Just Intonation in 20th-21st Century Western Music

Ashish Dharmadhikari
Fall 2011, CalArts

Introduction
Since the clichéd dawn of civilization, humankind has used natural phenomena as inspiration for their art
making. In the sphere of music, this trend has manifested itself universally in tuning systems derived to
varying degrees from the physical experience of the harmonic series. And yet, with the first stirrings of the
modern era, one branch of human culture – the West European-American – has seemingly divorced itself
from this hoary tradition, to develop a new, contrived system that enabled it on the one hand to produce
such masterpieces as Beethoven’s Ninth, and on the other, to necessitate such ‘lies to cover a lie’ as vibrato
in voice and string instruments. How this came to fruition, and how this is gradually being challenged, is the
theme of this paper, which has at its heart, a discussion of some key composers in the 20 th century of Just
Intonation (JI) music.

Acoustical Background
Let me first give a brief and highly oversimplified explanation of the physical and psychoacoustic terms and
concepts I will be using. Sound, as we know, has three main psychoacoustic properties – loudness, pitch and
timbre, corresponding to the physical attributes of amplitude, frequency and partial distribution. A plucked
guitar A-string vibrates at a rate of 110 times per second, generating a complex tone of fundamental
frequency 110 Hz. What this means is that although the pitch we hear is A at 110, the string is also vibrating
at twice, three times, four times etc. of this amount – thus generating overtones or partials. The frequencies
of these partials always increase (in theory) by the frequency of the fundamental. Thus the frequencies of
these partials form a series of whole-number multiples of the fundamental frequency – in our case, the
partials are of the frequencies 110, 220, 330, 440 Hz and so on. This series of partials, with their frequencies
in these whole-number-ratio relationships to the fundamentals, form the Harmonic Series. The partial
numbers of any two of these partials can be arranged as a whole-number ratio, which will describe the
musical interval between them – for example partial 2 and partial 1 (the fundamental) would form the ratio
2::1, which is the interval of the octave.
At the broadest level, one explanation of Just Intonation can be: a system or ethos of tuning or
selecting notes used in a musical system or composition such that their frequencies are in whole-number
ratios to either each other, or to a single-note tuning centre, or a combination of both.
The harmonic series of partials and the musical intervals between them have historically provided
most of the tuning material for music – for example, the 2nd partial (220 Hz) is an octave of the fundamental
(twice the frequency i.e. 110 X 2 Hz), whereas the ratio of the 3rd partial (330 Hz) to the 2nd partial is 3::2,
which forms the interval of a JI perfect fifth. To go a further JI perfect fifth up from 330 Hz, we must multiply
it by the same ratio of 3/2 again, thus arriving at 495 Hz – which will be a JI perfect fifth above the
fundamental’s 3th partial, thus a JI major second (in the ratio of 9::8) to the closest octave of the
fundamental 110 Hz, i.e. 440 Hz. [495/440 = 9/8 = 1.125 (JI major second); 495/330 = 330/220 = 3/2 = 1.5 (JI
perfect fifth); 440/220 = 220/110 = 2/1 = 2 (octave). If you can’t remember all the math, just remember that
to add equal musical distance, you have to multiply frequencies by the same amount, not add.]

Historical Tuning Systems

Our example neatly leads us into a historical survey of Western tuning systems. The three notes we derived
in our example, are in fact the first three notes of a series of pure fifths, i.e. notes which are derived by
tuning each successive note as the JI perfect fifth of the previous one. This tuning system is called
Pythagorean tuning after the eponymous 6th century BCE Greek mathematician and mystic, and was the
primary tuning system in Western music theory till the Middle Ages, c. 1500 CE.1 Since the highest prime
number used in the ratios used to select these notes is 3, this is called a 3-limit just intonation system.
As DB Doty puts it, “Pythagorean tuning is characterized by consonant octaves, perfect fourths, and
perfect fifths, based on ratios of the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4. All other intervals in Pythagorean tuning are
dissonant. This property is consistent with the musical practice of the middle ages, in which polyphony was
based on fourths, fifths, and octaves, with all other intervals, including thirds and sixths, being treated as
dissonances.”2 However, late Medieval and early Renaissance musical developments started requiring more
consonant major thirds and sixths. This led to a most significant new step – the development of tuning
systems that moved away from the ideal of harmonic series-inspired whole-number ratios for musical and
physical convenience. The basic idea was to modify or ‘temper’ certain Pythagorean pure-fifth notes, such
that they would be able to function as consonant major thirds and sixths as well. Thus, “Meantone
temperament aims to achieve perfect major thirds and acceptable major and minor triads in a group of
central keys, at the expense of slightly flatted fifths in those same central keys and some bad thirds and
triads and one very bad fifth in more remote keys. The exemplary variety of meantone temperament, called
quarter-comma meantone, produced, in a twelve-tone realization, eight good major triads and eight good
minor triads, with the remaining four triads of each type being badly mistuned.”
However, “as instrumental music became more complex and the desire to modulate to more remote
keys increased, the bad triads became a barrier to progress. As a result, musicians gradually adopted another
system, twelve-tone equal temperament.” *12-TET] This system takes to its logical conclusion the historical
progression of tempering intervals – it tempers all intervals other than the octave to achieve complete

1
(Krieger 2010)
2
(Doty 2002)
uniformity of semitones, thus making all keys sound the same. Thus the only JI or ‘natural’ interval preserved
in this system, the octave (2/1), is divided into 12 equal parts ( / 1), making all non-octave intervals
‘inharmonic’ with relation to their JI whole-number-ratio equivalents. This system made instrument
construction, key modulation and complex chromatic harmonies all easier, and the rise of this system can be
seen as a result of many factors including the Industrial Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment and the desire
to rationalize and make uniform everything, the ascendency of the pianoforte, and the development of
larger orchestral ensembles especially with the modern horns section, where a wide variety of instruments
had to play together on roughly the same note, which may have different harmonic functions in many
different keys.

20th Century Revival of JI

Thus 12-TET can be set at the far end of the spectrum of the intonation systems surveyed thus far (which
started with JI). However, it had its limitations. Going back to DB Doty, “Like a plant stimulated by chemical
fertilizers and growth hormones, music based on equal temperament grew rapidly and luxuriously for a
short period — then collapsed. If equal temperament played a prominent role in stimulating the growth of
harmonic music in the common-practice era, it played an equally large part in its rapid demise as a vital
compositional style. Twelve tone equal temperament is a limited and closed system. Once you have
modulated around the so-called circle of fifths, through its twelve major and twelve minor keys, and once
you have stacked up every combination of tones that can reasonably be considered a chord, there is
nowhere left to go in search of new resources.”3 To the extent that in 1911, Schoenberg takes the position
that the “continued evolution of the theory of harmony is not to be expected at present.”4

However, parallel to solutions within the 12-TET system, such as Schoenberg’s 12-tone music, some
composers in the early 20th century explored other avenues outside the system. An important factor in
perpetuating the 12-TET system was the vast repertoire of music, instruments and performance practices
which were oriented to this tuning – given that a composer had to rely on musicians and patrons for his work
to be realized, it would be a massive effort to challenge the tuning status quo – and so most composers
didn’t try. Another factor was what Harry Partch calls the “interpretive” nature of our age – our tendency to
be obsessed with the works of long-dead composers. Mass manufacturers of musical instruments also had a
vested interest in maintaining a rigidly uniform tuning system – building instruments with individual or

3
Ibid.
4
(Schoenberg 1911)
customized tunings would have taken away their ‘economies of scale’. Thus as Partch puts it, “The only real
vitality in this entire picture is exuded by the men who are out to make money in the deal.”5
This started changing in the 20th century, as recording technology gave composers the power to
record their work once and for all, freeing them from having to constantly communicate with performing
musicians. And one of the earliest composers to take advantage of this and other similar developments, was
Partch.

Harry Partch
Harry Partch not only was one of the first modern composers to seriously take up JI, but he also was the
fountainhead of a new way of thinking about JI, tuning, and compositional strategy, along with pioneering
the tradition of building one’s own instruments. He departed from the previous practice of Western musical
theorists who had long tried to find the ‘perfect’ tuning and theory for an entire system of music, and
instead just sought to create a tuning system suited to his individual purposes. He also spoke about the
importance of recording, which obviated the repeated need for interpretative musicians; this meant that
both theories of music and systems of notation for a given piece or body of work could practicably be as
obscure as needed for convenience or creativity by the composer. And yet, he had loftier goals in sight as
well, as suggested by a feature story in the Capital Times in 1946:6 “Partch hopes ... to expand America’s
musical realm through revisions of the present-day scale... His objective is to expand the world’s musical
consciousness.” In his own words: “I do not always achieve the just intonation which I hold as desirable – the
clear choice of consonance or dissonance. Someone has said that ideals are like stars. We can't touch them
but we look to them for guidance. I believe in a rational – that is, acoustical – approach to the problems of
musical materials, as the only one leading to genuine insight.”7
Partch’s most revolutionary contribution was the adoption of his ‘language of the ratios’ – a
clearheaded, acoustics-based mode of seeing intervals and pitch relationships – which was influenced by the
earlier work of acoustician Hermann Helmholtz. In an early treatise he writes: “Throughout the history of
music there has been a slow and only half-recognized revelation of the universe of tone created by the
overtone series. This work is an attempt to found the theory of music definitely on the origin of intervals. …
Understanding of musical structure does certainly devolve upon an understanding of this one source of tonal
relationships.”8
Partch’s significant innovation can be seen in his attempt to admit higher prime number
relationships of the harmonic series as potential ‘consonant’ intervals. Two of his greatest contributions to JI

5
(Partch, Show horses in the concert ring 1972)
6
(Sorenson 1946)
7
(Partch, Personal letter 1952)
8
(Partch, Exposition of Monophony 1933 draft)
music theory are the 43-tone JI microtonal scale which he frequently used in his works, and his work on the
‘tonality diamond’. The pitch resources of his just intonation scale can be seen as a fabric, connoting its
internal consistency and ability to expand by adding new pitch relationships. The tonality diamond is a
system of organizing and ordering pitches as derived from and described by simple whole-number ratios
within a given prime-number limit. Thus one could construct an 11-limit tonality diamond, with diagonals
sloping in one direction forming ‘otonalities’ (over tonalities) and the diagonals in the other direction
forming ‘utonalities’ (under tonalities). This diamond was in fact utilized as the basis for the physical
organization of keys in his invented instrument the Diamond Marimba.

Ben Johnston
Regarding Ben Johnston, Gilmore says his work “embraces several of Partch's concerns but extends his
achievement in several ways: by forging links with European music in ways in which Partch was not
interested; by applying Partch's radical ideas on tuning to conventional instruments and in new
compositional contexts; by a thorough reassessment of Partch's terminology; and by devising a new notation
system and new models of pitch.”9 Of particular note are his four types of scalar order of pitch perception,
i.e. the four different levels at which we perceive pitch information. The most basic is ‘same’ and ‘different’;
a more refined understanding is ‘more’ or ‘less’, beyond these come higher levels of comprehension
including proportional relationships of pitch and rhythm.
The remarkable feature of Johnston’s new notation system is that “it embodies precise frequency
ratios, rather than (as in conventional notation) a set of pitch classes, the exact tuning of which is left to
unspoken convention.”10 This also contributes to his ‘free style’ interval-based composing, in which he freely
used intervals and chord patterns, rather than restricting himself to a closed set of pitches generated by a
limited set of JI intervals; this is exemplified by his statement in the program notes for his thirteen-limit
String Quartet No. 5 (1979): "I have no idea as to how many different pitches it used per octave."11
This brings us to his pièce de résistance – the infinitely expandable n-dimensional lattices comprised
of point-representatives of pitch ratios in relation to a tuning center, with each prime-number partial adding
another dimension to the lattice, and the geometric patterns within the lattice space revealing intervallic
and chordal relationships between ratios (and thus pitches). Thus ratios closer together in the lattice will be
in a simpler acoustic relationship, as compared to less proximal ones: "[p]atterns or 'paths' in the lattice may

9
(Gilmore Vol. 33, No. 1/2 (Winter - Summer, 1995))
10
Ibid.
11
Quoted in Heidi von Gunden, The Music of Ben Johnston (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1986), 159-60.
be used to give a sense of harmonic direction even to passages that lack entirely any conventional tonal or
harmonic ‘logic’."12

James Tenney
James Tenney further develops Johnston’s n-dimensional lattices, recasting them as matrices in harmonic
space. An important distinction, however, is that the pitch ratios are functionally not exact. To quote
Gilmore, Tenney’s hypothesis regarding harmony is that “our ears interpret pitch relations in the simplest
way possible: and in this sense he regards ratio representations of pitch relationships as referential rather
than literal. A ratio description of an interval is a reference point to which the intervals we hear – whether
just, tempered, or simply out of tune – approximate.”13 Thus he uses the concept of a range of tolerance for
any pitch interval: i.e. that there is a range of frequencies surrounding any given ideal JI ratio within which a
note may vary without threat to its harmonic identification by the human ear. Two key fallouts of this are
thus: firstly, he feels free to use tempered notes as approximations of their JI equivalents; secondly, the
practical aural interpretation of note-ratios sets a limit on the theoretically infinite n-dimensional matrices of
ratios, since beyond a certain degree of closeness, the ear will hear higher-ratio intervals as slightly mistuned
versions of simpler, lower-ratio intervals. Closely connected to this practicality is Tenney's assertion that a
new theory of harmonic perception should be descriptive, rather than prescriptive.
As Gilmore says, “Perhaps Tenney's most crucial development of Johnston's lattice models is his
concept of harmonic distance, […] defined between any two points on the lattice as proportional to the sum
of the distances traversed on the shortest path connecting them. …The harmonic distance idea is a necessary
complement to the notion of compactness… Tenney's concept of compactness in harmonic space is an
interesting refinement of Partch's ideas of consonance and dissonance. …Tenney states explicitly that “tones
represented by proximate points in harmonic space tend to be heard as being in a consonant relation to
each other, while tones represented by more widely spaced points are heard as mutually dissonant.”14
In fact, Tenney's attitude to the nature of their harmony shows a higher level of understanding of
the workings of our auditory system. He writes, “it is the nature of harmonic perception in the auditory
system which ‘explains’ the unique perceptual character of the harmonic series, not (again) the other way
around. The harmonic series is not so much a causal factor in harmonic perception as it is a physical
manifestation of a principle which is also manifested (though somewhat differently) in harmonic
perception.”15 Indeed, the harmonic series is perceived as shrinking intervals (octave, fifth, fourth, major

12
Ben Johnston, "Rational Structure in Music," in American Society of University Composers Proceedings, 1976-77, 102-
118; reprinted in 1/1: The Journal of the Just Intonation Network 2, nos. 3-4.
13
(Gilmore Vol. 33, No. 1/2 (Winter - Summer, 1995))
14
Ibid.
15
(Tenney 1984)
third, minor third…) because of the physical and psychological characteristics of the human auditory system
– which logarithmically renders linear frequency progression as diminishing harmonic distances.

Other Developments
Having discussed these three key figures in the early development of contemporary JI practice in Western
Art Music, let us mention in passing, certain other influential composers who have worked with JI tunings. Of
especial importance is Lou Harrison, who posits "strict" and "free" pitch systems as a mutually opposed pair:
the former being a closed set of JI-interval generated pitches, and the latter being his style, i.e. “to freely
16
assemble, or compose with whatever intervals one feels that he needs as he goes along.” To borrow
Doty’s list17, “many composers currently doing significant work in Just Intonation are William C. Alves, Lydia
Ayers, Jon Catler, David Canright, Dean Drummond, Cris Forster, Glenn Frantz, Ellen Fullman, Kraig Grady,
Michael Harrison, Ralph David Hill, David Hykes, Douglas Leedy, Norbert Oldani, Larry Polansky, Robert Rich,
Daniel Schmidt, Carter Scholz, James Tenney, and Erling Wold.” To this I may add two highly commendable
workers in the JI field, Marc Sabat and Wolfgang von Schweinitz – who have, in collaboration, drastically
improved the JI notation system started by Helmholtz, refining it for acoustic accuracy and ease of use. The
Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation thus created uses Pythagorean perfect-fifth tuning as its reference
pitches, and has specific accidental symbols for raising and lowering these reference notes by syntonic and
septimal commas, undecimal quartertones and other higher-prime JI intervals.

Conclusion
At the onset of the 20th century, Schoenberg wrote about the falsity of the antithesis posited between
“consonance” and “dissonance,” stating that “what distinguishes dissonances from consonances is not a
greater or lesser degree of beauty, but a greater or lesser degree of comprehensibility… The term
emancipation of the dissonance refers to *this+ comprehensibility…”18 Unfortunately, he took this only so far.
Given the desperate search for new musical material and forms by early 20th century composers, it would
have been useful to start looking right away for new note values, which genuinely make music feel different.
There is a value to even a 55-note microtonal scale (as used by Partch at times), even if the scale degrees are
too close in pitch to convey decisive melodic movement – at least they will be able to give sensations of
glissando. Some argue that this music is too difficult for the average concert-goer (let alone the general
public) to appreciate; but as D. Roitstein puts it, nothing is difficult, only unfamiliar.19 An untrained ear may
have difficulty in distinguishing even between a major and minor third for example, yet that doesn’t keep us

16
Lou Harrison, Lou Harrison's Music Primer (New York: C.F. Peters Corporation, 1971), 6.
17
(Doty 2002)
18
Schonberg, Style and Idea (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975), 216.
19
(Roitstein 2011)
from using it in our music. And with the increasing exploration of new JI ratios by contemporary composers,
one can safely assume that given enough time, appreciation for much of this radically new material will
trickle down from avant-garde, to mainstream art music, to musical education, to popular consciousness and
recognition.
Yet, my experience of pieces such as Partch’s US Highball remind me of the importance of content in
any music meant to appeal to more than a super-select audience. Many features or explorations might be
theoretically or abstract-musically fascinating, but then they are appealing only to specialists of various
kinds. If you present such things, along with content which is appreciable by the general public, they can
enjoy it too. And gradually you can build public familiarity with your new musical inventions, till they become
part of the accepted musical landscape/vocabulary, and you can posit them in turn as the ‘familiar’
component in another piece with ‘strange’ component counterpoint. This optimistic, some would say naïve,
outlook can be buttressed by a more Marxist interpretation: the Industrial Revolution et al generated
economic forces supporting 12-TET because of it facilitates mass production of physical objects. Now
however, we have in many ways reached a saturation point of those markets for physical instruments, paper
scores, etc.; hence new markets are now sought for software products which can be used to create new
intonation music, or adapt older music to newer tunings. Thus there is a material incentive for the systemic
rise of new intonations. One may mention in passing that most new programming languages oriented
towards music — such as ChucK, Processing, PureData — accommodate fractional MIDI note values, and
thus are predisposed towards encouraging non-12-TET systems.

The harmonic series is very definitely not a deterministic source for musical material. At the very basic level
you have at least two options. You can use it as a source of pitches relative to a given fundamental note,
which would imply using only those notes which appear in a given harmonic series – this would preclude
using the perfect fourth, for e.g., since that never appears in the harmonic series as an actual pitch. This can
also been seen as using only intervals that partials form with octave partials of the fundamental. On the
other hand, you can use it as a source of a multiplicity of intervals used to generate pitch classes when
measured out from the tonic or other notes already so generated. In this method for example, you may not
actually use a ‘natural’ seventh (the seventh harmonic) as a scale degree relative to the tonic/fundamental
(i.e. the interval of 7/4), but you may use the interval it forms with the 5th partial i.e. 7/5 to generate some
kind of a tritone, from the tonic or indeed from any other note. Thus given the staggering array of pitch
classes and intervals that can be harvested from the harmonic series by just these two basic methods (more
can be devised, I’m sure), in my opinion it is fairly useless to evaluate either scale creations or octave division
schemes on the basis of how ‘faithful’ they are to the harmonic series, and implicitly thus how ‘natural’ they
are. Any composition (of finite duration) necessarily has a limited set of pitches and intervals, and given the
fundamentally infinite nature of any creature of mathematical physics such as the harmonic series, any such
limitation is necessarily a matter of taste, cultural conditioning, convenience and artistic choice.
On the other hand, the series is invaluable as a litmus test for judging the harmonic properties of a note
under consideration for use as generating a given desired musical or emotional effect. So for instance, if you
want to descend from a pure JI fifth to a pure JI fourth in the bass line of a composition over 4 bars, and you
need to arrange your choices for notes (various shades of diminished fifths and augmented fourths) in
increasing, peaking, then decreasing order of dissonance (in the acoustic sense of least coinciding zero-
crossings of the waveform), then the logic embedded in the harmonic series is likely to give you your answer.

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