Quarter-tone music

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The quarter tone , based on micro-intervals , arose in the time from about 1920 as a branch of contemporary music . A semitone of our conventional tone system is halved again, so that individual tones are generated 50 cents apart . Thus there are 24 different pitches in the octave . Special quarter-tone accidentals have been developed for the notation .

With fretless string instruments , the generation of these tones is not a technical problem. B. also with the slide trombone .

Willi Möllendorff invented a special keyboard with additional keys for keyboard instruments . He presented a bichromatic harmonium equipped with it to the public in 1917. However, this keyboard did not catch on. Other quarter tone composers used

  • two conventional pianos that were tuned shifted 50 cents , or
  • a special piano with additional strings and two manuals. Such an instrument made by August Förster, Löbau is now in the Prague National Museum “Museum of Czech Music”.
Quarter-tone trumpet in C.

With brass instruments apart from the slide trombone, a special valve is built in that changes the tube length by approx. 3% (mostly lengthened).

Quarter tone clarinet in four views

The realization is more difficult with woodwind instruments with predominantly keys . In the Musikinstrumenten-Museum Markneukirchen there is a clarinet for quarter-tone music: This has a switchover valve installed after the instrument mouthpiece, which enables the use of 2 acoustically separated air columns with the correct proportionally drilled tone holes. Due to the design, both flap systems are always operated equally with every handle combination.

As well as Willi Möllendorff, Alois Hába , Arthur Lourié , Iwan Alexandrowitsch Wyschnegradsky , Viktor Ullmann , Charles Ives and György Ligeti have emerged as composers .

Others

Jazz musician Don Ellis wrote Quarter Tones in 1975 , a theoretical guide to using quarter tones. It's very detailed and offers a great deal of historical and cultural background. Ellis also invented a four-valve trumpet that enabled quarter-tone playing.

See also

Web links