''Genesis of a Music'' is a

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physi ...

first published in 1949 by

microtonal Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones— intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of t ...

composer

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 ...

(1901–1974). Partch first presents a polemic against both equal temperament and the long history of stagnation in the teaching of

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 aspe ...

; according to Alex Ross, this is "the most startling forty-five-page history of music ever written". In particular, Partch holds

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

responsible for "the movement toward equal-tempered tuning, which meant that composers could not absorb the scales of other world traditions; and the urge to make music ever more instrumental and abstract." He then goes on to explain his tuning theory based on just intonation, the ensemble of

musical instruments A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

of his own invention (such as the "Surrogate Kithara, a struck-string, harplike instrument", and the guitar with movable frets he used to compose ''Barstow''), and several of his largest musical compositions. The book has been highly influential to succeeding generations of microtonal composers, including

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 ...

, Ben Johnston, and

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, microto ...

. A revised and enlarged second edition was published just before Partch's death in 1974.

Concepts

Partch presents 4 "basic monophonic concepts": # Consonance and dissonance: "The ear informs us that tones which are in small-number proportion, say in the relation of 2 to 1, are strong, clear, powerful, consonant."Partch (2009), p.86-90. . #*"The smaller the number involved in the ntervalratios, the more consonant the ratio; the larger the numbers, the more dissonant".Dunn, David (2000). ''Harry Partch: An Anthology of Critical Perspectives'', p.27-8. . #"Dual Identity": "Every ratio of a Monophonic system is at least a dual identity." #*" Odentity sdetermined by the odd-number ratio component of the numerator, and another one, the Udentity sdetermined by the odd-number component of the denominator. A ratio thus always belongs to two tonalities, an Otonality in accordance with its Odentity, and an Utonality in accordance with its Udentity." # Minor: "Under-number Tonality, or Utonality ("minor"), is the immutable faculty of ratios, which in turn represent an immutable faculty of the human ear." #*See:

Arithmetic progression An arithmetic progression or arithmetic sequence () is a sequence of numbers such that the difference between the consecutive terms is constant. For instance, the sequence 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, . . . is an arithmetic progression with a common differ ...

and Undertone series #History: Music has appeared to have advanced up the harmonic series throughout history. #* Pythagorean tuning is 3-limit, "just intonation" often refers to

5-limit tuning Five-limit tuning, 5-limit tuning, or 5-prime-limit tuning (not to be confused with 5-odd-limit tuning), is any system for tuning a musical instrument that obtains the frequency of each note by multiplying the frequency of a given reference note ...

, while Partch uses an 11- limit tuning. Partch admirer Ben Johnston uses 31-limit or higher " extended just intonation". See:

Emancipation of the dissonance The emancipation of the dissonance was a concept or goal put forth by composer Arnold Schoenberg and others, including his pupil Anton Webern. The phrase first appears in Schoenberg's 1926 essay "Opinion or Insight?" . It may be described as a met ...

Editions

* ''Genesis of a Music: Monophony: the relation of its music to historic and contemporary trends; its philosophy, concepts, and principles; its relation to ... and its application to musical instruments'', University of Wisconsin Press, 362 pp., 1949. ASIN B0007DM7I8 * ''Genesis Of A Music: An Account Of A Creative Work, Its Roots, And Its Fulfillments'', Second Edition, Da Capo Press, Paperback, 544 pp., 1979. . 2009: .

References

External links

Preface from the original edition
{{Microtonal music 1949 non-fiction books Harry Partch Music books Just tuning and intervals University of Wisconsin Press books