Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales, alongside Lou Harrison. He built his own instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, and described the method behind his theory and practice in his book Genesis of a Music (1947).
Partch composed with scales dividing the octave into 43 unequal tones derived from the natural harmonic series; these scales allowed for more tones of smaller intervals than in standard Western tuning, which uses twelve equal intervals to the octave. To play his music, Partch built many unique instruments, with such names as the Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Zymo-Xyl. Partch described his music as corporeal, and distinguished it from abstract music, which he perceived as the dominant trend in Western music since the time of Bach. His earliest compositions were small-scale pieces to be intoned to instrumental backing; his later works were large-scale, integrated theater productions in which he expected each of the performers to sing, dance, speak, and play instruments. Ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh and kabuki heavily influenced his music theatre.
Encouraged by his mother, Partch learned several instruments at a young age. By fourteen, he was composing, and in particular took to setting dramatic situations.[clarification needed] He dropped out of the University of Southern California's School of Music in 1922, dissatisfied with the quality of his teachers. He took to self-study in San Francisco's libraries, where he discovered Hermann von Helmholtz's Sensations of Tone, which convinced him to devote himself to music based on scales tuned in just intonation. In 1930, he burned all his previous compositions in a rejection of the European concert tradition. Partch frequently moved around the US. Early in his career, he was a transient worker, and sometimes a hobo; later he depended on grants, university appointments, and record sales to support himself. In 1970, supporters created the Harry Partch Foundation to administer Partch's music and instruments.
HarryPartch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using...
The American composer HarryPartch (1901-1974) composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, derived from the natural Harmonic series;...
The American composer HarryPartch (1901–1974) composed in musical tunings not available on conventional Western instruments. Instead, he developed a 43-tone...
HarryPartch in a unique ensemble of microtonal instruments that Partch designed and built himself; Drummond performed in the premieres of Partch’s Daphne...
Otonality and utonality are terms introduced by HarryPartch to describe chords whose pitch classes are the harmonics or subharmonics of a given fixed...
Partch is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: HarryPartch (1901–1974), American composer, music theorist, and creator of musical instruments...
collaboration, he pursued a more eclectic and experimental sound influenced by HarryPartch and Captain Beefheart, as heard on the loose trilogy Swordfishtrombones...
microtonal tunings are used in Iannis Xenakis' Pléïades and in the music of HarryPartch. Metallophones are a subset, made of metal, of Hornbostel-Sachs category...
2003 HarryPartch: U.S. Highball Released: August 19, 2003 Label: Nonesuch (#79697) Format: CD single, MP3 Ben Johnston's arrangement of HarryPartch's recollections...
Virgil Franklin Partch (October 17, 1916 – August 10, 1984), who generally signed his work Vip, was an American gag cartoonist. His work appeared in magazines...
computer-controlled composition associated with composers such as Lejaren Hiller. HarryPartch and Ivor Darreg worked with other tuning scales based on the physical...
the American gamelan movement and world music; along with composers HarryPartch and Claude Vivier, and ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee. The majority of...
album. A Beck song called "HarryPartch", a tribute to the composer of the same name and his "corporeal" music, employs Partch's 43-tone scale. During 1998...
Nolan, singer and songwriter. George Orwell, British author John Patric HarryPartch Al Purdy Ben Reitman, anarchist and physician Carl Sandburg Emil Sitka...
The Beginning Of a Web", opening section of Delusion of the Fury by HarryPartch This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Exordium...
the 1962 album 'This is IT' state "Watts in a Japanese no-noh." HarryPartch – Partch called his work Delusion of the Fury "a ritualistic web". Kate Molleson...
September 1974). "HarryPartch, 73, A Composer, Dead". The New York Times. Page 36, columns 4-5. Retrieved 14 November 2023. Partch, Harry (2000) [1991]....
with HarryPartch ("Many theorists of just intonation consider the tonality diamond Partch's greatest contribution to microtonal theory."). Partch arranged...
tension on the membrane and partly on the length of the tube. In 1948 HarryPartch, an American composer, developed a system of music that depended on the...
private school in Kansas City, Missouri "Barstow", a musical work by HarryPartch Bartow (disambiguation) This disambiguation page lists articles associated...
making use of custom-made instruments by composer and music theorist HarryPartch. Three of the songs on the album are collaborations with Italian electronic...
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