I'm a sucker for bold choices of genres, and a great respecter of the difficulty of microtones on real instruments

My works for two to five performers. Xenharmonic works are marked in parentheses with their tuning, and 12-equal/indeterminately pitched works are not labeled in such a way.

Small Ensemble

David M. Gordon's 2021 "Fabular Arcana," for retuned piano and orchestra, performed live by Paul Sánchez and the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Delta David Gier. The four movements, which are performed without pause, are:

I. Hexefriri's Grand Parallactic Clockwork
II. The Coal-Bog Giantesses (starting at 8:15)
III. Concerning the Great Bøyg's Various Reconstructions of Solveig's Song from the Degraded Memories of Malevolent Woodland Spirits (starting at 18:23)
IV. Insecta ex Machina (starting at 30:36)

For further details, go to www.davidmgordon.com.

Fabular Arcana

"Barack Hussein Obama at Selma: The Bridge of Transformation” is the fourth movement from Wadada Leo Smith’s Sapphire Symphony – The Presidents and Their Vision for America. Sapphire Symphony No. 4 is the fourth in his 4-CD box set The Chicago Symphonies featuring Smith's Great Lakes Quartet.

This track features Wadada Leo Smith’s Great Lakes Quartet:
Wadada Leo Smith - trumpet
Jonathon Haffner - alto and soprano saxophones
John Lindberg - double bass
Jack DeJohnette - drums


The Chicago Symphonies represents another magnificent four-disc collection of extended compositions by composer, musician, artist and educator Smith leading his Great Lakes Quartet in a celebration of Chicago and the rich contributions of the Midwestern artistic, musical and political culture to the United States of America. The first three symphonies, “Gold,” “Diamond” and “Pearl” are performed by Smith with three other contemporary masters of creative music, saxophonist/flutist Henry Threadgill, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Jack DeJohnette. The fourth, “Sapphire Symphony – The Presidents and Their Vision for America,” features saxophonist Jonathon Haffner with Smith, Lindberg and DeJohnette.

“The idea of a symphony composed for a sextet was first presented by composer/ performer Don Cherry in his classic recording Symphony For Improvisers in 1966,” says Smith. “I have broadened this idea to include the social, political and psychological dynamic into the creative space. My Chicago Symphonies are intended to illustrate and preserve the powerfully unique cultural contribution that the Midwesterners made in helping to shape the American society.”

THE CHICAGO SYMPHONIES

Wadada Leo Smith - Movement 4: Barack Hussein Obama at Selma: the Bridge of Transformation

The compositions on this CD span the fifty years of my career (?) as a composer, from the early 1970s to the present. -David B. Doty

Doty - Eight and Seven Is (In'it_)

Doty - Incidents Out of Context

Doty - Parthenion

しか (v1)

Discover:  https://soundcloud.com/kapyo |  https://soundcloud.com/artikko | https://soundcloud.com/destinuna | https://discord.gg/FAAmuza

what's better in life than creating new friendships? it allows you to share these moments where we'd otherwise be along for. our moments on this plane can be ethereal if we so intend to do ; so why not escape into the world of pasionaria?


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kapyo x artikko - pasionaria

Movement 1 (9-EDO) - 0:00
Movement 2 (8-EDO) - 5:30

A video with more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no3KsYIymyc

This piece is playable using 12-tone equal tempered guitars, which were precisely what was used: this is orchestrated for acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and electric bass. A composition professor of mine at Ball State University (Derek Johnson) asked me to write a 9-tone guitar chorale after hearing my other 9-tone piece thus far, "In Our Own Little Worlds." So I did, capitalizing on the fact that 9 and 12 are both divisible by 3 (so all of the fret positions are multiples of 4, or 0). 12 and 8 are, likewise, both divisible by 4, which is why I also picked 8-tone to use (so all of the frets on that one, likewise, are also multiples of 3, or 0). Two guitars were used for each player, making a total of 6 guitars onstage (Wow)! This is because movements I and II are tuned differently, and thus require different guitars for playing.

The notation for this is surprisingly convenient as well. I used 12-EDO cent deviations and TABs to notate this. The cent deviations are easy in 9 and 8 tone, because the deviations are always by the same amounts, meaning that they don't need to be specified in the music! This makes things a lot less confusing. TAB was easier for the performers to read. In 9-EDO, the step is 133.33 repeating cents, and in 8-tone, it is 150 cents. Every note in 9-EDO deviates from a 12-EDO note by only 33.3 cents, or is part of the C E G# 3-EDO augmented chord. Every note in 8-tone, likewise, deviates from a 12-EDO note by only 50 cents, or is part of the C Eb F# A 4-EDO fully diminished seventh chord. 

As for the feelings and aesthetics of this piece, the 9-tone ended up feeling like a journey through many places, and the 8-tone more like something dark and mysterious. (The contrast is intentional). In both movements, I induced chromaticism by moving through the kind of third that did not fit with 12-EDO... so for 9-EDO, this was the minor third flattened 33.3 cents, and for 8-EDO, the 12-EDO major third sharpened 50 cents.

I also found out that voicings played a huge role in categorical perception, and, depending on the way I voiced a chord, it could take on a completely different identity. The two best examples of this are:
(1) In 9-EDO, clusters of subminor thirds (the flattened minor third by 33.3 cents) can sound either like a dominant seventh or a half-diminished seventh chord (the ending chord is a good example).
(2) In 8-EDO, if you voice a 'major triad', you'll get an interval that is halfway between a major third and perfect fourth, and an interval halfway between a perfect fifth and major sixth. Relative to this construction, putting the 'super-major third' in the bass makes the chord sound minor, because it can be legitimately construed as a minor chord as well (even with spelling!).

The 9-EDO modulates almost all the way through a circle of subminor thirds, hinting at the next one in each section, and the 8-EDO stays 'in C'. The 8-EDO has a much simpler structure; a lot of the music theory parallels Sethares' quick example of speculative 8-equal theory from Tuning Timbre Spectrum Scale... it goes between a tonic and dominant chord built adjacently to each other. It is much harder to get 8-EDO to sound chromatic than 9-EDO.

Thank you performers!
Daniel Sitler, bass
Samuel Gordon, electric guitar
Acoustic guitar was myself.

Tenacious Chorale (9-EDO and 8-EDO) (Live)

For more information on Tenacious Chorale, check the live performance description, as well as this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no3KsYIymyc

This recording is only of movement 1, in 9-equal. The live performance of the second movement in 8-equal was so good that I didn't feel a need to re-record it in the studio.

Tenacious Chorale (9-EDO) (Studio version)

(Re-uploaded for loudness purposes)
HUGE thank you to the members of the ICE ensemble who played this piece for BSU's Spring 2017 In-Artist Residence!!

Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Ryan Muncy, alto sax
Alice Teyssier, flute
Campbell MacDonald, clarinet
Michael Lormand, trombone

This piece was born out of the feeling of an exotic road trip. Picture a mountain as you drive by: it's jagged and impressive, but also very regular and slow-moving. That's the feeling I hoped the ostinatos would capture. There are no traditional chords here, but lots of repetition. Individual repetitive parts will combine in as many different ways as texturally acceptable to "clash" within any given section, and different groupings are juxtaposed against one another. A "waiting" patience was often used as a musical motive for the more melodic-sounding ostinatos. Additionally, there were many textures where other parts echoed an eighth note later, and then two eighth notes later, etc. This was also a great ingredient for beginning slow texture changes in the piece (also common).

Future versions of this piece will use:
>slightly more idiomatic extended techniques
>more idiomatic quarter-tone trills for the flute
>other mild textural changes that enhance the sounds of certain polyphonies

Performed in 24-tone equal temperament, on February 13, 2017.

Quintet in Quarter-Tones (24-EDO)

This is a string duet, using the Mavila scale, created in response to the xenharmonic community’s ‘Tuning of the Month’ challenge of June 2017. Charlotte New Music Festival 2017 required its creation, to be played by the Beo String Quartet, as a vigorous speedwriting challenge. So, I picked sixth tones to write with because they are more xenharmonic than quartertones, but still overlap with 12-equal quite a lot. This piece is obsessed with a constant state of beginning, as the two voices constantly seem like they are entering against each other, as in the exposition of a fugue, or a canon. Dedicated to Lou Harrison’s life, the performance is a memorial of how he brought gamelan to the United States in an influential way, although not indicative of the gamelan style in any particular way. I also share interests with Lou Harrison, namely, non-Western music and a birthday, so pondering his legacy is very special for me specifically. Openings of each of Lou Harrison’s gamelan pieces are all quoted, as well as one of his piano sonatas. The instruments also play in the same key (D) as his American Gamelan, and only one note of the scale is inaccurate to what that ensemble played, namely, the minor third of Harrison’s ensemble is represented in this piece by a significantly flatter note, the septimal minor third (267 cents) of 9-equal. 

Huge thanks to Sandro Leal-Santiesteban (violin), and Ryan Ash (cello) of Beo String Quartet for playing this at CNMF 2017!

Gamelan, Origin, Creation (9 - EDO)

This piece was written for the flute players of Duo Zhonda, at Charlotte New Music Festival 2017. Music commonly thought of as lost and forgetful could have a variety of attributes. With an erratic nature, the music can be hasty, jumping from place to place in panic. With a monotonous nature, it can be pacing around in a circle wondering where it should go. In this piece, I purposely fade between the two ideas over the entire course of the piece, inversely with both rhythm and pitch. This piece is dedicated to my professor Jody Nagel, who often says, “Symmetry removes one’s ability to orient.” This short piece is an exploration of that idea, and inspired by that very phrase, as 36 is highly composite.

A sincere and heartfelt thanks to Orlando Cela and Wei Zhao for playing this!

Exponentially More Lost And Forgetful (36 - EDO)

OM 52 GATES AND VARIATIONS LP OUT NOW

Open Mouth
http://openmouthrecords.blogspot.com

US distro
http://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/meginsky-jake-gates-and-variations-lp/OM.052LP.html

EU
http://www.metamkine.com/?monnouveaute=1



Jake Meginsky
Gates and Variations
Open Mouth LP
OM52

Gates and Variations rounds out a loose trilogy of records by Jake Meginsky for Open Mouth. Not an intended trilogy on Jakes part but it has become one to my mind. It has come to be how I listen to them and experience them, all informing each other, echoing and challenging each other and growing into each others space and light like a garden of plants that would never actually coexist anywhere in reality. Jake is always tirelessly reaching for something new yet I'd avoid using the word progression here. It instead feels to me like the last piece of a puzzle, or of a world created by some Jack Kirby demigod. Something has been completed and now all the pieces are interchangeable. The first can go last. The middle can be first. The whole thing becoming a universe looping in on itself with a multitude of entry points and not a lot of exits. These are dense environments where sections can move from microscopic to macroscopic, day to night and back again,  so effortlessly that its hard to tell if its intended or if something imperceptible within  you shifted the locus of yr perception. But it is all very intentional, something carefully carved to give the feeling of something, though unfamiliar and strange, organic and grown. Theres a sense of danger here like warning transmissions, concussive roiling rhythms and jagged disturbances. Yet also clear straight lines giving way to enveloping curve and staggering beauty. Supplant the beginning with the end with the beginning 

Bill Nace
Philadelphia, PA
September 2017

Gates and Variations OM 52 LP - Third Gate _ Track 4 Side A

Anne-F Jacques, Ryoko Akama, Takamitsu Ohta
The Magic City
C42 (XIX-I)

Release date: April 2019
www.hasanaeditions.org

The Magic City

XIX-I - Anne-F Jacques, Ryoko Akama, Takamitsu Ohta - Chris in the magic city (excerpt)

Excerpt from the B-side of the 'Albatross' cassette, to be released in September.

Tenacious Chorale (9-EDO) (Studio version)

Stephen Weigel

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