Xenharmonic

Information about Xenharmonic

Xenharmonic music describes all tuning systems, and music using those systems, that do not use or approximate the common European twelve-tone equal temperament. The term was coined by Ivor 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."^[1]

Xenharmonic Tunings

Examples of especially Xenharmonic equal temperaments are 13, 23 and 11 tone equal temperament (tET). These tunings, and compositions written in them, almost always stand out to the listener as unusual. More conventional equal temperaments like 19tET can also be used xenharmonically, but caution is needed. One of the strengths of 19 is as a species of Baroque era extended meantone tuning, providing additional keys in which the wolf interval is avoided. Pieces written in 19tET using traditional common practice era techniques are not xenharmonic.

Almost all nonoctave scales are xenharmonic. Notable examples are Wendy Carlos' alpha, beta and gamma. 88 cent equal temperament is another well-known example.

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 by Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo, based on a sequence of logarithms, 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 include Elodie Lauten, Wendy Carlos, Ivor Darreg, Brian McLaren, Gary Morrison, and many others.

Citations

1. ^ Xenharmonic Bulletin No. 2, May 1974 [1]

External links

Tuning can refer to:

Musical tuning
Piano tuning
Radio tuning: see tuner
Tuning properties of neurons: see neuronal tuning
Car tuning
Engine tuning
Database tuning

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An equal temperament is a musical temperament. It is a system of tuning in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio. Equal temperaments are often intended to approximate some form of just intonation.
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Ivor Darreg (May 5 1917 - 1994) was a leading proponent of and composer of microtonal or "xenharmonic" music. He also created a serie of experimental musical instruments.
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Xenia (Greek ξενία, xenÃa) is the Greek concept of hospitality, or generosity and courtsy shown to those who are far from home. It is often translated as "guest-friendship" (or "ritualized friendship") because the rituals of hospitality
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Writing system: Greek alphabet
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Xenos (Greek ξένος, xÃ©nos, plural xenoi) is a word used in ancient Greek from Homer onwards that has a wide gradient of meaning, signifying such divergent concepts as “enemy stranger” as well as “ritual friend”.
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wolf fifth. By extension, any interval which is regarded as in like manner howling may be called a wolf.

Temperament and the wolf

The average value of the twelve fifths must equal the 700 cents of equal temperament.
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Wendy Carlos (born Walter Carlos, November 14, 1939) is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos is one of the first famous performers of electronic music using synthesizers.
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Non-Pythagorean scale is a musical scale first conceived and developed by Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo. The term "Non-Pythagorean" is a reference to Greek philosopher Pythagoras in respect to his work with the chromatic scale.
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For the actor and comedian, see Rob Schneider.

Robert Peter Schneider (born March 9, 1971) is one of the co-founders of The Elephant 6 Recording Company, along with Will Cullen Hart, Bill Doss, and Jeff Mangum.
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The Apples in Stereo is an American indie rock band associated with the innovative Elephant Six Collective, a group of bands also including Neutral Milk Hotel, of Montreal and The Olivia Tremor Control.
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logarithm (to base b) of a number x is the exponent y that satisfies x = b^y. It is written log_b(x) or, if the base is implicit, as log(x).
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Annie Gosfield (born September 11, 1960 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a New York composer who specializes in using detuned or out of tune samples and industrial noises.
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Elodie Lauten (b. October 20 1950) is a composer described as postminimalist or a microtonalist. She is a former student of her father Errol Parker and of LaMonte Young, Dinu Ghezzo, and Akhmal Parwez.
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In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval; in other words, the two notes are members of the same harmonic series.
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Microtonal music is music using microtones — intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone, or as Charles Ives put it, the "notes between the cracks" of the piano.
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The Bohlen-Pierce scale (BP scale) is a musical scale that offers an alternative to the octave-repeating scales typical in Western and other musics. In addition, compared with octave-repeating scales, its intervals are more consonant with certain types of acoustic spectra.
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A pseudo-octave in music is an interval whose frequency ratio is not 2:1, but is treated as equivalent to this ratio. When used as a basis for an equal temperament, the pseudo-octave may also be called the Interval of Equivalence (IoE), the Repeat Ratio, and the
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Regular temperament is any tempered system of musical tuning such that each frequency ratio is obtainable as a product of powers of a finite number of generators, or generating frequency ratios.
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