Not only stranger than we imagine...

[mdlbear]

I'm not sure what tangent I was off on when I decided to search Google for the Charles Ives piano pieces I remembered from a concert at Carleton 30-odd years ago, but this time I found them. I'll almost certainly order ordered this album soon Wednesday, 7/4. Meanwhile you can listen to them here, or watch performances here, here, and here.

Following references from the Wikipedia article on quarter tone can lead you to some rather strange places.

Comments

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

You can't scare me. My high school marching band teacher was a devotee of John Cage.

Admittedly, we only did the Cage stuff in Stage Band not Marching Band, but he still subjected us to some really advanced stuff for Marching, like 5/4 pieces and such. Good times.

[mdlbear]

5/4 doesn't scare me, either -- I used to be a folkdancer. I've written several songs in 7/8, and one in 5/4. Haven't tried quarter tone scales yet beyond the occasional bent note on the guitar.

[callahanshappy.livejournal.com]

Check out the wiki entry on microtones. Alois Haba, Julian Carillo, and Harry Partch were major microtonal composers of the 1920s and 1930s, later joined by Adriaan Folker, Ivor Darreg, John Eaton, Easley Blackwood, and Augusto Novaro. Carillo had specially designed pianos to create as many as 96 equal tones to the octave, and Harry Partch had instuments designed for his microtonal orchestras. Folker and Darreg may be the strangest of the lot, creating compositions for 31 equal tones to the octave.