Manuel Barrueco played a few pieces by Lou Harrison this weekend for his recital at Benaroya Hall. I haven't shared links to microtonal guitar much because while I admire and respect some microtonalist composers it's not my usual jam, so to speak. But when I hear things that sound fun I do like to share them.
Maybe it's a lifetime of hearing blues guitar, jazz guitar, and rock guitar but microtonality on the whole seems more persuasive to me in guitar music than in keyboard music. Having said that I've certainly stumped for the string quartets of Ben Johnston ... but I was just saying microtonality comes off better on strings. ;)
UPDATE
Ouch! Didn't spell the guitarist's name correctly when I hit "publish". Sorry about that.
4 comments:
I like this piece. Do you know what the tuning is?
I'm teaching about tuning today and one of the core points is that it's impossible to have a guitar be perfectly in tune, so you just have to pick a compromise tuning and live with it. I think that's why I'm more open to creative tuning on guitar than on other instruments. (I know you can't tune a piano perfectly either but with 230 strings, it's easier to obscure that fact.)
I just got home and finished dinner not too long ago but I may have just hit the jackpot about the question of what tuning the piece uses. "Round" is the first movement of Serenade and ... it looks like it's a just intonation octatonic scale.
http://www.billalves.com/porgitaro/serenadetuning.html
For commercial recordings John Schneider has one
Por Gitaro, John Schneider, guitar, Mode Records 195, 2008
Fortunately this album can be found on Bandcamp!
https://moderecords.bandcamp.com/album/por-gitaro-suites-for-tuned-guitars-mode195
For more extensive reading ... I also found this 28-pager that looks like it could be fun reading for later this week.
https://eamusic.dartmouth.edu/~larry/ucsc_classes/ucsc_classes_2013_14/spring_2014/music_203f/articles/experimental_intonation/fiore/Fiore_JSAM_6(2).pdf
That John Schneider album is delightful, where has Lou Harrison been all my life?
Glad to be of help. :)
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