- Xenharmonic music
Xenharmonic is a term used to describe
tuning systems, ormusic using those systems, which does not conform to or closely approximate the common12-tone equal temperament . The term was coined byIvor Darreg , from xenia (Greek ξενία), hospitable, and xenos (Greek ξένος) foreign. He famously stated: "This writer has proposed the term xenharmonic for music, melodies, scales, harmonies, instruments, and tuning-systems which do not sound like the 12-tone-equal temperament." [Xenharmonic Bulletin No. 2, May 1974 [http://sonic-arts.org/darreg/XHB2.HTM] ]The term is meant include tunings such as 5- and 7-tone equal temperament, which are perhaps excluded under "microtonal" rubric, since their intervals are larger than those of 12-ET. The term "microtonal" may have also been seen as too restrictive in that it was strongly associated with the
quartertone movement, and with composers likeJulian Carrillo , who only worked in equal temperaments that were multiples of 12. Darreg was among the first to argue that any equal temperament could be a valid source of musical materials.Xenharmonic tunings
Any scale or tuning other than
12-tone equal temperament can be used to create xenharmonic music. This includes other equal divisions of the octave and scales based onextended just intonation .Tunings derived from the overtones of physical objects with an inharmonic overtone series such as rods, prongs, plates, discs, spheroids and rocks are sometimes used as the basis of xenharmonic exploration.
William Sethares is a pioneer in this area.The
Non-Pythagorean scale utilized byRobert Schneider ofThe Apples in Stereo , based on a sequence oflogarithms , may also be considered xenharmonic.Xenharmonic composers
Annie Gosfield 's purposefully "out of tune" sampler based music uses non systematic tunings that may be considered xenharmonic. Other composers of xenharmonic music includeElodie Lauten ,Wendy Carlos ,Ivor Darreg , Brian McLaren, Gary Morrison, and many others.Citations
Further reading
*Sethares, William (2004) [http://www.springer.com/978-1-85233-797-1 "Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale"] . ISBN 3-540-76173-X.
ee also
*
just intonation
*Microtonality
*Bohlen-Pierce scale
*regular temperament External links
* [http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/doc/discs.html Microtonal music on CD]
* [http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/ Homepage for William Sethares]
* [http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/ xenharmonic wiki] onwikispaces
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