Ervin Wilson (June 11, 1928 – December 8, 2016) was a

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American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

(dual citizen)

music theorist Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

Early life

Ervin Wilson was born in a remote area of northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, where he lived until the age of fifteen. His mother taught him to play the

reed organ The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...

and to read musical notation. He began to compose at an early age, but immediately discovered that some of the sounds he was hearing mentally could not be reproduced by the conventional intervals of the organ. As a teenager he began to read books on Indian music, developing an interest in concepts of

raga A ''raga'' or ''raag'' (; also ''raaga'' or ''ragam''; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a musical mode, melodic mode. The ''rāga'' is a unique and central feature of the classical Indian music tradit ...

. While he was in the Air Force in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, a chance meeting with a total stranger introduced him to musical harmonics, which changed the course of his life and work. Influenced by the work of Joseph Yasser, Wilson began to think of the musical scale as a living process—like a crystal or plant. He mentored many composers and instrument builders.

Works

Despite his avoidance of academia, Wilson has been influential on those interested in

microtonal music Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of tw ...

and

just intonation In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals Interval may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers ** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to ...

, especially in the areas of scale, keyboard, and notation design. Among his developments are Moments of Symmetry, Combination Product Sets, Golden Horograms, scales based on recurrence relations (scales of "Mt. Meru"), and mapping scales to the generalized keyboard. He cited Augusto Novaro and

Joseph Yasser Joseph Yasser (April 16, 1893 – September 6, 1981) was a Russian–American organist, music theorist, author, and musicologist. An influential figure who established a handful of musical institutions, Yasser is noted for his 1932 publication, '' ...

as influences. Wilson built instruments and explored the resources of 31 and 41 equal divisions of the octave. He supported the work of Harry Partch, proposing the design of the

Quadrangularis Reversum The American composer Harry Partch (1901-1974) composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, derived from the natural Harmonic series; these scales allowed for more tones of smaller intervals than in the standard Western tuning, ...

and helping build the instrument, as well as providing diagrams for Partch's book

Genesis of a Music ''Genesis of a Music'' is a book first published in 1949 by microtonal composer Harry Partch (1901–1974). Partch first presents a polemic against both equal temperament and the long history of stagnation in the teaching of music; according t ...

. The goal of Wilson's research with scales was to make them musically accessible to the composer and the listener. "I sculpt in the architecture of the scale. Other people come along and animate it."

Musicians influenced by Wilson

Warren Burt Warren Burt (born 10 October 1949) is an Australia-based composer of American birth. He is known for composing in a wide variety of new music styles, ranging from acoustic music, electroacoustic music, sound art installations, and text-based m ...

*Jim French *

Kraig Grady Kraig Grady (born 1952) is a US-Australian composer/sound artist. He has composed and performed with an ensemble of microtonal instruments of his own design and also worked as a shadow puppeteer, tuning theorist, filmmaker, world music radio DJ ...

*Terumi Narushima *

Paul Rapoport Paul Israel Rapoport (March 6, 1940, Flushing, New York – July 9, 1987, New York, New York) was a co-founder of both the New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center and Gay Men's Health Crisis. The private ...

* Emil Richards *

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Greg Schiemer Gregory Marcellus Schiemer (born 16 January 1949) is an Australian electronic music composer, instrument builder, and teacher. His artistic preoccupations include creative engagement with new technology, music created for non-expert performance a ...

* Stephen James Taylor *

Daniel James Wolf Daniel James Wolf (born September 13, 1961 in Upland, California) is an American composer. Studies Wolf studied composition with Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, and La Monte Young, as well as musical tunings with Erv Wilson and Douglas Leedy and e ...

References

External links

The Wilson Archives at Anaphoria.comGems from the Wilson Archives
Blog devoted to Erv Wilson's work
''Microtonality-and-the-Tuning-Systems-of-Erv-Wilson''
by Terumi Narushima. An introductory and explanatory introduction to the work of Erv Wilson. *Xenharmonikon - Informal Journal of Experimental Music:
Archives (1974-1998)

Online Journal (2018-)
* ttp://www.thesonicsky.com/ The Sonic Sky- site (with video) about ''the musical realm of Erv Wilson, and the vast universe of his musical structures'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Erv American music theorists Mexican music theorists 1928 births 2016 deaths Mexican emigrants to the United States