Microtonality in Western Music

in typical western music the smallest interval that we deal with the smallest gap between two notes is a semitone a voice known as a half-step on a keyboard for example the smallest interval I can go up or down from any note is a semitone but even though we can't play them easily on a keyboard there are pictures between these two notes for example this C here has the frequency of 261 point 6 Hertz that's the frequency at which these sound waves are vibrating to create the pitch but the next note up the C sharp jumps up to two hundred and seventy seven point two Hertz so there's certainly space in between these two frequencies so what would happen if I played a note pitched between C and C sharp this pitch is 269 point four Hertz the note halfway between C and C sharp and what we would call C half sharp even the untrained ear can hear that this note is distinctly different from either the C or the C sharp [Music] so why isn't it available on my keyboard why don't people use half sharps when they write music well some musicians and composers do and the music they write using these sub semitone intervals is known as micro tonal music western classical composers have been experimenting with micro tonality since at least the turn of the 20th century our standard western tuning system is known as 12 Tet or twelve-tone equal temperament because it divides the octave into 12 equally spaced pictures [Music] but composers like whisk and Gretzky and Ives used alternative systems that divided the octave up into even smaller divisions most commonly 24 divisions doubling our standard twelve pitches [Music] they went about this most often by writing for two pianos one tuned 1/4 tone flatter than the other meaning that between the two pianos they had access to 24 notes per octave in whistling Gretzky's Prelude number one he takes advantage of the 24 quarter tones by running up and down them in this ultra chromatic scale [Music] [Applause] in this excerpt from Charles Ives 3/4 tone pieces the focus of the music is quickly swaying back and forth between the two pianos moving like a pendulum between 12 tuning and 24 tensioning [Music] in the brief moments when we're only hearing one of the two pianos we experience just standard 12 tuning but as the second piano re-enters again and the two overlap we are plunged once more into the microtonal murkiness when we look at the sheet music we won't actually see any quarter tone accidentals that is any half sharps or half flats because each piano on their own isn't actually playing any microtonal intervals but it's the interaction between these two pianos tuned to chord tone apart which creates the micro tonality so micro tonality has been used in some experimental classical music but can we find it in any modern pop or rock music perhaps the most common place to find micro tonality in western music is with instruments that can slide or glissando between the standard 12 pitches for example at the start of rhapsody in blue by George Gershwin the clarinet glides seamlessly from this low F up to this high b-flat [Music] [Applause] [Music] if the clarinet was restricted to the 12th tone system like a piano is the Glide would sound like this [Music] but because the clarinet can access the notes between the standard twelve pitches it can achieve this smooth seamless Glide in modern electronic pop music a glide like this is often called a riser for example this riser from just before the chorus of uptown funk [Music] [Applause] like the clarinet glissando in rhapsody in blue rises like this are taking advantage of the notes between the notes as otherwise they couldn't achieve this seamless tension building climb on guitar the string can be bent so that the note that is sounding is somewhere in between two standard pitches notes are often bent up 1/4 totin rather than a full semitone giving us a micro tonal note this is a very common technique in the blues or at least music that's been influenced by the Blues like rock for example with the bass riff from are you going to be my gal by jet features 2/4 tone Bend when the D is bent up here it only rises up to D half sharp rather than reaching all the way up to our usual D sharp as the note is so brief and ornamental it can be hard to hear the difference here but there certainly is one when I pay the two different notes in isolation for example the difference is much clearer this is d natural followed by a normal Disha and this is what jet do d-natural followed by D 1/2 sharp in the context of the song whether or not this note is a DS sharp or a D half sharp is is acting as a Balu note micro tones are perfect for use as blue notes as blue notes are notes that are added from outside of the scale to add a sense of tension and what could be more out of the scale than a micro tone but perhaps the best suited instrument in western music from micro tonality is the voice the human voice is of course not constricted to any tuning system so it can easily sing any and all intervals if properly trained for example it's common for singers to ornament their melodies by gliding between two different notes of the scale in the song misery business by Paramore at the end of the chorus Hayley Williams slowly slides between these two notes spending a reasonable amount of time in the space between the standard pitches this slow deliberate slide between the two notes makes use of those micro tonal dissonant notes in between the only issue though with referring to slides and glissandos as microtonal is that they are almost always just passing through a micro tonal note enroute to a standard pitch they don't rest on the micro tonal note long enough really for the listener to register it is there any pop of rock music that uses microtonal intervals with the same weight as normal intervals rather than a small seasoning on top of our standard tonality is that any music that uses micro tonal intervals instead of our usual tonality when were in 2017 Australian rock band king gizzard and the lizard wizard released their album flying microtonal banana which is written using 24 tete tuning tuning that divides the octave into 24 pitches instead of 12 much like the classical composers we were talking about earlier the band achieved this 24 tattoo nning by using purpose-built microtonal guitars that featured additional frets on the neck to access the microtonal notes Stu macKensie from king gizzard originally wrote this record to be played on his baglama a turkish instrument which has frets placed at intervals that are close to what Western musicians would consider quarter tones have a listen to their tune rattlesnake that is written in F sharp minor but with a half plus and second degree giving us a G half sharp rather than G sharp and also a half sharpened sixth degree giving us a D half sharp rather than a D natural [Music] [Applause] the resulting tonality is like a blend of old and new to Western ears the most important intervals of the minor scale the fifth the fourth and the minor third have all been preserved but the half flat second and half raised sixth place us into an exotic limbo land between the Aeolian Phrygian and Dorian scale [Music] listening to flying microtonal banana you may notice that rather than the song's being based on chord progressions like most pop and rock music is the music is harmonically static generally staying on one droning key Center for the entire song the music instead focuses on melodic development rather than harmonic development I imagine this is at least in part due to the fact that writing satisfying chord progressions using micro tonal intervals can often be very challenging and confusing for Western musicians who are used to stacking thirds fourths and fifths to make up chords not quarter tones but another reason why kink is it may have chosen to keep the micro tonality exclusively melodic rather than harmonic is so it's not too overwhelming to the listener by only having quarter tones appearing periodically in the melody for much of the song we are actually only in normal 12 Tet western tuning it's only when we come across these micro tonal notes in the melody that we slide into this exotic 24 tete unlocking the microtonal sound how to disappear completely by Radiohead features some micro tonality in its string arrangement scored by Johnny green words the strings are gliding haphazardly between pitches creating a chaotic and unnerving texture it's hard to actually identify the pitches that the strings are playing here and that's sort of the point they spend just as much time in the spaces between the standard pictures as they do on them leading to an ultra chromatic totally disorientated sound I mentioned earlier that the human voice is perhaps the most versatile instrument for writing and performing micro tonal music and a fantastic example of this is Jacob Talia's a cappella arrangement of in the Bleak Midwinter coleus arrangement of in the Bleak Midwinter not only uses microtonal chords but it actually modulates to a micro tonal key through the use of four increasingly microtonal chords were shifted from standard emajor to the key of G half sharp major [Music] take a look at this clip where Jacob demonstrates that prior to the modulation his song is perfectly in tune with a standard piano but then only four chords later he has fairly seamlessly modulated us a quarter tone out of standard tuning meaning that the music is now out of tune with the piano for magical chords whoa [Music] the four chords that Jacob uses here use subtly widened or narrowed intervals so by the time we reach the end of the progression our perception of the tuning has been shifted enough that the key of G 1/2 sharp sounds perfectly logical and harmonious once we land in G half sharp the first melody note we hear is this be half sharp pitched at five oh eight point three six Hertz if I play that pitch as a sine wave over this section of music in G half sharp it sounds harmonious because it's in tune with the key of G half sharp major and if I play the same pitch over this part of the music before we've modulated the pitch predictably sounds out of tune [Music] but the interesting thing is if I play this pitch as we pass over the modulation you can actually hear how the pitch starts out of tune and then slowly begins to sound in tune as we pass over these four chords whoa one common point of confusion that I wanted to address before the end of this video is songs that are not recorded at concert pitch if you take a piece of music and pitch shift it so it's no longer tuning to one of our 12 pitches that isn't actually an example of micro tonality for example Friday I'm in love by the Cure and don't look back in anger by Oasis are both not recorded at standard concert pitch they're not recorded at a equals 440 Hertz meaning if you try playing along to one of these songs using a standard tuned instrument it will sound out of tune but the reason that this doesn't make these Tunes microtonal is that micro tonality is about using intervals that are smaller than our standard Western intervals not using notes that are tuned to different pitches songs like don't look back in anger and Friday I'm in love still only use these same standard intervals the frequencies of the notes may be different than normal but all of the frequencies have been moved by the same amount they've been shifted relative to each other so the intervals between the pitches are still the same as they were before as a musician or a composer micro tonality is one of those concepts that completely up ends your approach to music you can no longer rely on your years of experience and your muscle memory that's all built around the standard tuning system it forces you to think completely outside of the box it makes you almost feel like you're learning your instrument from scratch again as part of my research for this video I decided to write my first-ever microtonal composition and I thought it might be interesting if I shared with you how I approach this so I set up my keyboard so it plays in 24 Tet ie in quarter tones like this I started experimenting with different micro tonal winterfell's and eventually I settled on this extra flat minor third the interval between G half flat and a natural I then went about writing the melody over the top and I found it was a bit too confusing to play this on the keyboard so instead I would hum the note that I wanted to hear and then I would find it on my MIDI roll which was also tuned to 2410 [Music] what I found really interesting is the different approaches that people have to creating micro tonal music so if you can suggest any other microtonal music I'd love to check out micro tonality can actually be fairly common in some non-western cultures David Bruce has a great video on how different cultures around the world have used different tuning systems in their music which often include intervals that we would consider micro tonal and as always a massive thank you goes to my patrons including Adam Granger and race anesthesia Andrew Andrew Brown Andy deacon Austin Barrett Bob McKinstry Whitney Parker Bruce Mount Cameron all availa Chris Cobell Kieran Benin Darren Harvey D David Lee fish David de fin de fer dr. Darren wicks Ellen let's go chinko s Ben Hansen Eugene Leroy eyes FD Hodor golf house Gila motor toner James ko jae-hak and smoger Joe Watson joined the Soderstrom justin vigor lavender Monroe's make fellows melody composer squared Michael Vivian Nancy Gillard Paul Miller poor basil Peter dumphy Roger clay schnitzel craft C Jian Kang Steve daily Thomas Armstrong Tim beaker Tim Payne toot without flowers and Vladimir cotta cough [Music]

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 436,812

Rating: 4.9541302 out of 5

Keywords: microtonal, microtone, quartertone, quarter, semitone, chromatic, temperament, 12tet, 24tet, half sharp, half flat, G half-sharp, ultrachromatic, western music, equal temperament, piano, guitar

Id: q1XOnIk2ai8

Length: 18min 34sec (1114 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/WhiskeyTigerFoxtrot]

I always kinda knew what microtonal meant but never actually knew. This breaks it down in a really easy to explain way. Thanks for putting this together.

[u/SleepDrifterr]

You're one of my favorite YouTubers and it's so nice seeing you mention my favourite band.

[u/jofzarn2112]

Loved this video! Never knew that How to Disappear Completely also had some microtonal notes, super cool!

[u/paulschacht]

absolutely amazing video, love your stuff! i was hoping you’d talk about the gizz in your video on polyrhythms so i was really happy to see you mentioning them in this one :))

[u/SkelaKingHD]

Wow I just saw this video and I've seen some of your others. Cool to see you active in this sub

[u/Spike-Deathpunch]

Great video! If anyone I know is confused about microtones I'll be sure to send them this vid. And I've just gotta say, I love the work you've done! You're video on songs that skip a beat inspired me to check out Bjork and now she's one of my favorite artists!

[u/nuttinbuttbread]

Very interactive and very well explained! Great job, my man!!

[u/Suspicious-Weaponry]

Been subscribed for quite a long time, love your stuff man!

[u/Voidwielder]

Sleep Drifter at KEXP would have been a good example as well because it's a bit more obvious but Rattlesnake is their most viewed song on YT, so it works too.

Edit: Good vid.