"24 equal temperament" redirects here. For other uses, see Arab tone system.
Quarter tone on C
A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (orally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, and have 24 different pitches.
Trumpet with 3 normal valves and a quartering on the extension valve (right)
Quarter tones have their roots in the music of the Middle East and more specifically in Persian traditional music.[1] However, the first evidenced proposal of the equally-tempered quarter tone scale, or 24 equal temperament, was made by 19th-century music theorists Heinrich Richter in 1823[2] and Mikhail Mishaqa about 1840.[3] Composers who have written music using this scale include: Pierre Boulez, Julián Carrillo, Mildred Couper, George Enescu, Alberto Ginastera, Gérard Grisey, Alois Hába, Ljubica Marić, Charles Ives, Tristan Murail, Krzysztof Penderecki, Giacinto Scelsi, Ammar El Sherei, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tui St. George Tucker, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Iannis Xenakis, and Seppe Gebruers (See List of quarter tone pieces.)
^Hormoz Farhat (2004). The Dastgah Concept in Persian Music. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-54206-5
^Julian Rushton, "Quarter-Tone", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001).
^Touma, Habib Hassan (1996). The Music of the Arabs, p. 16. Translator: Laurie Schwartz. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. ISBN 0-931340-88-8.
A quartertone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (orally, or logarithmically) as a semitone...
using quartertones: A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P R S T W Y See also Notes Further reading Thomas Adès Asyla calls for an upright piano tuned a quarter-tone...
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systems being used depending on the situation. A common notation for quartertones involves writing the fraction ¼ next to an arrow pointing up or down...
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hand) to read familiar 12 tone notation. Various composers, including Charles Ives, experimented with music for quarter-tone pianos. 24 EDO also approximates...
of the perfect fifth, enabling the instrument to play in all keys. In 12-tone equal temperament, the frequencies of the tempered perfect fifth are in the...
of major second which occur in 5-limit tuning: major tone (9:8, about 203.91 cents) and minor tone (10:9, about 182.40 cents). Namely, 9:8 ÷ 10:9 = 81:80...
24 equal steps (24 equal temperament), where a quartertone equals one-half of a semitone in a 12 tone equally-tempered scale. In this notation system...
major intervals described. Haluska, Jan (2003). The Mathematical Theory of Tone Systems, p.xxvi. ISBN 0-8247-4714-3. Classic augmented second. Hoffmann,...
sadness in music, and research shows that this mirrors its use in speech, as a tone similar to a minor third is produced during sad speech. It is also a quartal...
prime, or perfect prime) may refer to the (pseudo-)interval formed by a tone and its duplication (in German, Unisono, Einklang, or Prime), for example...
Demany, Laurent, and Françoise Armand. 1984. "The Perceptual Reality of Tone Chroma in Early Infancy". Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 76:57–66...
ditone (or major third) is an interval formed by two major tones. In Pythagorean tuning, a major tone has a size of about 203.9 cents (frequency ratio 9:8)...
Greek musical scale which contains four notes tuned to approximately quartertone pitches, bracketed (as pairs) between four fixed pitches. For example...
five octaves, each divided into 24 quartertones. Other notable composers who have written concertos for the quartertone accordion include Jukka Tiensuu...
Music Theory Arabic maqam Arab tone system Algerian scale Rhythm in Arabic music Taqsim Jins Lazma Teslim Quartertone Arabic musical instruments Great...
compositions, including the quartertone scale (24-tet: 50 cents) utilized in his pieces for two pianos in quartertones. He also used scales of up to...
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