Harry Partch
Encyclopedia
Harry Partch was an America
n composer
and instrument
creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music
for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit
(43-tone
) just intonation
.
Partch was born on June 24, 1901 in Oakland, California
soon after his parents, both Presbyterian missionaries
, fled the Boxer Rebellion
in China. He spent his childhood in small, remote towns in Arizona and New Mexico, where he heard and sang songs in Mandarin, Spanish, and American Indian languages.
As a child, he learned to play the clarinet
, harmonium
, viola
, piano, and guitar
. He began to compose at an early age, using the equal-tempered chromatic scale
, the tuning system most common in Western music. However, Partch grew frustrated with what he felt were imperfections of the standard system of musical tuning
, believing that this system was unsuitable for reflecting the subtle melodic contours of dramatic speech and, as a result, he burned all of his early works.
Interested in the potential musicality of speech, Partch invented and constructed instruments that could underscore the intoning voice, and he developed musical notations that accurately and practically instructed players as to how to play the instruments. His first such instrument was the Monophone, later known as the Adapted viola
.
Partch secured a grant that allowed him to go to London
to study the history of tuning systems and text-setting. In Dublin, he met the poet
William Butler Yeats
with the intention of gaining Yeats' permission to write an opera
based on the poet's translation of Sophocles
' Oedipus the King
. In his opera, Partch transcribed the inflections of actors from the Abbey Theatre reciting lines from Sophocles' play, and Partch performed this music on his Monophone while intoning "By the Rivers of Babylon". Yeats responded enthusiastically, saying, "A play done entirely in this way, with this wonderful instrument, and with this type of music, might really be sensational", and he gave Partch's idea his blessing.
Partch then set out to build more instruments with which to realize his burgeoning opera. However, after his grant money ran out, he was forced to return to the U.S., which was at the height of the Depression. There, he lived as a hobo
, traveling around on train
s and taking casual work where he could find it. He continued in this way for ten years, chronicling his experiences in a journal named Bitter Music. The entries frequently included overheard bits of everyday vernacular speech, wherein Partch transcribed the speaker's pitch
es on musical staves. This technique, which had been used earlier by the Florentine Camerata
, Berlioz, Mussorgsky
, Debussy, Schoenberg
, Leoš Janáček
and others (and would be later used by Steve Reich
), was to become a standard approach to vocal scoring in Partch's work.
In 1941, Partch wrote Barstow, a work whose text comes from eight pieces of graffiti
Partch had spotted on a highway railing in Barstow, California
. The piece, originally for voice and guitar, was transcribed several times throughout the composer's life as his collection of instruments grew.
In 1943, after receiving a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, Partch was able to dedicate more time to music. He returned to his Oedipus Project, although the executors of Yeats' estate refused to grant him permission to use Yeats' translation, and he had to make his own; a recording with Yeats' translation has since been released, Yeats' text having passed into the public domain
. While living briefly in Ithaca, New York
, he began work on US Highball, a musical evocation of riding the rails as a Depression-era hobo.
In 1949, a book Partch had been working on since 1923 was eventually published as Genesis of a Music
. It is an account of his own music with discussions of music theory and music instrument design. Today, it is considered a standard text of microtonal music theory and takes his concept of "Corporeality", the fusion of all art forms with the body, as its central focus.
He went on to write the "dance satire" The Bewitched and Revelation in the Courthouse Park, a work based in large part on Euripides
' The Bacchae
. Delusion of the Fury (1969) is considered by some as his greatest work.
Partch is famous for his 43-tone scale
, even though he used many different scales in his work and the number of divisions is theoretically infinite. He created and maintained his own record label, "Gate 5", to release recordings of his works and generate income. Towards the end of his life, Columbia Records
made recordings of some of his works, including Delusion of the Fury, which helped increase public attention to his work. He remains a somewhat obscure figure, but is well-known to experimental musicians (especially those interested in microtonality) and instrument-builders, and he is considered by many to be one of the most significant composers of the 20th century.
, probably due to childhood mumps
, and most of his romantic relationships were with men. He died on September 3, 1974
in San Diego, California
from a heart attack
.
's National Recording Preservation Board
as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Harry Partch's desire to use a different system of tuning inspired him to modify existing instruments and create new ones. He was, in his own words, "a philosophic music-man seduced into carpentry".
His adapted instruments include the Adapted Viola (a viola
fitted with a cello
neck which extends the range by a fourth, and has changeable bridges to allow triple-stops to be sustained) and three Adapted Guitars: a guitar with the equal tempered frets replaced by a complex system of justly tuned frets, a guitar tuned in octaves, or 2/1's, played by moving a pyrex rod along the strings, much like a slide guitar, and a 10-string fretless guitar played in a similar manner to his other fretless guitar, but with a wildly different tuning.
He re-tuned the reeds of several reed organ
s and labeled the keys with a color code. The first one was called the Ptolemy, in tribute to the ancient music theorist Claudius Ptolemaeus, whose musical scales included ratios of the 11-limit, as Partch's did. The others were called Chromelodeons, a portmanteau of chrome (meaning "color") and melodeon
.
Partch also designed and built many instruments from raw materials:
In 1990, Dean Drummond
's Newband
became custodians of the original Harry Partch instrument collection, and the group frequently performs with and commissions new pieces for Partch's instruments.
The instruments have been housed in the Harry Partch Instrumentarium at Montclair State University
in Montclair, New Jersey
since 1999. In 2004, the instruments crossed campus into the newly constructed Alexander Kasser Theater, which provides a large studio space in the basement. Concerts by Newband and MSU's Harry Partch Ensemble may be viewed several times a year in this hall.
Many people have duplicated partial sets of Partch instruments including John Schneider, director of Microfest. His West Coast ensemble includes replicas of the Kithara, Surrogate Kithara, Cloud-Chamber Bowls, Adapted Guitars, Adapted Viola, Diamond Marimba, Bass Marimba, Chromelodeon, and two Harmonic Canons.
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United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
n composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit
Limit (music)
In music theory, limit or harmonic limit is a way of characterizing the harmony found in a piece or genre of music, or the harmonies that can be made using a particular scale. The term was introduced by Harry Partch, who used it to give an upper bound on the complexity of harmony; hence the name...
(43-tone
Harry Partch's 43-tone scale
The 43-tone scale is a just intonation scale with 43 pitches in each octave, invented and used by Harry Partch.The first of Partch's "four concepts" is "The scale of musical intervals begins with absolute consonance and gradually progresses into an infinitude of dissonance, the consonance of the...
) just intonation
Just intonation
In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of small whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval. The two notes in any just interval are members of the same harmonic series...
.
Early life and career
]Partch was born on June 24, 1901 in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
soon after his parents, both Presbyterian missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
, fled the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
in China. He spent his childhood in small, remote towns in Arizona and New Mexico, where he heard and sang songs in Mandarin, Spanish, and American Indian languages.
As a child, he learned to play the clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
, harmonium
Harmonium
A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
, viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
, piano, and guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
. He began to compose at an early age, using the equal-tempered chromatic scale
Chromatic scale
The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...
, the tuning system most common in Western music. However, Partch grew frustrated with what he felt were imperfections of the standard system of musical tuning
Musical tuning
In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:* Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice.* Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases.-Tuning practice:...
, believing that this system was unsuitable for reflecting the subtle melodic contours of dramatic speech and, as a result, he burned all of his early works.
Interested in the potential musicality of speech, Partch invented and constructed instruments that could underscore the intoning voice, and he developed musical notations that accurately and practically instructed players as to how to play the instruments. His first such instrument was the Monophone, later known as the Adapted viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
.
Partch secured a grant that allowed him to go to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to study the history of tuning systems and text-setting. In Dublin, he met the poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
with the intention of gaining Yeats' permission to write an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
based on the poet's translation of Sophocles
Sophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
' Oedipus the King
Oedipus the King
Oedipus the King , also known by the Latin title Oedipus Rex, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed c. 429 BCE. It was the second of Sophocles's three Theban plays to be produced, but it comes first in the internal chronology, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone...
. In his opera, Partch transcribed the inflections of actors from the Abbey Theatre reciting lines from Sophocles' play, and Partch performed this music on his Monophone while intoning "By the Rivers of Babylon". Yeats responded enthusiastically, saying, "A play done entirely in this way, with this wonderful instrument, and with this type of music, might really be sensational", and he gave Partch's idea his blessing.
Partch then set out to build more instruments with which to realize his burgeoning opera. However, after his grant money ran out, he was forced to return to the U.S., which was at the height of the Depression. There, he lived as a hobo
Hobo
A hobo is a term which is often applied to a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless. The term originated in the Western—probably Northwestern—United States during the last decade of the 19th century. Unlike 'tramps', who work only when they are forced to, and 'bums', who do not...
, traveling around on train
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
s and taking casual work where he could find it. He continued in this way for ten years, chronicling his experiences in a journal named Bitter Music. The entries frequently included overheard bits of everyday vernacular speech, wherein Partch transcribed the speaker's pitch
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
es on musical staves. This technique, which had been used earlier by the Florentine Camerata
Florentine Camerata
The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama...
, Berlioz, Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky can refer to:*The Mussorgsky family of Russian nobility;*Modest Mussorgsky, a Russian composer belonging to that family.*Mussorgsky , a 1950 Soviet film about the composer...
, Debussy, Schoenberg
Schoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
, Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
and others (and would be later used by Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
), was to become a standard approach to vocal scoring in Partch's work.
In 1941, Partch wrote Barstow, a work whose text comes from eight pieces of graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
Partch had spotted on a highway railing in Barstow, California
Barstow, California
Barstow is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 22,639 at the 2010 census, up from 21,119 at the 2000 census. Barstow is located north of San Bernardino....
. The piece, originally for voice and guitar, was transcribed several times throughout the composer's life as his collection of instruments grew.
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
. While living briefly in Ithaca, New York
Ithaca, New York
The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...
, he began work on US Highball, a musical evocation of riding the rails as a Depression-era hobo.
In 1949, a book Partch had been working on since 1923 was eventually published as Genesis of a Music
Genesis of a Music
Genesis of a Music is a book first published in 1947 by American microtonal composer Harry Partch .Partch first presents a polemic against both equal temperament and the long history of stagnation in the teaching of music, then goes on to explain his tuning theory based on just intonation, the...
. It is an account of his own music with discussions of music theory and music instrument design. Today, it is considered a standard text of microtonal music theory and takes his concept of "Corporeality", the fusion of all art forms with the body, as its central focus.
He went on to write the "dance satire" The Bewitched and Revelation in the Courthouse Park, a work based in large part on Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
' The Bacchae
The Bacchae
The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy by the Athenian playwright Euripides, during his final years in Macedon, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which...
. Delusion of the Fury (1969) is considered by some as his greatest work.
Partch is famous for his 43-tone scale
Harry Partch's 43-tone scale
The 43-tone scale is a just intonation scale with 43 pitches in each octave, invented and used by Harry Partch.The first of Partch's "four concepts" is "The scale of musical intervals begins with absolute consonance and gradually progresses into an infinitude of dissonance, the consonance of the...
, even though he used many different scales in his work and the number of divisions is theoretically infinite. He created and maintained his own record label, "Gate 5", to release recordings of his works and generate income. Towards the end of his life, Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
made recordings of some of his works, including Delusion of the Fury, which helped increase public attention to his work. He remains a somewhat obscure figure, but is well-known to experimental musicians (especially those interested in microtonality) and instrument-builders, and he is considered by many to be one of the most significant composers of the 20th century.
Personal life
Partch, an uncle of the cartoonist Virgil Partch, was sterileInfertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
, probably due to childhood mumps
Mumps
Mumps is a viral disease of the human species, caused by the mumps virus. Before the development of vaccination and the introduction of a vaccine, it was a common childhood disease worldwide...
, and most of his romantic relationships were with men. He died on September 3, 1974
1974 in music
-January–April:*January 3 – Bob Dylan and The Band kick off their 40-date concert tour at Chicago Stadium. It's Dylan's first time on the road since 1966.*January 17...
in San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
.
Awards and honors
In 1974, Partch was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Percussive Arts Society, a music service organization promoting percussion education, research, performance and appreciation throughout the world. In 2004, U.S. Highball was selected by the Library of CongressLibrary of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
's National Recording Preservation Board
National Recording Preservation Board
The United States National Recording Preservation Board selects recorded sounds for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. The National Recording Registry was initiated to maintain and preserve "sound recordings that are culturally, historically or aesthetically...
as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Instruments
His adapted instruments include the Adapted Viola (a viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
fitted with a cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
neck which extends the range by a fourth, and has changeable bridges to allow triple-stops to be sustained) and three Adapted Guitars: a guitar with the equal tempered frets replaced by a complex system of justly tuned frets, a guitar tuned in octaves, or 2/1's, played by moving a pyrex rod along the strings, much like a slide guitar, and a 10-string fretless guitar played in a similar manner to his other fretless guitar, but with a wildly different tuning.
He re-tuned the reeds of several reed organ
Reed organ
A reed organ, also called a parlor organ, pump organ, cabinet organ, cottage organ, is an organ that generates its sounds using free metal reeds...
s and labeled the keys with a color code. The first one was called the Ptolemy, in tribute to the ancient music theorist Claudius Ptolemaeus, whose musical scales included ratios of the 11-limit, as Partch's did. The others were called Chromelodeons, a portmanteau of chrome (meaning "color") and melodeon
Melodeon (organ)
A melodeon is a type of 19th century reed organ with a foot-operated vacuum bellows, and a piano keyboard. It differs from the related harmonium, which uses a pressure bellows. Melodeons were manufactured in the United States sometime after 1812 until the Civil War era...
.
Partch also designed and built many instruments from raw materials:
- The Diamond Marimba is a marimbaMarimbaThe marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
with keys arranged in a physical manifestation of the 11-limit tonality diamondTonality diamondIn music theory and tuning, a tonality diamond is a two-dimensional diagram of ratios in which one dimension is the Otonality and one the Utonality...
. - The Quadrangularis Reversum inverted the key layout of the Diamond Marimba with sets of alto-range auxiliary keys on either side.
- The 11-key Bass Marimba and the 4-key Marimba Eroica have more traditional linear layouts, and are very low in pitch. The Eroica's range extends well below that of the concert piano.
- The Mazda Marimba is made of Mazda light bulbsMazda (light bulb)Mazda was a trademarked name created by the Shelby Electric Company for incandescent light bulbs. The name was used from 1909 through 1945 in the United States by Shelby and later General Electric; Mazda brand light bulbs were made for decades after 1945 outside the USA...
and named after the Zoroastrian god Ahura MazdaAhura MazdaAhura Mazdā is the Avestan name for a divinity of the Old Iranian religion who was proclaimed the uncreated God by Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism...
. - The Bamboo Marimbas, nicknamed "Boo" and "Boo II", are marimbas made of bambooBambooBamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
, using the concept of a tongued resonator to produce the tones. - The Cloud Chamber Bowls is a set of pyrex bowls from cloud chamberCloud chamberThe cloud chamber, also known as the Wilson chamber, is a particle detector used for detecting ionizing radiation. In its most basic form, a cloud chamber is a sealed environment containing a supersaturated vapor of water or alcohol. When a charged particle interacts with the mixture, it ionizes it...
carboys, suspended in a frame. - The Spoils of War is a collection of several instruments, including more Cloud Chamber Bowls, artillery shell casings, metal whang-guns, and several wooden tones.
- The Gourd Tree and Cone Gongs are two separate instruments often played by the same player. The gourd tree is a bough of eucalyptusEucalyptusEucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...
supporting several singing bowls attached to gourd resonators. The cone gongs are two fuel tank nose-cones, mounted on a stand low to the ground. - The Zymo-Xyl (from the Greek words for "fermentation" and "wood") is a xylophoneXylophoneThe xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
augmented with tuned liquor bottles and hubcaps. (Partch lamented that there was no Greek word for "hubcaps".) - The Kitharas (named after the Greek kitharaKitharaThe kithara or cithara was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the lyre or lyra family. In modern Greek the word kithara has come to mean "guitar" ....
) are large upright stringed instruments, tuned by sliding pyrexPyrexPyrex is a brand name for glassware, introduced by Corning Incorporated in 1915.Originally, Pyrex was made from borosilicate glass. In the 1940s the composition was changed for some products to tempered soda-lime glass, which is the most common form of glass used in glass bakeware in the US and has...
rods underneath the strings, and played with fingers or a variety of plectra. Their sound is one of the most unmistakable in Partch's music. - The Harmonic Canons (from the same root as qanúnKanun (Instrument)The Qanun is a string instrument found in the 10th century in Farab in Turkestan...
) are 44-stringed instruments with complex systems of bridges. They are tuned differently depending on the piece, and are played with fingers or picks, or in some cases, unique mallets.
In 1990, Dean Drummond
Dean Drummond
Dean Drummond is an American composer, conductor and musician. His music utilises microtonality, electronics, and a huge variety of percussion...
's Newband
Newband
Newband is a contemporary music ensemble devoted to the performance of microtonal music. The group was founded in 1977 by musicians Stefani Starin and Dean Drummond...
became custodians of the original Harry Partch instrument collection, and the group frequently performs with and commissions new pieces for Partch's instruments.
The instruments have been housed in the Harry Partch Instrumentarium at Montclair State University
Montclair State University
Montclair State University is a public research university located in the Upper Montclair section of Montclair, the Great Notch area of Little Falls, and Clifton, New Jersey. As of October 2009, there were 18,171 total enrolled students: 14,139 undergraduate students and 4,032 graduate students...
in Montclair, New Jersey
Montclair, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 38,977 people, 15,020 households, and 9,687 families residing in the township. The population density was 6,183.6 people per square mile . There were 15,531 housing units at an average density of 2,464.0 per square mile...
since 1999. In 2004, the instruments crossed campus into the newly constructed Alexander Kasser Theater, which provides a large studio space in the basement. Concerts by Newband and MSU's Harry Partch Ensemble may be viewed several times a year in this hall.
Many people have duplicated partial sets of Partch instruments including John Schneider, director of Microfest. His West Coast ensemble includes replicas of the Kithara, Surrogate Kithara, Cloud-Chamber Bowls, Adapted Guitars, Adapted Viola, Diamond Marimba, Bass Marimba, Chromelodeon, and two Harmonic Canons.
In popular culture
- A BeckBeckBeck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
song called "Harry Partch", a tribute to the composer and his "Corporeal" music, employs Partch's 43-tone scale. - Evan DaraEvan DaraEvan Dara is an American postmodern novelist. In 1995, his first novel The Lost Scrapbook won the 12th Annual FC/2 Illinois State University National Fiction Competition judged by William T. Vollmann...
writes about Partch from the viewpoint of a fictional professor in his novel The Lost Scrapbook - In his novel The Crack in SpaceThe Crack in SpaceThe Crack in Space is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. In the United Kingdom, it has been published under an alternate title Cantata 140 .-Plot summary:...
, novelist Philip K. DickPhilip K. DickPhilip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
refers to Partch (misspelled as "Parch") as "the great mid-twentieth century composer", and specifically mentions the Spoils of War. - John MausJohn MausJohn Maus is an American composer. He grew up in Austin, Minnesota, and studied music at the California Institute of the Arts. He later went on to study philosophy at the European Graduate School, in Saas Fee Switzerland, and in 2011 is working towards a PhD in political philosophy...
mentions Partch in the song Don't be A Body on his 2006 album Songs.
Discography
Albums- The World of Harry Partch (Columbia Masterworks MS 7207 & MQ 7207, 1969, out of print) "Daphne of the Dunes", "Barstow", and "Castor & Pollux", conducted by Danlee Mitchell under the supervision of the composer.
- Delusion of the Fury (LP Columbia Masterworks M2 30576, 1971; CD Innova Recordings 406, 2001) "Delusion of the Fury", conducted by Danlee Mitchell under the supervision of the composer and "EXTRA: A Glimpse into the World of Harry Partch", composer introduces and comments on the 27 unique instruments built by him.
- Enclosure II (early speech-music works) (Innova 401)
- Enclosure V ("On a Greek Theme") (Innova 405)
- Enclosure VI ("Delusion of the Fury") (Innova 406)
- The Seventeen Lyrics of Li Po (Tzadik, 1995). ASIN B000003YSU.
- Revelation In The Courthouse Park (Tomato RecordsTomato RecordsTomato Records is an independent record label based in New York City. The label has released albums by influential artists such as Townes Van Zandt, Lightnin' Hopkins, Leadbelly, Chris Smither, Dave Brubeck, Nina Simone, Harry Partch and John Cage....
TOM-3004, 2003)
Videos
- Enclosure I (Innova 400, VHS) Four films by Madeline Tourtelot
- Enclosure IV (Innova 404, VHS) "Delusion", "Music of HP"
- Enclosure VII (Innova 407, DVD) "Delusion", "Dreamer", Bonus Album, "Revelation"
- Enclosure VIII (Innova 399, DVD) Four Films by Madeline Tourtelot: "Music Studio," "Windsong," "U.S. Highball," and "Rotate the Body in All Its Planes," with "The Music of Harry Partch" KEBS-TV documentary, "Barstow" and "Castor and Pollux".
- Musical Outsiders: An American Legacy - Harry Partch, Lou Harrison, and Terry Riley. Directed by Michael Blackwood. (1995)
External links
- Harry Partch Information Center
- List of compositions
- Corporeal Meadows: Harry Partch an American Original
- American Mavericks: Harry Partch's Instruments - playable with explanations and musical examples
- Newband Home Page
- Art of the States: Harry Partch - Three works by the composer
- Enclosures Series: Harry Partch's archives published as book, film and audio from innova
- Downloadable audio from the out-of-print LP "The World of Harry Partch"
- 2004 Selections, National Recording Preservation Board of The Library of Congress
- PAS Hall of Fame listing for Harry Partch
- Listen to an excerpt from Partch's "Delusion of the Fury" at Acousmata music blog