Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—

intervals Interval may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers ** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to arbitrary partially ordered sets * A statistical level of measurement * Interval e ...

smaller than a

semitone A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...

, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal intervals per octave. In other words, a microtone may be thought of as a note that falls between the keys of a piano tuned in

equal temperament An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, wh ...

. In ''Revising the musical equal temperament,'' Haye Hinrichsen defines equal temperament as “the frequency ratios of all intervals are invariant under transposition (translational shifts along the keyboard), i.e., to be constant. The standard twelve-tone ''equal temperament'' (ET), which was originally invented in ancient China and rediscovered in Europe in the 16th century, is determined by two additional conditions. Firstly the octave is divided into twelve semitones. Secondly the octave, the most fundamental of all intervals, is postulated to be pure (beatless), as described by the frequency ratio 2:1.”

Terminology

Microtone

''Microtonal music'' can refer to any music containing microtones. The words "microtone" and "microtonal" were coined before 1912 by Maud MacCarthy Mann in order to avoid the misnomer "

quarter tone A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, a ...

" when speaking of the srutis of Indian music. Prior to this time the term "quarter tone" was used, confusingly, not only for an interval actually half the size of a semitone, but also for all intervals (considerably) smaller than a semitone. It may have been even slightly earlier, perhaps as early as 1895, that the Mexican composer

Julián Carrillo Julián Carrillo Trujillo (January 28, 1875 – September 9, 1965) was a Mexican composer,Camp, Roderic Ai (1995). "Carrillo (Flores), Nabor" on ''Mexican Political Biographies, 1935–1993: Third Edition'', p. 121. . conductor, violi ...

, writing in Spanish or French, coined the terms ''microtono''/''micro-ton'' and ''microtonalismo''/''micro-tonalité''. In French, the usual term is the somewhat more self-explanatory ''micro-intervalle'', and French sources give the equivalent German and English terms as ''Mikrointervall'' (or ''Kleinintervall'') and ''micro interval'' (or ''microtone''), respectively. "Microinterval" is a frequent alternative in English, especially in translations of writings by French authors and in discussion of music by French composers. In English, the two terms "microtone" and "microinterval" are synonymous. The English analogue of the related French term, ''micro-intervalité'', however, is rare or nonexistent, normally being translated as "microtonality"; in French, the terms ''micro-ton'', ''microtonal'' (or ''micro-tonal''), and ''microtonalité'' are also sometimes used, occasionally mixed in the same passage with ''micro-intervale'' and ''micro-intervalité''.

Ezra Sims Ezra Sims (January 16, 1928 in Birmingham, Alabama — January 30, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts) was one of the pioneers in the field of microtonal composition. He invented a system of notation that was adopted by many microtonal composers afte ...

, in the article "Microtone" in the second edition of the ''

Harvard Dictionary of Music ''The Harvard Dictionary of Music'' is a standard music reference book published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. The first edition, titled ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'', was published in 1944, and was edited by Willi Apel. ...

'' defines "microtone" as "an interval smaller than a semitone", which corresponds with

Aristoxenus Aristoxenus of Tarentum ( el, Ἀριστόξενος ὁ Ταραντῖνος; born 375, fl. 335 BC) was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher, and a pupil of Aristotle. Most of his writings, which dealt with philosophy, ethics and music, have been ...

's use of the term '' diesis''. However, the unsigned article "Comma, Schisma" in the same reference source calls

comma The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline ...

schisma In music, the schisma (also spelled ''skhisma'') is the interval between a Pythagorean comma (531441:524288) and a syntonic comma (81:80) and equals or 32805:32768 = 1.00113, which is 1.9537 cents (). It may also be defined as: * the differ ...

and

diaschisma The diaschisma (or diacisma) is a small musical interval defined as the difference between three octaves and four perfect fifths plus two major thirds (in just intonation). It can be represented by the ratio 2048:2025 and is about 19.5 cents. T ...

"microintervals" but not "microtones", and in the fourth edition of the same reference (which retains Sims's article on "Microtone") a new "Comma, Schisma" article by André Barbera calls them simply "intervals". In the second edition of ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'', Paul Griffiths, Mark Lindley, and Ioannis Zannos define "microtone" as a musical rather than an acoustical entity: "any musical interval or difference of pitch distinctly smaller than a semitone", including "the tiny

enharmonic In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. The enharmonic spelling of a written n ...

melodic intervals of

ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

, the several divisions of the

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

into more than 12 parts, and various discrepancies among the intervals of

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 ...

or between a sharp and its enharmonically paired flat in various forms of mean-tone temperament", as well as the Indian sruti, and small intervals used in

Byzantine chant Byzantine music (Greek: Βυζαντινή μουσική) is the music of the Byzantine Empire. Originally it consisted of songs and hymns composed to Greek texts used for courtly ceremonials, during festivals, or as paraliturgical and liturgical ...

Arabic music theory Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

from the 10th century onward, and similarly for

Persian traditional music Persian traditional music or Iranian traditional music, also known as Persian classical music or Iranian classical music, refers to the classical music of Iran (also known as ''Persia''). It consists of characteristics developed through the coun ...

and

Turkish music The music of Turkey includes mainly Turkic and Byzantine elements as well as partial influences ranging from Ottoman music, Middle Eastern music and Music of Southeastern Europe, as well as references to more modern European and American popula ...

and various other Near Eastern musical traditions, but do not actually name the "mathematical" terms schisma, comma, and diaschisma. "Microtone" is also sometimes used to refer to individual notes, "microtonal pitches" added to and distinct from the familiar twelve notes of the chromatic scale, as "enharmonic microtones", for example. In English the word "microtonality" is mentioned in 1946 by

Rudi Blesh Rudolph Pickett Blesh (January 21, 1899 – August 25, 1985) was an American jazz critic and enthusiast. Biography Blesh studied at Dartmouth College and held jobs writing jazz reviews for the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' and the '' New York ...

who related it to microtonal inflexions of the so-called "

blues scale Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African- ...

s". In Court B. Cutting's 2019 ''Microtonal Analysis of “Blues Notes” and the Blues Scale'', he states that academic studies of the early blues concur that its pitch scale has within it three microtonal “blue notes” not found in 12 tone equal temperament intonation. It was used still earlier by W. McNaught with reference to developments in "modernism" in a 1939 record review of the ''Columbia History of Music, Vol. 5''. In German the term ''Mikrotonalität'' came into use at least by 1958, though "Mikrointervall" is still common today in contexts where very small intervals of early European tradition (diesis, comma, etc.) are described, as e.g. in the new ''Geschichte der Musiktheorie'' while "Mikroton" seems to prevail in discussions of the

avant-garde music Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elemen ...

and music of Eastern traditions. The term "microinterval" is used alongside "microtone" by American musicologist Margo Schulter in her articles on

medieval music Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and followed by the Renaissance ...

Microtonal

The term "microtonal music" usually refers to music containing very small intervals but can include any tuning that differs from Western twelve-tone

. Traditional Indian systems of 22

śruti ''Shruti'' ( sa, श्रुति, , ) in Sanskrit means "that which is heard" and refers to the body of most authoritative, ancient religious texts comprising the central canon of Hinduism. Manusmriti states: ''Śrutistu vedo vijñeyaḥ'' ( ...

; Indonesian

gamelan music Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

; Thai, Burmese, and African music, and music using

meantone temperament Meantone temperament is a musical temperament, that is a tuning system, obtained by narrowing the fifths so that their ratio is slightly less than 3:2 (making them ''narrower'' than a perfect fifth), in order to push the thirds closer to pure. Me ...

or other alternative tunings may be considered microtonal. Microtonal variation of intervals is standard practice in the African-American musical forms of

spirituals Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the e ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

. Many microtonal equal divisions of the octave have been proposed, usually (but not always) in order to achieve approximation to the intervals of

. Terminology other than "microtonal" has been used or proposed by some theorists and composers. In 1914,

A. H. Fox Strangways Arthur Henry Fox Strangways (14 September 18592 May 1948) was an English musicologist, translator, editor and music critic. After a career as a schoolmaster, Fox Strangways developed an interest in Indian music, and in the years before the First W ...

objected that "'heterotone' would be a better name for śruti than the usual translation 'microtone'". Modern Indian researchers yet write: "microtonal intervals called shrutis". In Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia in the 1910s and 1920s the usual term continued to be ''Viertelton-Musik'' (quarter tone music), and the type of intervallic structure found in such music was called the ''Vierteltonsystem'', which was (in the mentioned region) regarded as the main term for referring to music with microintervals, though as early as 1908 Georg Capellan had qualified his use of "quarter tone" with the alternative term "Bruchtonstufen (Viertel- und Dritteltöne)" (fractional degrees (quarter and third tones)). Despite the inclusion of other fractions of a whole tone, this music continued to be described under the heading "Vierteltonmusik" until at least the 1990s, for example in the twelfth edition of the ''

Riemann Musiklexikon The Riemann Musiklexikon (RML), is a music encyclopedia founded in 1882 by Hugo Riemann. The 13th edition appeared in 2012. History The Riemann Musiklexikon is the last undertaking of an individual to write a comprehensive encyclopedia in the fi ...

'', and in the second edition of the popular ''Brockhaus Riemann Musiklexikon''.

Ivan Wyschnegradsky Ivan Alexandrovich Wyschnegradsky; Is also transliterated as Vïshnegradsky, Wyshnegradsky, Wischnegradsky, Vishnegradsky, or Wishnegradsky (after he emigrated to France, he used "Wyschnegradsky" as spelling for his surname)., group=n ( ; Septe ...

used the term ''ultra-chromatic'' for intervals smaller than the semitone and ''infra-chromatic'' for intervals larger than the semitone; this same term has been used since 1934 by ethnomusicologist Victor Belaiev (Belyaev) in his studies of Azerbaijan and Turkish traditional music. A similar term, ''subchromatic'', has been used by theorist Marek Žabka.

Ivor Darreg Ivor Darreg (May 5, 1917 – February 12, 1994) was an American composer and leading proponent of microtonal or " xenharmonic" music. He also created a series of experimental musical instruments. Biography Darreg, a contemporary of Harry Part ...

proposed the term ''xenharmonic''; see

xenharmonic Xenharmonic music is music that uses a tuning system that is unlike the 12-tone equal temperament scale. It was named by Ivor Darreg, from Xenia (Greek ξενία), ''hospitable,'' and Xenos (Greek ξένος) ''foreign.'' He stated that it was ...

music. The

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n composer Franz Richter Herf and the music theorist Rolf Maedel, Herf's colleague at the

Salzburg Mozarteum Mozarteum University Salzburg (German: ''Universität Mozarteum Salzburg'') is one of three affiliated but separate (it is actually a state university) entities under the “Mozarteum” moniker in Salzburg municipality; the International Moz ...

, preferred using the Greek word ''ekmelic'' when referring to "all the pitches lying outside the traditional twelve-tone system". Some authors in Russia and some musicology dissertations disseminate the term ''микрохроматика'' (microchromatics), coined in the 1970s by

Yuri Kholopov Yuri Nikolaevich Kholopov (russian: link=no, Ю́рий Никола́евич Холóпов, ; August 14, 1932, Ryazan – April 24, 2003, Moscow) was a Russian musicologist and educator. Biography After graduating from Ryazan Music Regional C ...

, to describe a kind of 'intervallic genus' ( интервальный род) for all possible microtonal structures, both ancient (as enharmonic genus—γένος ἐναρμόνιον—of Greeks) and modern (as quarter tone scales of Alois Haba); this generalization term allowed also to avoid derivatives such as ''микротональность'' (microtonality, which could be understood in Russian as a sub-

tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is call ...

, which is subordinate to the dominating tonality, especially in the context of European music of the 19th century) and ''микротоника'' (microtonic, "a barely perceptible tonic"; see a clarification in Kholopov

000 Triple zero, Triple Zero, Zero Zero Zero, Triple 0, Triple-0, 000, or 0-0-0 may refer to: * 000 (emergency telephone number), the Australian emergency telephone number * "Triple Zero", a song by AFI (band), AFI from ''Shut Your Mouth and Open Your ...

. Another Russian authors use more international adjective 'microtonal' and rendered it in Russian as 'микротоновый', but not 'microtonality' ('микротональность'). However, the terms 'микротональность' and 'микротоника' are also used. Some authors writing in French have adopted the term "micro-intervallique" to describe such music. Italian musicologist Luca Conti dedicated two his monographs to ''microtonalismo'', which is the usual term in Italian, and also in Spanish (e.g., as found in the title of Rué

. The analogous English form, "microtonalism", is also found occasionally instead of "microtonality", e.g., "At the time when serialism and neoclassicism were still incipient a third movement emerged: microtonalism". The term "macrotonal" has been used for intervals wider than twelve-tone equal temperament, or where there are "fewer than twelve notes per octave", though "this term is not very satisfactory and is used only because there seems to be no other". The term "macrotonal" has also been used for musical form. Examples of this can be found in various places, ranging from

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...

's impressionistic harmonies to

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

's chords of stacked fifths, to

John Luther Adams John Luther Adams (born January 23, 1953) is an American composer whose music is inspired by nature, especially the landscapes of Alaska, where he lived from 1978 to 2014. His orchestral work '' Become Ocean'' was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Priz ...

' ''Clouds of Forgetting'', ''Clouds of Unknowing'' (1995), which gradually expands stacked-interval chords ranging from minor 2nds to major 7thsm.

Louis Andriessen Louis Joseph Andriessen (; 6 June 1939 – 1 July 2021) was a Dutch composer, pianist and academic teacher. Considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation, he was a central proponent of The Hague school of composition. Although ...

's ''De Staat'' (1972–1976) contains a number of "augmented" modes that are based on Greek scales but are asymmetrical to the octave.

History

The Hellenic civilizations of ancient Greece left fragmentary records of their music, such as the

Delphic Hymns The Delphic Hymns are two musical compositions from Ancient Greece, which survive in substantial fragments. They were long regarded as being dated circa 138 BC and 128 BC, respectively, but recent scholarship has shown it likely they wer ...

. The ancient Greeks approached the creation of different musical intervals and modes by dividing and combining

tetrachord In music theory, a tetrachord ( el, τετράχορδoν; lat, tetrachordum) is a series of four notes separated by three intervals. In traditional music theory, a tetrachord always spanned the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency propo ...

s, recognizing three

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

of tetrachords: the enharmonic, the chromatic, and the diatonic. Ancient Greek intervals were of many different sizes, including microtones. The enharmonic genus in particular featured intervals of a distinctly "microtonal" nature, which were sometimes smaller than 50 cents, less than half of the contemporary Western

of 100 cents. In the ancient Greek enharmonic genus, the tetrachord contained a semitone of varying sizes (approximately 100 cents) divided into two equal intervals called dieses (single "diesis", δίεσις); in conjunction with a larger interval of roughly 400 cents, these intervals comprised the perfect fourth (approximately 498 cents, or the ratio of 4/3 in

). Theoretics usually described several diatonic and chromatic genera (some as chroai, "coloration" of one specific intervallic type), but the enarmonic genus was always the only one (argumented as one with the smallest intervals possible). Archicembalo en Cents

Guillaume Costeley's "Chromatic Chanson", "Seigneur Dieu ta pitié" of 1558 used 1/3 comma meantone and explored the full compass of 19 pitches in the octave. The Italian

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

composer and theorist

Nicola Vicentino Nicola Vicentino (1511 – 1575 or 1576) was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most progressive musicians of the age, inventing, among other things, a microtonal keyboard. Life Little is known of h ...

(1511–1576) worked with microtonal intervals and built a keyboard with 36 keys to the octave known as the

archicembalo The archicembalo (or arcicembalo, ) was a musical instrument described by Nicola Vicentino in 1555. This was a harpsichord built with many extra keys and strings, enabling experimentation in microtonality and just intonation. Construction T ...

. While theoretically an interpretation of ancient Greek tetrachordal theory, in effect Vicentino presented a circulating system of quarter-comma

meantone Meantone temperament is a musical temperament, that is a tuning system, obtained by narrowing the fifths so that their ratio is slightly less than 3:2 (making them ''narrower'' than a perfect fifth), in order to push the thirds closer to pure. Me ...

, maintaining major thirds tuned in

in all keys. In 1760 the French flautist published a treatise, ''L'Art de la flute traversiere'', all surviving copies of which conclude with a composition (possibly added a year or two after the actual publication of the volume) incorporating several quarter tones, titled ''Air à la grecque'', accompanied by explanatory notes tying it to the realization of the Greek enharmonic genus and a chart of quarter tone fingerings for the entire range of the one-keyed flute. Shortly afterward, in a letter published in the ''Mercure de France'' in September 1764, the celebrated flautist

Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin (Toulon, 24 March 1693 - Paris, 13 January 1768) was a French flutist and composer of the late Baroque period. He was a son of Jean-Joseph Buffardin (Vaison-la-Romaine, 22 July 1664 - Avignon, 28 August 1726), an instru ...

mentioned this piece and expressed an interest in quarter tones for the flute.

Jacques Fromental Halévy Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over ...

composed a cantata "Prométhée enchaîné" for a solo voice, choir and orchestra (premiered in 1849), where in one movement (''Choeur des Océanides'') he used quarter tones, to imitate the enharmonic genus of Greeks. In the 1910s and 1920s, quarter tones (24 equal pitches per octave) received attention from such composers as

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...

Alois Hába Alois Hába (21 June 1893 – 18 November 1973) was a Czech composer, music theorist and teacher. He belongs to the important discoverers in modern classical music, and major composers of microtonal music, especially using the quarter-tone scal ...

, and

Mildred Couper Mildred Couper (December 10, 1887 in Buenos Aires, Argentina – August 9, 1974 in Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara, United States) was a prominent composer and pianist, and one of the first American musicians to experiment with quar ...

Alexander John Ellis Alexander John Ellis, (14 June 1814 – 28 October 1890), was an English mathematician, philologist and early phonetician who also influenced the field of musicology. He changed his name from his father's name, Sharpe, to his mother's maiden na ...

, who in the 1880s produced a translation of

Hermann Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Association, ...

's ''On the Sensations of Tone'', proposed an elaborate set of exotic just intonation tunings and non-harmonic tunings. Ellis also studied the tunings of non-Western cultures and, in a report to the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, stated that they used neither equal divisions of the octave nor just intonation intervals. Ellis inspired

Harry Partch Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century com ...

immensely. During the Exposition Universelle of 1889,

heard a Balinese

gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

performance and was exposed to non-Western tunings and rhythms. Some scholars have ascribed Debussy's subsequent innovative use of the whole-tone (six equal pitches per octave) tuning in such compositions as the '' Fantaisie for piano and orchestra'' and the Toccata from the suite ''

Pour le piano ''Pour le piano'' (''For the piano''), L. 95, is a suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy. It consists of three individually composed movements, Prélude, Sarabande and Toccata. The suite was completed and published in 1901. It was premiered on ...

'' to his exposure to the Balinese gamelan at the Paris exposition, and have asserted his rebellion at this time "against the rule of equal temperament" and that the gamelan gave him "the confidence to embark (after the 1900 world exhibition) on his fully characteristic mature piano works, with their many bell- and gong-like sonorities and brilliant exploitation of the piano's natural resonance". Still others have argued that Debussy's works like '' L'isle joyeuse'', ''

La cathédrale engloutie "La cathédrale engloutie" (The Sunken Cathedral) is a prelude written by the French composer Claude Debussy for solo piano. It was published in 1910 as the tenth prelude in Debussy's first of two volumes of twelve piano preludes each. It is cha ...

'', ''

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' ( L. 86), known in English as ''Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun'', is a symphonic poem for orchestra by Claude Debussy, approximately 10 minutes in duration. It was composed in 1894 and first performed ...

'', '' La mer'', '' Pagodes'', '' Danseuses de Delphes'', and '' Cloches à travers les feuilles'' are marked by a more basic interest in the microtonal intervals found between the higher members of the overtone series, under the influence of Helmholtz's writings.

Emil Berliner Emile Berliner (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929) originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record (called a "gramophone record" in British and American English) used with a ...

's introduction of the phonograph in the 1890s allowed much non-Western music to be recorded and heard by Western composers, further spurring the use of non-12-equal tunings. Major microtonal composers of the 1920s and 1930s include

(quarter tones, or 24 equal pitches per octave, and sixth tones), Julián Carrillo (24 equal, 36, 48, 60, 72, and 96 equal pitches to the octave embodied in a series of specially custom-built pianos),

(third tones, quarter tones, sixth tones and twelfth tones, non octaving scales) and the early works of

(just intonation using frequencies at ratios of prime integers 3, 5, 7, and 11, their powers, and products of those numbers, from a central frequency of G-196). Prominent microtonal composers or researchers of the 1940s and 1950s include Adriaan Daniel Fokker (31 equal tones per octave), Partch (continuing to build his handcrafted orchestra of microtonal just intonation instruments), and

Eivind Groven Eivind Groven (8 October 1901 – 8 February 1977) was a Norwegian composer and music-theorist. He was from traditional region of Vest-Telemark and had a background in the folk music of the area. Biography Groven was born in the village of L� ...

. Digital synthesizers from the

Yamaha TX81Z The Yamaha TX81Z is a rack version of Yamaha DX11 and rack-mounted ( keyboard-less) frequency modulation music synthesizer, which was released in 1987. Unlike previous FM synthesizers of the era, the TX81Z was the first to offer a range of osci ...

(1987) on and inexpensive software synthesizers have contributed to the ease and popularity of exploring microtonal music.

Microtonality in electronic music

Electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

facilitates the use of any kind of microtonal tuning, and sidesteps the need to develop new notational systems. In 1954,

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

built his electronic '' Studie II'' on an 81-step scale starting from 100 Hz with the interval of 5^1/25 between steps, and in ''

Gesang der Jünglinge ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' (literally "Song of the Youths") is an electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955–56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne and is Work Number 8 in the composer's catalog. The voc ...

'' (1955–56) he used various scales, ranging from seven up to sixty equal divisions of the octave. In 1955,

Ernst Krenek Ernst Heinrich Krenek (, 23 August 1900 – 22 December 1991) was an Austrian, later American, composer of Czech origin. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including ''Music Here and Now'' (1939), a study ...

used 13 equal-tempered intervals per octave in his Whitsun oratorio, ''Spiritus intelligentiae, sanctus''. In 1979–80 Easley Blackwood composed a set of '' Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media,'' a cycle that explores all of the equal temperaments from 13 notes to the octave through 24 notes to the octave, including 15-ET and 19-ET. "The project," he wrote, "was to explore the tonal and modal behavior of all

f these F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. His ...

equal tunings..., devise a notation for each tuning, and write a composition in each tuning to illustrate good chord progressions and the practical application of the notation". In 1986,

Wendy Carlos Wendy Carlos (born Walter Carlos, November 14, 1939) is an American musician and composer best known for her electronic music and film scores. Born and raised in Rhode Island, Carlos studied physics and music at Brown University before moving ...

experimented with many microtonal systems including

, using alternate tuning scales she invented for the album ''

Beauty In the Beast ''Beauty in the Beast'' is a studio album from the American keyboardist and composer Wendy Carlos, released in 1986, on Audion Records, her first for a label other than Columbia Records since 1968. The album uses alternate musical tunings and s ...

''. "This whole formal discovery came a few weeks after I had completed the album, ''Beauty in the Beast'', which is wholly in new tunings and timbres". In 2016, electronic music composed with arbitrary microtonal scales was explored on the album ''Radionics Radio: An Album of Musical Radionic Thought Frequencies'' by British composer Daniel Wilson, who derived his compositions' tunings from frequency-runs submitted by users of a custom-built

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

replicating radionics-based electronic soundmaking equipment used by Oxford's De La Warr Laboratories in the late 1940s, thereby supposedly embodying thoughts and concepts within the tunings. Finnish artist Aleksi Perälä ( Rephlex) works exclusively in a microtonal system known as the Colundi sequence.

Limitations of some synthesizers

The General MIDI Specification does not directly support microtonal music, because each note-on and note-off message only represents one chromatic tone. However, microtonal scales can be emulated using

pitch bend In electronic music, a pitch wheel, pitch bend or bender is a control on a synthesizer to vary the pitch in a continuously variable manner (portamento). The first synthesizer with a pitch wheel was the Minimoog, in 1970. Alternatively, pitch ben ...

ing, such as in

LilyPond LilyPond is a computer program and file format for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand. LilyPond is cross-pl ...

's implementation. Although some synthesizers allow the creation of customized microtonal scales, this solution does not allow compositions to be transposed. For example, if each B note is raised one quarter tone, then the "raised 7th" would only affect a C major scale.

Microtonality in rock music

A form of microtone known as the

blue note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical co ...

is an integral part of

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...

and one of its predecessors, the blues. The blue notes, located on the third, fifth, and seventh notes of a diatonic major scale, are flattened by a variable microtone. Joe Monzo has made a microtonal analysis of the song "Drunken Hearted Man", written and recorded by the delta blues musician

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...

. Musicians such as Jon Catler have incorporated microtonal guitars like 31-tone equal tempered guitar and a 62-tone

guitar in blues and

jazz rock Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...

music. English rock band

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass) ...

has used microtonal string arrangements in its music, such as on "How to Disappear Completely" from the album ''

Kid A ''Kid A'' is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 2 October 2000 by Parlophone. It was recorded with their producer, Nigel Godrich, in Paris, Copenhagen, Gloucestershire and their hometown of Oxford. After th ...

''. American band

Secret Chiefs 3 Secret Chiefs 3 (or SC3) is an American avant-garde group led by guitarist/composer Trey Spruance (of Mr. Bungle and formerly, Faith No More). Their studio recordings and tours have featured different lineups, as the group performs a wide range ...

has been making its own custom "microtonal" instruments since the mid 1990s. The proprietary tuning system they use in their '' Ishraqiyun'' aspect is ratio-based, not equal temperament. The band's leader

Trey Spruance Preston Lea "Trey" Spruance III (born August 14, 1969) is an American composer, producer, and musician who co-founded the experimental rock band Mr. Bungle. He is also leader of the multi-genre outfit Secret Chiefs 3. Originally a guitarist an ...

, also of

Mr. Bungle Mr. Bungle is an American experimental rock band formed in Eureka, California in 1985. Having gone through many incarnations throughout their career, the band is best known for music created during their most experimental era. During this time, ...

challenges the terminology of "microtonality" as a development that instead of liberating tonal sensibility to a universe of diverse possibilities, both new and historical, instead mainly serves to reinforce the idea that the universal standard for "tone" is the (western) semitone. Australian band

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are an Australian rock band formed in 2010 in Melbourne, Victoria. The band's current lineup consists of Stu Mackenzie, Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Cook Craig, Joey Walker, Lucas Harwood and Michael Cavanagh. They are ...

utilises microtonal instruments, including custom microtonal guitars modified to play in 24-TET tuning. Tracks with these instruments appear on their 2017 albums '' Flying Microtonal Banana'' and ''

Gumboot Soup ''Gumboot Soup'' is the thirteenth studio album by Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are an Australian rock band formed in 2010 in Melbourne, Victoria. The band's current li ...

'', their 2020 album '' K.G'', and their 2021 album '' L.W.'' American band Dollshot used quarter tones and other microtonal intervals in their album ''Lalande''.{{cite web , last1 = K

plan A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal. F ...

, first1 = Noah , first2 = Rosie , last2 = K

, date = 2018 , url = https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/notes-from-underground-ivan-wyschnegradskys-manual-of-quarter-tone-harmony/ , title = Notes from Underground: Ivan Wyschnegradsky's Manual of Quarter-Tone Harmony , work = New Music Box , access-date = May 15, 2018 American instrumental trio

Consider the Source Consider the Source is an American instrumental trio from New York City. Formed in 2004, the group has released six studio albums, four live albums, and one compilation. They have toured extensively across the United States, Israel, Turkey, and Ge ...

employs microtonal instruments in their music.{{Citation needed, date=July 2020

In the West

{{more citations needed section, date=July 2016

Western microtonal pioneers

{{div col, colwidth=27em *

Henry Ward Poole Henry Ward Poole (1825–1890) was an American surveyor, civil engineer, educator and writer on and inventor of systems of musical tuning. He was brother of the famous librarian William Frederick Poole, and cousin of the celebrated humorist, jour ...

(keyboard designs, 1825–1890) *

Eugène Ysaÿe Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe (; 16 July 185812 May 1931) was a Belgian virtuoso violinist, composer, and conductor. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tsar". Legend of the Ysaÿe violin Eugène Ysaÿe ...

(Belgium, U.S.A., 1858–1931, used quarter tones in several of the Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27) *

Ferruccio Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...

(Italy, Germany, 1866–1924). Experimented with microtones, including third tones. *

(U.S.A., 1874–1954, quarter tones) *

(Mexico, 1875–1965) many different equal temperaments, loo
here
o

(mostly Spanish but some English too) *

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

(Hungary, 1881–1945, rare uses of quarter tones) *

George Enescu George Enescu (; – 4 May 1955), known in France as Georges Enesco, was a Romanian composer, violinist, conductor and teacher. Regarded as one of the greatest musicians in Romanian history, Enescu is featured on the Romanian five lei. Biog ...

(Romania, France, 1881–1955) (in '' Œdipe'' to suggest the

enharmonic genus In the musical system of ancient Greece, genus (Greek: γένος 'genos'' pl. γένη 'genē'' Latin: ''genus'', pl. ''genera'' "type, kind") is a term used to describe certain classes of intonations of the two movable notes within a tetrach ...

ancient Greek music Music was almost universally present in ancient Greek society, from marriages, funerals, and religious ceremonies to theatre, folk music, and the ballad-like reciting of epic poetry. It thus played an integral role in the lives of ancient Greek ...

, and in the Third Violin Sonata, as inflections characteristic of Romanian folk music) *

Karol Szymanowski Karol Maciej Szymanowski (; 6 October 188229 March 1937) was a Polish composer and pianist. He was a member of the modernist Young Poland movement that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century. Szymanowski's early works show the inf ...

(Poland, 1882–1937, used quarter tones on the violin in ''

Myths Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

'' Op. 30, 1915) *

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...

(Australia, 1882–1961, particularly works for his "free music machine") *

Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coined ...

(France, U.S.A., 1883–1965) *

Mordecai Sandberg Mordecai (Markus) Sandberg ( he, מרדכי זנדברג) (February 4, 1897December 28, 1973) was a composer and physician. He was a creative and prolific composer, a musical theorist, and an innovative physician in the area of alternative and nat ...

(Romania, Austria, Palestine, USA, Canada, 1897–1973) *

Luigi Russolo Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo (30 April 1885 – 4 February 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto ''The Art of Noises'' (1913). He is often regarded as one of ...

(Italy, 1885–1947, used quarter tones and eighth tones on the ''Intonarumori'', noise instruments) *

(U.S.A., 1887–1974, quarter tones) *

(Czechoslovakia, 1893–1973, quarter tones and other equal temperaments) *

(U.S.S.R. (Russia), France, 1893–1979, quarter tones, twelfth tones and other equal temperaments) *

(U.S.A., 1901–1974, just intonation, including a system of 43 unequal tones to the octave) *

(Norway, 1901–1977, 53ET) *

Henk Badings Henk Badings (hĕngk bä'dĭngz) (17 January 190726 June 1987) was an Indo-Dutch composer. Early life Born in Bandung, Java, Dutch East Indies, as the son of Herman Louis Johan Badings, an officer in the Dutch East Indies army, Hendrik Herman Ba ...

(The Netherlands, 1907–1987, 31ET) *

Maurice Ohana Maurice Ohana (12 June 1913 – 13 November 1992) was a French composer. Ohana's output includes choral works, string quartets, suites for ten-string guitar, a ''Tiento'' for six-string guitar, and operas. Life and career Ohana was born in Casab ...

(France, 1913–1992, third tones (18ET) and quarter tones (24ET) most particularly) *

Giacinto Scelsi Giacinto Francesco Maria Scelsi (; 8 January 1905 – 9 August 1988, sometimes cited as 8 August 1988) was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French. He is best known for having composed music based around only one pitch, ...

(Italy, 1905–1988, intuitive linear tone deviations, quarter tones, eighth tones) *

Lou Harrison Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his for ...

(U.S.A., 1917–2003, just intonation) *

(U.S.A., 1917–1994) * Jean-Etienne Marie (France, 1919–1989, many different equal temperaments: 18ET, 24ET, 30ET, 36ET, 48ET, 96ET most particularly and polymicrotonality) * {{ill, Franz Richter Herf, de, , nl (Austria, 1920–1989, 72-equal temperament, "ekmelic" music) *

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde ...

(Greece, France, 1922–2001, quarter and third tones most particularly, occasionally eighth tones) *

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century" ...

(Hungary, 1923–2006, '' Ramifications'' in quarter tone tuning, natural harmonics in his Horn Trio, later just intonation in his solo concertos) *

Luigi Nono Luigi Nono (; 29 January 1924 – 8 May 1990) was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music. Biography Early years Nono, born in Venice, was a member of a wealthy artistic family; his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono beg ...

(Italy, 1924–1990, quarter tones, eighth tones and 16th tones) *

Claude Ballif Claude Ballif (22 May 1924 – 24 July 2004) was a French composer, writer, and pedagogue. He worked at a number of institutions throughout more than 40 years of teaching, one of which he had attended as a student. Among his pupils were Raynald A ...

(France, 1924–2004, quarter tones) *

Tui St. George Tucker Tui St. George Tucker (born Lorraine St. George Tucker; November 25, 1924 – April 21, 2004) was an American modernist composer, conductor, recorder virtuoso and creator of unique musical instruments. Her compositions often feature microtonality ...

(1924–2004) *

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...

(France, 1925–2016) (first example of

serial music In music, serialism is a method of Musical composition, composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other elements of music, musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, thou ...

with quarter tones in his pieces ''

Le Visage nuptial ''Le Visage nuptial'' (''The Nuptial Face'') is a secular cantata for soprano, contralto, choir of women and orchestra by Pierre Boulez. Originally composed in 1946–47 on a poem by René Char for two voices, two ondes Martenot, piano and percu ...

'' and ''

Polyphonie X ''Polyphonie X'' (1950–51) is a three- movement composition by Pierre Boulez for eighteen instruments divided into seven groups, with a duration of roughly fifteen minutes. Following the work's premiere, Boulez withdrew the score, stating that it ...

'', but soon after abandoning microtonal elements) *

(Germany, 1928–2007, in his electronic works many microtonal concepts, non-octaving scales in ''Studie II'', just intonation in ''

Gruppen ''Gruppen'' (german: Groups) for three orchestras (1955–57) is amongst the best-known compositions of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is Work Number 6 in the composer's catalog of works. ''Gruppen'' is "a landmark in 20th-century m ...

'' and ''

Stimmung ''Stimmung'', for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale Köln. Its average length is seventy-four minutes, and it bears the work nu ...

'', occasional microtonal instrumental and vocal writing throughout ''

Licht file:Kürten - Waldfriedhof - Stockhausen 01 ies.jpg, 275px, Karlheinz Stockhausens grave with the score to LICHT . ''Licht'' (Light), subtitled "Die sieben Tage der Woche" (The Seven Days of the Week), is a cycle of seven operas composed by Kar ...

'') * Ben Johnston (U.S.A., 1926–2019, extended just intonation) *

Joe Maneri Joseph Gabriel Esther Maneri (February 9, 1927 – August 24, 2009), was an American jazz composer, saxophone and clarinet player. Violinist Mat Maneri is his son. Boston Microtonal Society In 1988, Maneri founded the Boston Microtonal Society ...

(U.S.A., 1927–2009) *

(U.S.A., 1928–2015, 72-tone equal temperament) *

Erv Wilson Ervin Wilson (June 11, 1928 – December 8, 2016) was a Mexico, Mexican/United States, American (dual citizen) music theory, music theorist. Early life Ervin Wilson was born in a remote area of northwest Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua, Mexico, wher ...

(1928–2016) *

Carlton Gamer Carlton Gamer (born February 13, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American composer and music theorist. He has taught at Colorado College, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan. He studied at Northwestern University and Boston Univer ...

(U.S.A, born 1929, 7-tone, 19-tone, 22-tone, 31-tone equal temperament) * Alvin Lucier (U.S.A., b. 1931) *

Joel Mandelbaum Mayer Joel Mandelbaum (born October 12, 1932) is an American music composer and teacher, best known for his use of microtonal tuning (notably just intonation and 19 equal temperament and the 31 equal temperament). He wrote the first Ph.D. disserta ...

(U.S.A., b. 1932) *

Krzysztof Penderecki Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', ''Polish Requiem'', ''A ...

(Poland, 1933–2020, quarter tones) * Easley Blackwood (b. 1933) *

Alain Bancquart Alain Bancquart (20 June 1934 – 27 January 2022) was a French composer. Biography Bancquart had his musical formation at the Conservatoire de Paris (violin, viola, chamber music, counterpoint, fugue and composition) with Darius Milhaud. He wa ...

(France, b. 1934) (quarter tones and 16th tones) *

James Tenney James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microtonal ...

(U.S.A., 1934–2006, just intonation, 72-tone equal temperament) *

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...

(U.S.A., b. 1935, just intonation) *

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...

(U.S.A., b. 1935, just intonation) *

John Corigliano John Paul Corigliano Jr. (born February 16, 1938) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. His scores, now numbering over one hundred, have won him the Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, an ...

(U.S.A., b. 1938, quarter tones) * Douglas Leedy (b. 1938, just intonation, meantone) *

(U.S.A., b. 1939, non-octaving scales) *

Bruce Mather Bruce Mather (born May 9, 1939) is a Canadians, Canadian composer, pianist, and writer who is particularly known for his contributions to contemporary classical music. One of the most notable composers of microtonal music, he was awarded the Jule ...

(Canada, b. 1939, different equal temperaments, following Wyschnegradsky) *

Brian Ferneyhough Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and ...

(Great Britain, b. 1943, quarter tones, 31ET in ''Unity Capsule'' for solo flute, 1976; quarter tones and eighth tones in ''La Chute d'Icare'', 1988) *

Jukka Tiensuu Jukka Santeri Tiensuu (born 30 August 1948) is a Finnish contemporary classical composer, harpsichordist, pianist and conductor. Career Tiensuu was born in Helsinki. After extensive musical studies (piano, harpsichord, conducting, composing, histor ...

(Finland, b. 1948, quarter tones, non equal temperament tunings) {{div col end

Modern Western microtonal composers

{{div col, colwidth=27em *

Clarence Barlow Clarence Barlow (also Klarenz, born 27 December 1945) is a composer of classical and electroacoustic works. Career Barlow was one of the founders of Initiative Musik und Informatik Köln. In 1988 he was the director of music at the Internatio ...

(b. 1945) *

Gérard Grisey Gérard Henri Grisey (; ; 17 June 1946 – 11 November 1998) was a twentieth-century French composer of contemporary classical music. His work is often associated with the Spectralist Movement in music, of which he was a major pioneer. Biograp ...

(1946–1998) (spectral approach to microintervals, quarter tones, eighth tones) * Max Méreaux (b. 1946) *

Tristan Murail Tristan Murail (born 11 March 1947) is a French composer associated with the "spectral" technique of composition. Among his compositions is the large orchestral work ''Gondwana''. Early life and studies Murail was born in Le Havre, France. His fa ...

(b. 1947) (spectral approach to microintervals, quarter tones, eighth tones) *

Glenn Branca Glenn may refer to: Name or surname * Glenn (name) * John Glenn, U.S. astronaut Cultivars * Glenn (mango) * a 6-row barley variety Places In the United States: * Glenn, California * Glenn County, California * Glenn, Georgia, a settlement ...

(b. 1948) * Elizabeth Brown (b. 1953) *

Claude Vivier Claude Vivier ( ; baptised as Claude Roger; 14 April 19487 March 1983) was a Canadian contemporary composer, pianist, poet and ethnomusicologist of Québécois origin. After studying with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne, Vivier became an i ...

(1948–1983) * Dean Drummond (1949–2013) *

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 ...

(b. 1949) * Lasse Thoresen (b. 1949) *

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 ...

(b. 1949) * Manfred Stahnke (b. 1951) *

James Erber James Erber (born 1951) is a British composer of the New Complexity school. Born in London, Erber studied music at the universities of Sussex and Nottingham, and worked in music publishing from 1976 to 1979. His first work, ''Seguente'' for ob ...

(b. 1951) (quarter tones) *

Rhys Chatham Rhys Chatham (born September 19, 1952) is an American composer, guitarist, trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist (flutes in C, alto and bass, keyboard), primarily active in avant-garde and minimalism, minimalist music. He is best known for his "g ...

(b. 1952) *

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 ...

(b. 1952) (invented acoustic instruments in just intonation & recurrent sequences) *

David First David First (born August 20, 1953) is an American composer. His music most often deals with drones and interference beats, the latter aligning his music with that of Alvin Lucier. He usually plays computer or guitar and has led the World Casio ...

(b. 1953) * Georg Friedrich Haas (b. 1953) * James Wood (b. 1953) * Pascale Criton (b. 1954) (different equal temperaments, most particularly very dense ETs such as the 96ET) * Paul Dirmeikis (b. 1954) *

Stephen James Taylor Stephen James Taylor (born 28 September 1954) is an American composer best known for his film and TV scores with four Emmy nominations, two Annie nominations, and a DVD-X Award on "Best Original Score (for a DVD Premiere Movie) to date ('05). F ...

(b. 1954) *

Pascal Dusapin Pascal Georges Dusapin (born 29 May 1955) is a French composer. His music is marked by its microtonality, tension, and energy. A pupil of Iannis Xenakis and Franco Donatoni and an admirer of Varèse, Dusapin studied at the University of Paris I ...

(b. 1955) (different equal temperaments, notably the 48ET) *

Kyle Gann Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955, in Dallas, Texas) is an American professor of music, critic, analyst, and composer who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for ''The Village Voice'' (from 1986 to 2005) and ...

(b. 1955) *

Johnny Reinhard Johnny Reinhard (born 1956) is a microtonal composer, bassoonist, author and conductor. Reinhard employs many avant-garde techniques in his bassoon performance such as glissando and multiphonics, as well as uses just intonation and other microt ...

(b. 1956) (different equal temperaments, just intonation, polymicrotonally) *

Dave Soldier David Sulzer (born November 6, 1956) is an American neuroscientist and musician. He is a professor at Columbia University Medical Center in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and pharmacology. Sulzer's laboratory investigates the interact ...

(b. 1956) *

Eric Mandat Eric Paul Mandat (born 1957) is an American clarinetist and composer. Mandat began his clarinet studies under the tutelage of Richard Joiner of the Denver Symphony. He later studied with Lee Gibson, Keith Wilson, D. Stanley Hasty, and Charles ...

(b. 1957) * Erling Wold (b. 1958) * Michael Bach Bachtischa (b. 1958) *

Lucio Garau Lucio Garau (born 9 December 1959) is an Italian composer of contemporary music and pianist. Garau graduated in Piano and Composition at the Conservatorio di Cagliari, where he studied with Franco Oppo.http://www.sardegnadigitallibrary.it/docume ...

(b. 1959) * Michael Harrison (b. 1959) (just intonation) *

Martin Smolka Martin Smolka (born 11 August 1959 in Prague) is a contemporary Czech composer of classical music. Works ;1983 * ''Slzy (Tears)''; ;1985-1988 : ''Hudba hudbička'' (''Music Sweet Music'') for ensemble; ;1988 * ''Music for Retuned Instrument ...

(b. 1959) * Richard Barrett (b. 1959) *

Georg Hajdu Georg Hajdu (born 21 June 1960) is a German composer of Hungarian descent. His work is dedicated to the combination of music, science and computer technology. He is noted for his opera ' and the network music performance environment Quintet.net ...

(b. 1960) *

William Susman William Joseph Susman (born August 29, 1960) is an American composer of concert and film music and a pianist. He has written orchestral and chamber music as well as documentary film scores. Music Susman's music is inspired by Afro-Cuban montuñ ...

(b. 1960) * François Paris (b. 1961) * Franklin Cox (b. 1961) (quarter tones, twelfth tones, extended just intonation) *

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 ...

(b. 1961) *

Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf (born 22 October 1962) is a German composer, editor and author. Career Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf was born in Mannheim, Germany, and studied composition with Brian Ferneyhough, Klaus Huber and Emanuel Nunes and music theory ...

(b. 1962) (quarter tones, eight tones) *

Harold Fortuin Harold Fortuin (born 1964 in Mount Clemens, Michigan) is an American composer, pianist, and designer of hardware and software for electronic music. He has written both traditional instrumental and vocal music as well as electronic and computer mu ...

(b. 1964) *

Marc Sabat Marc Sabat (born 22 September 1965) is a Canadian composer based in Berlin, Germany, since 1999. Works He has made concert music pieces, works with video, and installations with acoustic instruments and, in some recent pieces, computer-generate ...

(b. 1965) (extended JI up to 23-limit) *

Georges Lentz Georges Lentz is a contemporary composer and sound artist, born in Luxembourg in 1965 and that country's internationally best known composer. Since 1990, he has been living in Sydney, Australia. Despite his relatively small output and his reclus ...

(b. 1965) *

Jeffrey Ching Jeffrey Ching (, born 4 November 1965) is a contemporary classical composer. He was born in the Philippines, to Chinese parents. He is married with the operatic soprano Andión Fernández and has two children. His opera ' was given in the The ...

(b. 1965) (quarter tones, ancient Chinese tunings, e.g. circle-of-fifths and just intonation) * Geoff Smith (b. 1966) *

(b. 1969) * Elaine Walker (b. 1969) *

Richard David James Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), best known as Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born British musician, composer and DJ. He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic styles such as techno, ambient, and jungle. Journalists from publicatio ...

, aka Aphex Twin (b. 1971) *

Paweł Mykietyn Paweł Mykietyn (Polish pronunciation: ; born 20 May 1971) is a Polish award-winning composer and clarinetist. By the year 2012, Mykietyn had written two symphonies, cello, piano and violin concertos, St. Marc Passions for soprano, narrator, c ...

(b. 1971) *

Yitzhak Yedid Yitzhak Yedid ( he, יצחק ידיד) is an Israeli-Australian contemporary classical music composer and improvising pianist, the recipient of numerous awards. Biography Yitzhak Yedid was born in Jerusalem, Israel to a sephardic Jewish famil ...

(b. 1971) *

Yuri Landman Yuri Landman (born 1 February 1973) is a Dutch inventor of musical instruments and musician who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a number of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japan ...

(b. 1973) * Kristoffer Zegers (b. 1973) *

Karola Obermueller Karola Obermueller (born 21 March 1977, Darmstadt) is a German composer and teacher. Life Obermueller began her training at the Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt. She studied composition with of the Meistersinger-Konservatorium and th ...

(b. 1977) * Martin Suckling (b. 1981) *

Saman Samadi Saman Samadi (born 1984) is a Persian-American composer, performer, music scholar, and current doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge. Biography Saman Samadi's work has been performed internationally—in the mid & far East, Europe, ...

(b. 1984) * Taylor Brook (b. 1985) *

Michael Waller Michael Vincent Waller (born October 26, 1985 in Staten Island, New York) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He has studied with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and Bunita Marcus. Life and works His recent compositions h ...

(b. 1985) * Sean Archibald, aka Sevish, (b. 1988) * Seppe Gebruers, aka Ultrachromatic Clocktower, (b. 1990) *

Robin Haigh Robin Haigh (born 1993 in London) is a composer of contemporary classical music. Career In 2017, Robin Haigh won a BASCA British Composer Award at the age of 24 for his recorder quintet, ''In Feyre Foreste''. His piece ''Zorthern'' features o ...

(b. 1993) *

Jacob Collier Jacob Collier (; né Moriarty; born 2 August 1994) is an English singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. His music incorporates a combination of jazz with elements from many other musical genres, and often features extensive use of reha ...

(b. 1994) {{div col end

Western microtonal researchers

{{div col, colwidth=18em *

(1897–1973) *

Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of ...

(1629–1695) *

(1875–1965) *

Adriaan Daniël Fokker Adriaan Daniël Fokker (; 17 August 1887 – 24 September 1972) was a Dutch physicist. He worked in the fields of special relativity and statistical mechanics. He was the inventor of the Fokker organ, a 31-tone equal-tempered (31-TET) organ ...

(1887–1972) *

(1893–1979) *

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, '' ...

(1893–1981) *

(1893–1973) *

(1901–1974) *

Alain Daniélou Alain Daniélou (4 October 1907 – 27 January 1994) was a French historian, Indologist, intellectual, musicologist, translator, writer, and notable Western convert to and expert on the Shaivite sect of Hinduism. In 1991 he was awarded the ...

(1907–1994) * Jean-Etienne Marie (1917–1989) *

(1928–2016) *

(b. 1929) *

(b. 1932) *

(1934–2006) *

Tom Zé Antônio José Santana Martins (born 11 October 1936), known professionally as Tom Zé (), is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who was influential in the Tropicália movement of 1960s Brazil. After the peak of t ...

(b. 1936) *

(b. 1945) * Valeri Brainin (b. 1948) *

Jacques Dudon Jacques Dudon is a French just intonation composer and instrument builder. He is best known for developing a series of photosonic disk () instruments in the 1980s that produced sound from modulated light (a light source shines through painted glass ...

(b. 1951) *

William Sethares William A. Sethares (born April 19, 1955) is an American music theorist and professor of electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin. In music, he has contributed to the theory of Dynamic Tonality and provided a formalization of conson ...

(b. 1955) *

(b. 1960) *

Bob Gilmore Bob Gilmore (6 June 1961 – 2 January 2015) was a musicologist, educator and keyboard player. Born in Larne, Northern Ireland, he spent his early years in Carrickfergus. He studied music at York University, England, then at Queen's University ...

(1961–2015) *

(b. 1965) {{div col end

References

{{Reflist

External links

{{commons category, Microtonal music *{{Curlie, Arts/Music/Theory/Tuning_Systems/Microtonal/ * Aikin, Jim. 2003
Jim Aikin's article on alternative tuning in electronic music
* Anon. .d.
Nicola Vicentino (1511–1576)
. IVO: Sacred Music in the Italian Cinquecento outside Venice and Rome, edited by Chris Whent. Here Of A Sunday Morning website. (Accessed 19 August 2008) * Chalmers, John

* Loli, Charles. 2008.
Microtonalismo
. (Article on alternative tuning in Peruvian music) * Solís Winkler, Ernesto. 2004.

. (Accessed 19 August 2008) * Wilson, Erv.
Wilson Archives of papers on microtonal theory

Listen – Xenharmonic Wiki
– links to microtonal composers and compositions
Projects – Xenharmonic Wiki
– links to microtonal projects around the world
Offtonic Microtonal Synthesizer
a browser-based synth to explore microtonal tunings with a QWERTY keyboard
MidiPro.org
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201123184038/http://midipro.org/ , date=2020-11-23 allows any sound card or synthesizer to play 48 microtones per octave, each separated by 1/8 step {{Microtonal music, state=expanded {{Musical tuning {{Timbre {{Modernism (music) {{Authority control

Music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

Ancient Greek music Post-tonal music theory