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Between March 7 and March 9, 2010, the Boston Microtonal Society and visiting composer Georg Hajdu of the Hochschule für Musik und Theatre in Hamburg will be collaborating with the Goethe Institute, Northeastern University, the Berklee College of Music, and the New England Conservatory in a symposium devoted to the Bohlen-Pierce microtonal scale. Over three days, these institutions will be hosting an exciting series of concerts, lectures and demonstrations showcasing the work of theorists, composers, inventors and performers from several different countries. We are thrilled by the list of people who will be here in our midst, a list which includes some of the most important figures in the worlds of computer music and microtonal music. (See below.)
The Bohlen-Pierce scale was discovered independently by Heinz Bohlen, Kees van Prooijen and John Pierce in the 1970s and 80s, and has some "lucky" properties making it increasingly interesting to composers, theorists, mathematicians, cognitive psychologists and instrument makers alike. Recently, a Bohlen-Pierce clarinet was constructed in Canada by Stephen Fox, and a growing body of compositions is being written for it. There are five professional clarinetists in Canada, Germany and the USA regularly performing on this instrument. Other acoustic Bohlen-Pierce instruments include recorder, guitar, pan flute, metallophone and a non-standard string instrument called the Stredici built by Toronto architect David Lieberman.
For detailed information about the Bohlen-Pierce symposium, please visit the official website:
http://bohlen-pierce-conference.org/
Amy Advocat
Klarenz Barlow
James Bergin
Owen Bloomfield
Heinz Bohlen
Richard Boulanger
Anthony De Ritis
Emily Doolittle
Neal Evans
Paul Erlich
Roger Feria
Kevin Foster
Stephen Fox
Georg Hajdu
Peter Hannan
Todd Harrop
Akos Hoffmann
Tilly Kooyman
Johannes Kretz
David Lieberman
Psyche Louie
Max Mathews
Katarina Miljkovic
Stratis Minakakis
Nora Louise Müller
Jascha Narveson
Shane Neill
Yvonne Ng
Larry Polansky
Reinhard Reitzenstein
Curtis Roads
Marion Samuel-Stevens
Rick Sacks
Manfred Stahnke
Ron Sword
Elaine Walker
Julia Werntz
David Wessel
Gayle Young
The Boston Microtonal Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to the composition, performance and study of microtonal music. Since its creation in 1988, BMS has been devoted to raising the awareness of musicians and audiences of the expanded and enhanced expressive possibilities of composing, improvising and performing new music with new musical intervals. For nearly two decades, BMS has pursued its mission through concert series, workshops, and classes in the Boston area. Among its most important current initiatives are:
• NotaRiotous, directed by James Bergin, founded in 2005 as a chamber ensemble devoted exclusively to the performance of microtonal music of the 20th and 21st centuries. The musicians of NotaRiotous are some of Boston's most sought-after performers of contemporary music.
• PLAY!, a series of concerts of improvised microtonal music directed by saxophonist Noah Kaplan.
• Jonathan Keith Scholarship, a grant of $500 given every academic year by the Jonathan Keith Fund and BMS to a student at the New England Conservatory who is actively studying and creating music with microtones.
Interpretations of the term "microtonal" vary widely, and for our purposes it is useful to note the following two basic types of usage:
1) The most literal and narrow definition of the word "microtone" has as its reference point the Western "tone" (whole tone). If a semitone is "half" of a tone (in terms of cents *), then anything smaller is classified as a microtone, or microinterval, according to this definition. (More specific names are "quarter-tone," "fifth-tone," "eighth-tone," "sixth-tone," etc.)
* Alexander J. Ellis' system for measurement of musical intervals, in which the equal-tempered semitone equals 100 cents, the whole tone 200 cents, the octave 1200 cents, and so on.
2) The most general, inclusive—and most common—usage of the term "microtonal" is its application to any music made using intervals other than the traditional intervals of 12-note equal temperament (with its multiples of 100-cent semitones and 200-cent whole tones), which has been the standard tuning for Western music since the mid 19th century.
If we consider this second, more general application, we can easily see that there are a variety of artistic, theoretical and philosophical channels through which musicians may be drawn to those "other intervals." As a result there are a few different disciplines, only loosely inter-related, all of which may fall into the category "microtonality." These include:
• the practice of simply adding pitches to 12-note equal temperament (most often through microtonal equal temperaments such as 24-note (quarter-tones), 36-note (sixth-tones), 48-note, 72-note, 96-note, etc.)
• contemporary pure tuning methods such as the various modern forms of just intonation, Pythagorean and mean-tone tunings
• historically accurate tunings of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical pieces
• the study of non-Western tuning systems
As an organization BMS has always presented a variety of approaches to microtonality. However, our activities in general are centered more on the creative and practical aspects of music-making than on pre-compositional tuning theory, and we do favor music in which the "new" pitches are audible materials for musical innovation (as opposed to historical tunings, for example). There are an abundance of resources on the Web for the tuning-theory, acoustical, musicological and ethnomusicological branches of the field. (Click here for some links.)
We hope that newcomers and experts alike will find this website informative, and in the spirit of perpetual learning we invite you to share with us your own insights and questions.
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