought about composing this year. I go back to that conversation again and again as a sort of creative reset. It’s given me fuel to keep writing while concurrently being open to questioning why and how I’m writing.

These mentorship moments cannot be planned or predicted, but often make up the cohesive trajectory that forms a whole person. In 2013, I’d emailed out a recording of my first big orchestral piece, Passacaglia, to friends for feedback. Nina C. Young was the only person to respond, and she did so with a long, detailed email of her thoughts about the piece and my work moving forward. That email, full of loving and constructive critique, continues to shape my approach to orchestration.

We are perpetually both teachers and learners.

Advice or the spontaneous outreach of compassion at the right moment can turn anyone into the most important source of guidance for someone else in an instant. Because of my serendipitous experience on the receiving end of momentary mentorship, I feel it’s important to consider this possibility when we engage with each other in our community. We are perpetually both teachers and learners, and in any given interaction we might switch between being one or the other.

Katherine Balch's sketch of the structure for her musical composition Leaf Fabric

A sketch of the form of a recent piece of mine, Leaf Fabric, in which I tried to capture Fure’s suggestion of infusing a form with more chaos.