MUSC 731, Fall 2017 – Contemporary Experimental Music

Short Essay Project

Te-Wei Huang

Since tempered tuning system been established, musicians started discovering enormous

musical variety by means of transposition. However, tempered tuning is not perfect in terms of

musical ratio that causes slightly imprecise intervals and limits those pitches in higher partial

of the overtone series. To against traditional tempered tuning system, Henry Cowell and Ben

Johnston created their innovate theories to demonstrate more possibilities of sound that have

been forgotten for centuries.

In Henry Cowell’s point of view, the essence of sound, harmonic series, is the basic of musical

parameters, including rhythm and structure. Cowell asserted that human’s adventure of sound

basically follows the order of harmonic ratio. For instance, in music history, perfect intervals,

such as 2:1 and 3:2, firstly accepted by Western listeners, then major and minor third─ 5:4 and

6:5 were discovered, finally the 7th, 9th, and even chromaticism were introduced. Coincidently,

this process perfectly fits in the harmonic ratio from lower partial to higher one. According to

this notable mathematic phenomenon, Cowell asserts that our acoustic function actually
strongly related to physical science such as vibration and frequency, especially harmonic series.

Then, he pointed out that by accelerating the rhythmic patterns such as 3 againts 2 or 4 against

5, specific pitches such as perfect 5th and major 3rd are forms. Therefore, he concluded that

physical structures such as rhythm, time signature, even musical form is in relation to sound.

In order to search for new resources of sound, Cowell started to reach the higher partial of the

harmonic series. As he stated: "... While these intervals are almost unknown and have no

specific names among musicians... there is a strong possibility that the next development may

be to add to music the next highest overtone after the half-step...1". First, he mentioned quarter-

tone, which means the interval lesser than half step. Since the tempered tuning system is too

limited to provide more pitches excluded from 12 tones scale, quarter-tone is one of the

solutions to derive the next pitch that close to the higher partial of overtone series. By reaching

the higher partial of the harmonic series, there are more pitches will be found that outside the

tempered tuning system. Likewise, the sliding tones also comprises infinite pitches. As Cowell

mentioned: "...and if sliding tones are used as passing-notes between two steady pitches, the

distance covered by the slide is a matter for overtone measurement. 2" Although sliding-tones

majorly exist in nature, once the slide is between two identified pitches, the sound of the

continuous changing pithes is still related to overtone series. In his famous piece, Banshee,

1
. Henry Cowell. New Musical Resources. (London: Cambridge University Press), 19.
2
. lbid., 20-21.
performers have to sweep their fingers along the strings inside piano, creating an

unconventional sliding sound. Cowell assumes that human's hearing is based on physical

phenomenon, however, he also asserts that our aesthetic view of sound somehow is subjective

and changes continuously. The definition of dissonance changes from Renaissance to

contemparory music. As more and more listeners adjust the dissonant sound, composers draw

materials form higher partial of overtone series that results clusters. In Cowell's piano piece,

The Tides of Manaunaun, performers are asked to play all the chromatic tones within a chosen

range simultaneously, creating dissonant cluster.

Resembling Cowell ’s notion of discovering possibilities of sound, Ben Johnston’s aesthetic

idea also focus on exploring new pitches in terms of intonation, resulting microtonality. Harry

Partch was one of the most important composer who influenced Ben Johnston’s aesthetic

concept. He learned important concept about intonation from Eastern cultures and introduced

it to Johnston, who believes that tempered intonation will undermine our hearing and mind

since it deviates the natural harmonic ratio of intervals. Tempered intonation is a powerful

vehicle that allows musician to transpose music to any key freely without any occurrence of

“wolf tones”. However, tempered intonation sacrifices the pure intervals by flatting each pitch

to make them fit in the scale. Therefore, every pitch in tempered intonation are somehow all

out of tune. As a composer who dedicates to search for the perfect smooth sound, Johnstone
adopts just intonation to derive it by means of pure intervals. Although most of musician are

not aware of inaccurate pitches in traditional tempered intonation since the discrepancy

between distinctive intonations is almost unperceived, Johnston believes that one still can

perceive the purest sound by applying the interval that close to natural ratio in the music. To

execute his idea, Johnston notes more detail signs in his piece, String Quartet No.4, to indicate

the more accurate pitches he wants. The pitch structure of the piece mainly based on

Pythagorean intonation, as the result, there will be several pitches out of tune. In order to keep

all intervals just-tuned, Johnston creates “+”, and “-” to suggest that performers to play higher

or lower of the notes base on synchronic comma, letting the performers to search for the

smoothest sound. He aims to create the smoothest intervals rather than just divide intervals to

smaller unites. As Johnston stated: " Just intonation is a harmonic series with harmonic logic

to it. The other(quarter-tone) is an arbitrary series in which any harmonic logic that you get

comes not from the way the scale is put together... 3 ". Cowell aimed to extended more

possibilities of sound from traditional tuning system by dividing interval into smaller units to

reach the higher partial of harmonic series, on the other hand, Johnston tries to locate the precise

portion of ratio outside tempered tuning to create the smoothest sound quality.

The similarity between Cowell and Johnston is the exploration of possibilities of tones which

3
.William Duckworth. Talking Music. (New York: Da Capo Press ), 125.
excluded from tempered tuning system. Both composers spent considerable efforts to

investigate the relationship between sound and harmonic ratio. Moreover, both composers

attempted to exploit harmonic ratio to the rhythmic structure. However, Cowell concentrates

on the importance of harmonic series and the pitches which are not included in tempered tuning

system, trying to explore more new sources of sounds, while Johnston exploits just intonation,

attempting to create the smoothest sound by means of pure intervals. As Johnston admired

Impressionism painters "great concern of ...purity of color. They wanted to get away from these

muddied-down and blended colors...4".

4
. lbid., 127.