My microtonal music realized by MIDI

polymicrotonal weirdness with max msp, 2018

PolymicroEtude7

This, my second mixed Trio in poly, features 17-19-21-23-25-28-31 seven note scale in the cello, that loops 6X against two polyrhythmic contrapuntal 24 unequal Pythagorean scale of al Farabi in the piano, and Ben Johnston's 6th Prime row of 25 unequal per octave, in the Clarinet. The interplay is finely thought out and responsorial. The poly trio is a new form I am experimenting with for more transparency for the contrapuntal interplay between the instruments in polymicrotonality. 2025

Mixed Trio in Polytempic Polymicrotonality #2

fucked up mess

Twist

This piece is an outgrowth of the previous sextet that is now a NONET, with English Horn, C Trumpet, violin, viola, cello, 2 marimbas, guitar and piano. This is fully polytempic, but is only standard tuned, no microtones. (unless of course 12tet in-itself is already microtuned as it deviates from just overtones) . This piece is sprightly and alive, quite the opposite of its composer, so that remains an enigma. 

Just Shut the Fuck UP, it's a Beautiful Day Outside and I have a Boner, so don't ruin it.

Like a wild Klezmer orchestra, everyone is going dixieland Mad with pdlytempo and polymicrotonality, for piano, guitar, violin, viola, cello, 2 marimbas, English horn and Trumpet. It's a mad drunken bar fight but, fun, a fun mad drinking bar fight. No one lives! Composed today and all week. This is related to the Boner happy day piece. You're welcome. 

Polymicrotonal Nonet I

This music is about how we are all fucked and Trump will destroy the Earth, as I've been fucking telling you idiots for the last ten fucking goddamned years and you just sat on your ass doing nothing. Happy Death. 2025

Nonet in Polytempic 12tet, updated version, for English Horn, Trumpet, Violin, Viola, Cello, two Marimbae, Piano and Guitar

Music for English horn, trumpet, violin, viola, cello, two vibraphones, guitar and piano. Tunings will be discussed later. Working on score, still. This piece is constantly evolving. 2025

Polymicrotonal Nonet, without Polytempo, version 2, for Violin, Viola, Cello, English Horn, Trumpet, 2 Vibraphones, Guitar and Just Piano

Totally synthesized version of nonet for acoustic instruments, all with samplers. Relax and enjoy, or I'll kick your fucking ass. 

Nonet synthesized, Version III

2 Trumpets, Horn in F, Trombone, Tuba in 99-98-97-96-95 ratio tempi relationships with "large" quarter and eighth tone modulations. Quasi tripartite form in a Schoenbergian sense in that there is no tonic-dominant axis for formal constraints, yet the microtonal modulations act in place to delineate form. Simple retrograde is employed to a general singular "diatonic" line multiplied and displaced by the pdlytempo. This is not phase music. This is still polytempo but at micro rhythmic gradations. Each tempo is marked by a .5 beat difference between the five parts. There is no convergence, only separation, like our country. Frankly, like the world today.

Polytempic Polymicrotonal Brass Quintet



Suppose that a musical monochord sounds at frequency F. Stopping the string at two places, so dividing it into three segments, causes those segments to sound at frequencies A,B and C satisfying 1/A + 1/B + 1/C = 1/F.

Now if one plucks the stopped monochord at a random place, the lowest of the three frequencies (attached to the longest segment) will sound with the highest probability, and vice versa.

As this piece develops, the stopping of an imaginary such string evolves so that the mathematical entropy of the random process stays approximately constant but gradually increases (until the stopping points divide the string into three equal parts). A graph of this looks like a tight triangular spiral.

Finally the durations of the notes correspond, by design, to the probabilities at any given moment of the three frequencies --- but in a different way in each of the three voices. A high frequency (unlikely note) in the first part grants the next note a short duration; in the second part a high itself gets a short duration; and finally in the third part a high note grants the previous note a short duration (so, from a listener's perspective, a short duration in that part heralds a high frequency coming). This presents the listener with a counterpoint contrasting three different but related music logics.

Another version of the piece (https://soundcloud.com/david-victor-feldman/trio-entropicum-first-version) works almost the same way, except that low frequencies correspond to short durations.

A score for an 12-tone equal temperament approximate version dates back to the late 1970's, but never received a performance. This MIDI realization realizes the pitch relationships quite precisely, and perhaps supersedes the piece originally conceived for human players.


Trio Entropicum (2nd Version)

These five pieces feel like rags to me despite their strange tuning, irrational rhythms and athematic construction.  They all follow the same progression of 73 special chords derived from division of the octave into 34 parts, special because each also closely approximates a selection of overtones from a common fundamental.  Two common tones link each chord to the next giving an effect different from but still something like functional harmony.  One might call the movements mutually isomorphic, even though they differ in all their lapidary details.   Having listened to one or two, the others will sound familiar one a first hearing, but only in a very abstract way.

Composer, mathematician, visual artist. 
Seeks collaboration with performers and choreographers.

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Trio Entropicum (2nd Version)

David Victor Feldman

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