Harry Partch and his Microtonal Carpentry [Harry Partch, Pt. 1/2]

[@ClassicalNerd]

Part 2 of my mini-series on Harry Partch will take a look at his 43-tone scale and how he derived it. However, neither video will cover the Instrumentarium itself; any such video would draw so heavily on extant videos from other channels as to be pointless. If you want to listen to/watch Partch’s work, it’s available all over KZbin, just not in this video due to copyright concerns.

[@simonrodriguez4685]

Looking forward to the sequel!

[@ClassicalNerd]

@@simonrodriguez4685 Check my channel-Part 2 was posted not long after this video!

[@simonrodriguez4685]

I just saw that. I’ll watch it soon. I really like taking some notes. You have singlehandedly put out such a great resource. Thank you.

[@ems7623]

Partch surely is fascinating. I think he and other of the great thinkers of microtonality fail to contend, however, with something pretty fundamental. Completely separate cultures evolved musical systems that gravitate towards similar principles as those once described in writing by Pythagoras, even if they don't use mathematical intervals to explain them. The octave, the fifth, the fourth and an octave subdivided into twelv-ish tones. Why should this tendency exist in completely seperately evolved musical worlds? Now ... I freely admit that i might be missing something, here. I put it here, though, as something I just can not set aside in my mind. I welcome instructive debate.

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

the piano of my church has an absolutely innovative tuning now in sommer

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

You can check on my last video

[@flutetramp37]

You communicate harry partch soooooo well. Omg I want you to help me explain to my friends why I want to build these instruments and adapt his ideas to my own goals for music. I'm a flute player and I play at drum circles and I always think about what would happen if we brought these musical instruments to drum circles. .

[@ClassicalNerd]

Maybe just send them these videos!

[@oboealto]

Partch's philosophy (and therefore music) challenges everything that it comes in contact with, yet (or perhaps therfore), I adore this person (and his art) beyond words. We need more minds like his! A big thanks to you, Nerd, for an excellent video!

[@TheProsaicCult]

"Revelation in the Courthouse", one of his operas, is a great masterpiece as are so many of his other works. It is so healthy, for the classical music world, that composers like Partch exist and thankyou so much for this excellent video.

[@robbes7rh]

Excellent explication of the life, career, and philosophy of this remarkable composer and inventor of musical instruments. It’s interesting that a man like Partch, who accomplishes more before breakfast than most people in a lifetime, whose erudition spans the ages, world cultures, the sciences (that Helmholst book is a veritable treatise on sound that requires calculus to understand), instrument building, the dramatic arts…and then chuck it all for a 15 year interlude of itinerant homelessness well before Jack Kerouac had romanticized the notion. And then reenter society as casually as he had left it, applying for Guggenheim grants, taking teaching assignments at colleges, criss crossing the U.S. He took on the conundrum of Western tuning principles like no other and with the idea of coming up with something better that a casual listener would instinctively find more pleasing. It’s noteworthy that ultimately the implementation of his ideas would fail to take hold after his passing and the 12th root of 2 remains with tacit acceptance on the bell curve. I think that he will be vindicated by history as the human brain evolves and more subtle gradations of tuning and harmony are perceived by the average person.

[@soylentramen7795]

Heavyweight. "Bitter Music" stays right beside "Silence" by John Cage for inspiration and direction without fail.

[@TheUtke]

Interesting that Zappa, a Partch fan, adopted Partch’s concept of non-linear time and speach pattern, in Zappa’s guitar style.

[@seanramsdell4117]

I love listening to you even if I don't watch the actual videos

[@nowandxenpodcast]

I'm very excited about this, and part 2! :) Thanks for all you do!

[@ClassicalNerd]

Thanks! I'm a fan of y'all's work as well.

[@alicewyan]

Look forward to Part 2! Also I'd like to add votes for New Complexity, Milton Babbitt, and Fux (not sure how many votes I have active right now, don't think it's more than 1 or 2 :))

[@ClassicalNerd]

Added-and I have to say, New Complexity and Fux both got big boosts!

[@alicewyan]

@@ClassicalNerd thanks! 🎉

[@TockTockTock]

Binge watching your Great Composers series and seriously enjoying them. Learning about their collective work is hugely inspiring-even to people like me who focus more on improvisational music like jazz or free improvisation. EDIT: *especially people like me Classical music is not mutually exclusive from improvisational music. Also, the two influence one another all the time-folks would even call free improvisation of AMM "Cageian jazz" iirc

[@patriciaguterez8002]

harry partch is the bridge between the new age and the old age, we need to continue in his footsteps and create new music from the no all time. synchronize our thymus glands and become gods and transcend language with ancient ritual dance magic theater. meet me at the rainbow gathering.

[@philipgreene8345]

considering the unusual sounds created by Partch's tuning systems and his original instruments, it seems absolutely crucial to include more Actual Music samples. The most important question is: what does his music actually sound like, esp through his diffferent period. In spite of their being an incredible amount of verbal information here, you'll actually hear very, very litttle of his music. Crucial to any erudite analysis of any music is being able to hear, at least snippets, of the artists actual music. One can go elsewhere to hunt down his actual recordings (as opposed to modern folk recreating it, and it is a hunt), but wouldn't it be far more satisfying and intuitive to hear his theories explained so well directly next to actually hearing the music. Music is primarily an audio phenomonon and only after that comes analysis and theory. I'll try part two in hopes of hearing music.

[@ClassicalNerd]

You can hear Partch's music lots of places online. I'm providing here something that the recordings themselves lack-that is, theory and context.

[@user-ki9ly1uy1w]

Made me think about such things as: Is there a difference between music and organized sounds? And if so, how would we know the difference. Our ears and minds are for the most part rather lazy and full of longstanding prejudices about what's good and bad, right and...., etc., etc. Your 'lectures' should be heard in colleges and universities around the world. Thx.

[@adamsmith7058]

Started using Partches tonality diamond to program fm synths. Can't say I quite "get it" but I'm getting some wild sounds. Some totally amazing metallophone percussive sounds that are aweseome for layering with more conventional drum sounds. This video has encouraged me to read a bit more on it.

[@wp6007]

Oh cool, I was just about to listen to Delusions of the Fury :)

[@nickroberts1596]

Thank you so much for this! I discovered Partch a couple years ago and he changed my whole perception of orchestral music. Awesome.

[@simonrodriguez4685]

I guess months of quarantine is what it takes to go through such a rabbit hole... 🙃 Excellent, as usual, but even more so because it takes a lot more effort to really understand this subject in particular. Bitter Music has some jokes but he was in his own Great Depression when he wrote it, so those witty sparks are fewer and farther in between.

[@udomatthiasdrums5322]

still love your and his work!!

[@rafaellazo1725]

love you bro haha, and i love harry partch it's like my template, i work on microtonal instruments and build them, love classical music too, but i consider his music very unappealing and I listened it for years. Anyways thanks for you efforts i learn everytime you put a new video. !!!!

[@ClassicalNerd]

I can totally understand liking everything about Partch except the music, since the timbral quality is very particular. Frankly, I'm also a bigger fan of microtonal/xenharmonic composers who use such systems harmonically.

[@obelusyt]

thanks, this was amazing.

[@garretkaplan]

Please do Leonard Bernstein, Ravi Shankar, and a Scriabin redo please! Scriabin particularly because he’s my absolute favorite composer and I love his weird harmonies. Love your videos! By the way are you still doing your composition masterclass? I would like to submit a piece.

[@ClassicalNerd]

Remakes aren't being added to the pool because that's more of something to do on my own time. Your other votes have been added. Also, my next video is going to be a composition masterclass (I do them once every four videos) so I would advise sending something in ASAP.

[@goonyougoodthing]

@@ClassicalNerd I'll send you something now lol

[@ClassicalNerd]

I'll be doing the next masterclass fairly soon, so submit them ASAP!

[@zacharydetrick7428]

5:15 love the Camerata de Bardi cameo

[@merekr439]

Excellent. Look forward to Part II

[@zacharydetrick7428]

congrats dude! can't wait to watch this!!

[@catclemons614]

This is so fantastic, thank you for this!

[@martongaborszives7208]

Best content

[@ems7623]

Finally taking on learning about microtonal systems and history, despite it being barely covered in my undergraduate musicology major. Oddly, I'm far less interested in his actual musico-theatrical pieces ... Maybe i wore out my longtime fascination for avantgardism sometime in the past two decades. Or, more likely, those elements of his work seem to be less unique to him. Around the 36 minute mark, you begin to talk about aspects of Partch's life which strike me as best explained by a psychologist. I wonder if there's anything documented on his mental health. On the Cage comparison ... Hmmm ... I am not sure I completely agree with your assessment. A great deal of Cage's work is as musical as it is conceptual.

[@ClassicalNerd]

If we think of music as existing on a spectrum of pure concept/process on one hand to pure intuition on the other, both Cage and Partch fall in the middle, but Cage more so towards the conceptual side of things since many of his most famous pieces are designed to get audiences to hear the traditionally non-musical as music, or to question the idea of what constitutes music at all.

[@cortedam4607]

I really love your videos first when i started playing piano i always watched your videos much respect👌👍👍

[@DavidA-ps1qr]

As always, a vastly entertaining and informative post. Many thanks. Couple of questions: Did Partch ever meet or consult with Ivan Wyschenegradsky who, from what I can see, was about 10-15 years ahead of him in his research and experiments in microtonality? ..............and: Did Partch ever make his feelings known about improvisation? Keep safe & well. David A.

[@ClassicalNerd]

As far as I can tell, Partch's system of extended just intonation and Wyschnegradsky's use of small, but equal divisions of the octave were far enough apart that, despite somewhat similar aesthetic intentions, their conceptualizations of microtonality were vastly different. Part 2 of the Partch series is going to cover his 43-tone unequally tempered scale, and touch upon what sets it apart from large, but equally-divided scales. Early on, it seems that Partch wanted some room for improvisation, as he notated in the vocal line to _Seventeen Lyrics of Li Po._ There, he left the aspect of rhythm entirely up to the performer, but this seems largely because of a dissatisfaction with the rigidity of classically-trained singers' performance style. When looking at his later large-scale theater works, it's clear that he had a very precise vision and wanted it executed in very specific ways.

[@DavidA-ps1qr]

@@ClassicalNerd Many thanks for your reply......I knew you'd know the answers!!!!! P.S. Since hearing your post, I've listened to Delusion of the Fury. A truly unbelievable and amazing composition.

[@ClassicalNerd]

I'm certainly no Partch expert, but that's the impression I got based on the sources I listed in the description. _Genesis of a Music_ is thorough on the topics it covers, but it's far from exhaustive.

[@zacharydetrick7428]

6:47 i love your old theory professor!

[@ClassicalNerd]

I do too! He gave me a call a while back and I was thrilled.

[@stevehinnenkamp5625]

Love your takes always I think mention of Joseph Yasser was deserved in this discussion.

[@ClassicalNerd]

I didn't find a great deal of overlap between Patch and Yasser in my research. Yasser, like a lot of microtonal theorists, focused on equal-tempered scales greater than 12, while Partch's tonality diamond and extended just-intonation scales are formed on different theoretical bases. That's why explaining his system took a whole separate video!

[@benrubin8624]

Can I make a request for a Korngold video? Thank you

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html

Wow, these videos are becoming giant, awesome! :D Thank you for sharing, this video must've been quite a lot to research for. I also see your shelves look pretty empty, new furniture or are you moving? :)

[@ClassicalNerd]

That's actually my second set, which I used between the Copland video and the Richard Wetz video, and it's back because this is the third of four episodes I filmed while quarantined at my parents' house between April 5th and July 17th. I was lucky enough to film a ton on April 4th such that I didn't have to do too many episodes on that old set, with only the books that I'd left behind when I moved.

[@parsa.mostaghim]

Finally 😍

[@emilynightingale7758]

where did all the books go?

[@ClassicalNerd]

800 miles away! I quarantined with my parents for 3½ months and left the set behind. This-my second set-is what I had to work with again for a few episodes. There will be one more like this and then it'll be back to the standard set.

[@emilynightingale7758]

@@ClassicalNerd ok, fair enough

[@spiritualneutralist2597]

Have you already done Ben Johnston? Or will you be covering him in the part 2

[@ClassicalNerd]

Johnston would have to be his own separate video: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html

[@demoure1680]

theres demonstrable evidence in our age that harmony has nothing do with ratios. if you take a guitar string through distortion where you make all overtones audible you change timbre through harmonic overtones harmony and temperament is totally different to timbre which is what overtones impact

[@demoure1680]

we have 12 equal tones so to have a major and minor key for each note its easy answer

[@stefi1438]

You should make a video about dmitry kabalevsky!

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html

[@demoure1680]

theres all negatives non equal temperament with no positives

[@robertberger4203]

Partch's music, theories and instruments are certainly interesting, but his blanket dismissal of the western tradition of music is unbelievably arrogant and presumptuous . He claimed that HIS music was "valid" and the music of western comp[osers was not .