When I first conceived of this piece, I imagined a pastoral setting with different birds taking solo parts.  This seemed to be working as I recorded bird calls in my back yard.

But one day, Bluejays started making a lot of noise and pretty soon I realized more were coming from all over the neighborhood and attacking something in a bush. I did not see what that was, but from the shaking, it appeared to be the size of a squirrel. This changed the theme of the piece as I realized the precarious nature of living in the wild.

There is no fixed meter. I tied most of the rhythm to the bird calls. I had no intention of turning the bird calls into a melody. Instead I tried to adapt the music to the mood set by them.

Wild

This was the first microtonal piece I composed using CSound to create the instruments one soundwave at a time.  I learned a lot and am fairly pleased with the result.  I especially enjoy the wobbly singers and the ghostly drone.

Pleasant

This piece uses instruments I created in CSound combined with sound samples that I heavily manipulated in Audacity.

Mysterious

This is the most progrock-ish yet microtonal piece of this set.  I use several unique instruments to embrace the dissonance and still get a recognizable melody.

Strong

This was composed tongue­in­cheek. As someone who was born in the USA, I don’t take their majesties too seriously. So it is more playful than pompous.  Also, it was influenced by Frank Zappa (The Grand Wazoo).  I had fun playing with rhythms in the later sections.

Majestic

This 19 EDO microtonal composition was made with a front end to CSound that I have released as open source. For more information, see the demos here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDQJxi2O7Ds&list=PLEQ2UEeEQ_VutimRr1IY1QPeZpb7ruhSP

I created the following instruments for this piece:

Bass, Brass, Plucked strings, Exponential Up/Down, Saw square, Low frequency additive wave, Square beats, Flute, Bowed instrument, Squarish, Shaked wave, Stirred wave, Percussion

To see the video I made for this, go here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEbGEVWGnX4&t=35s

Emerge For To Explore

EmergeForToExplore

This composition, in 25 EDO, was made with a front end to CSound that I have released as open source.  For more information, see the demos here:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDQJxi2O7Ds&list=PLEQ2UEeEQ_VutimRr1IY1QPeZpb7ruhSP

If you like videos with your music, I created one for this piece:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye_JO-P-RQU

I created the following instruments for this piece:

Bass, Sax, Woodwinds, Bowed instrument, Plucked strings Scale harmonics, Brass, Xylophone Saw square, Wave Blend, Wave blend (scale harmonics) Beat harmonics, Exponential Up/Down,  Wave transformation, Triangle + other waveshape, Low frequency additive wave Prime number / Fibonacci mix Mild wave mixtures, Harsh wave mixtures, Cancelling wave mixtures, Pythagoreon third, Square beats, Squarish, Wobbly singers, Percussion

Son At A Hex Decoration

This composition was made with a front end to CSound that I have released as open source.  For more information, see the demos here:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDQJxi2O7Ds&list=PLEQ2UEeEQ_VutimRr1IY1QPeZpb7ruhSP

I created the following instruments for this piece:

Bass, Brass, Plucked strings, Exponential Up/Down, Saw square, Low frequency additive wave, Square beats, Flute, Bowed instrument, Squarish, Shaked wave, Stirred wave, Percussion

The scale pattern for 19 EDO instruments, which play lower pitches, is: whMhmwmwh.  The scale pattern for 25 EDO instruments, which play higher pitches, is: hmwhmwhMwhf.  There is about a 2 1/2 octave overlap between them.

To see the video I made for this, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx9NmiWQ-wM

Into Bewilderness

These compositions are my experiments with Progressive Electronic Microtonal music using the CSound program to create the instruments.  It has been an interesting experience and I hope you find it as interesting as I have.  If you are interested in the technical details, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDQJxi2O7Ds&list=PLEQ2UEeEQ_VutimRr1IY1QPeZpb7ruhSP.

Jim Sansing