Harry Partch
Harry Partch (1901 to 1974) was an American composer and instrument builder, and one of the first musicians of the twentieth century to work systematically with microtonal scales. Rejecting equal temperament, he divided the octave into forty-three tones in what he called just intonation, and since no existing instrument could play it, he built his own: the Chromelodeon, the Cloud-Chamber Bowls, the Marimba Eroica, sculptural objects as much as instruments. He spent years as a hobo during the Depression, and that America of railroads and drifters runs through works such as Barstow and The Wayward.
Harry Partch (1901 to 1974) was an American composer and instrument builder, and one of the first musicians of the twentieth century to work systematically with microtonal scales. Rejecting equal temperament, he divided the octave into forty-three tones in what he called just intonation, and since no existing instrument could play it, he built his own: the Chromelodeon, the Cloud-Chamber Bowls, the Marimba Eroica, sculptural objects as much as instruments. He spent years as a hobo during the Depression, and that America of railroads and drifters runs through works such as Barstow and The Wayward.
