The quintessential American maverick composer, Charles Ives (1874-1954), first explored the possibilities of microtones in a holistic fashion in his Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for Two Pianos. Carrillo's work culminated in his full length, quarter-tone Mass, while Hába's opera, The Mother (also in quarter-tones) is perhaps the most exhaustive implementation of a microtonal harmonic system of its type in the literature. These scales (with 24 steps if quarter-tone, or 48 if eighth-tone) are then applied to largely traditional forms, with the extended interval palette enhancing expressive subtleties of melodic and harmonic configurations. Others, such as the Mexican composer Julián Carrillo (1875-1965) and the Czech, Alois Hába (1893-1973), initially began their work by subdividing the equal-tempered scale (based on 12 semi-tones) proportionally into quarter-, third-, eighth-tones, or even finer gradations. 1955), seek to utilize the more scientifically accurate acoustical relationship between pitches based on the natural harmonic series. In order to understand microtonal principles, we must first distinguish the multitude of perspectives that microtonal composition can take.Ĭomposers interested in intonation systems other than the standard equal-tempered one practiced in the Western Classical tradition, particularly numerous Americans composers, including Harry Partch (1901-74), Benjamin Johnston (b. It has as many interpretations, modes of expression, and techniques as tonal music. Returns: array.Microtonality is not a genre, or a technique, or a style. a new multiset object with the pitch classes ParamĬreates a pitch class set: an ordered set of pitch classes a new musical object without the duplications ParamĬreate a pitch set: an unordered sets of pitchesĬreates a pclist: an unordered collection of pitch class sets Sort and remove duplicates from a musical object Microtonal.pcinv(pitchClass, center) ⇒ numberĪ musical object is as an ordered series of pitches, uncategorized and uninterpreted. Returns: number - the distance (less or equal to 12) Param Microtonal.pcdist(fromPitchClass, toPitchClass) ⇒ number Returns: number - the pitch class of the transposition Param Microtonal.pctr(pitchClass, interval) ⇒ number Returns: number - the pitch class number (0 = C, 1 = D. Returns: function - the invert function Param Returns: number - the inverted pitch ParamĬreates a function that inverts a note from a center Returns: function - the distance function Param Returns: number - the resulting pitch ParamĬreates a function that finds a distance from a root The midi value is the pitch without the float The pitch is the same as the midi number but with float precission. A pitch is a float number representing the height of the note. the musical object note names ParamĬonst major = scaleGen ( ) const Cmajor = major ( 60 ) Cmajor ( 0 ) // => 60 Cmajor ( 1 ) // => 62Ĭreates a pitch. Returns: string - the note name if any Param pcdist(fromPitchClass, toPitchClass) ⇒ number Microtonal is a micro (3kb) library to create music compositions Unfortunately, this project turns out to be more complicated than one might imagine The enterprise of “musical set theory” aspires to catalogue all the chords available to contemporary composers.

Microtonal music compositions