Now and Xen

We discuss the origin and style of the polystylistic jazz band Dsilton, as well as the 36-note keyboard that Georg Vogel often plays and the tuning setups. Be sure to look out for Dsilton's first studio album out sometime in spring or summer 2021! They play a lot of music live that you can see on their YouTube channels. Music Intro: Iwan Baanas - Dsilton Halogenflügel - Georg Vogel Dsilton - Dsilt...

Join us for a conversation with Robin Meiksins, flute performer extraordinaire! She plays lots of new music, and as such is familiar with many contemporary techniques. We discuss favorite tuning systems to play in, ways to achieve microtones on the flute, and how notation can be viewed as "representative" of particular schools of thought. Music (all songs on flute performed by Robin Meiksins) Intr...

Composer Taylor Brook regularly works with Just Intonation, string players, and piano timbres. We discuss some of the notational and compositional challenges of working with Just Intonation, the JACK quartet, comma drift, secrets for hiding dissonance, and writing with microtones. Music Intro: Virtutes Occultae (16: Cloud Pastoral) - Taylor Brook Drifts (II: Phrygia) - Taylor Brook Koan - James Te...

Composer-performer Erica dal Bassa is an innovator in electronic and vocal music. We explore varied experimental topics such as bytebeat, singing techniques, narratives, and microtonal effects. One way to explore possibilities of the voice in music is to use resonance to make one's voice sound either masculine or feminine, which soprano sfogato uses to great effect! Other techniques we explore inc...

Composer Michael Harrison and I talk about his deep interests in Indian classical music (solfege, tuning, raga, and practice) as well as Just Intonation (septimal intervals). His latest piece, "Just Constellations," is an a cappella piece sung/commissioned by the iconic Roomful of Teeth ensemble. Topics include improvisation, commatic intervals in chords, minimalist composers (La Monte Young, Terr...

A stimulating conversation about content creation, electronics, and microtonal controllers! Gustavo is the original creator of the XT Synth, and his channel has classes on how to make DIY human-computer interfaces. We discuss how we would create a microtonal fretless controller type that no one has ever seen before, and compare it to other interfaces. Most of the episode is bonus content on our Pa...

Vivian and I chat about microtonal tuning systems, building instruments, playing guitar, and metal! Her Bandcamp name is Victory Over the Sun. You should be extremely excited about her upcoming microtonal metal album in 17-tone equal temperament! We go over a few of the demos for this album, and play intervals back and forth on keyboards and guitars. We also crack the code for going viral on Twitt...

Join esteemed Canadian composer Paul Dolden and I for a delightful romp through xenharmonic music that sounds alive and exciting. We rewrite the music curriculum, win the candy, gab about psychoacoustics and instrumental technique, and discuss compositional philosophy and craftsmanship. As of right now, nobody is writing with microtonality like Paul, who has spent 40 years writing microtonal compo...

Voice expert Amelia Huff and I talk about the harmonic series in an in-depth way! Memes, witchcraft, acoustics, production, human-voice aesthetics, and novendecimal scales are just some of the many topics we cover in this exciting conversation! In her music, Amelia uses the harmonic series in macro-harmonic systems whose notes' frequency ratios share denominators, instead of scales built from tona...

Sintel is a biologist, visual artist, game creator, and multi-instrumentalist who uses a variety of tuning systems in his work. Our stimulating conversation covers topics such as music theory, software friction/workflow, improvisation/self-teaching, psychoacoustics, and the human genome. Sintel is creating several useful kinds of software for creating microtonal music, most notably an editor using...

Hidekazu Wakabayashi is a multi-instrumentalist who puts his works on YouTube with lots of incredible visual content! We talk about traditional music, cover songs, brown notes, recycling, the legendary "Iceface tuning" from his dreams, and other instruments. Among those discussed include Tolgahan Çoğulu's microtonal guitar frets, the fluid piano, non-Western flutes, and fretless guitars. We also f...

Sevish and Jacob Barton interview Stephen Weigel about his new absurdist postmodern EDM album, one that pushes the envelope with regards to how complexity is perceived and how tuning systems are defined and used. Topics include speaking vs. writing, xenrhythm, the Bandcamp scene, imaginary divisions of the octave, dog vs. cat people, workflow, exploring new constraints on parameters, support, and...

We talk about the microtonal pop duo Syzygys and how they play with Harry Partch's 43-tone Genesis scale. How do you make music sound interesting when your keyboard has less range than an ocarina? How do you tune a reed organ to 11-limit JI without a computer? Why did György Ligeti almost buy Syzygys's microtonal keyboard? Find out in this episode! Music Intro: D.P.O. - Syzygys Bewitched - Harry P...

Joe Monzo and I talk about lots of tuning theory and memories of events past. Comparisons are made between 37edo (alas! The episode is only 1 away!) and 22edo, as he recently completed a wildly chromatic score of a 37edo piece called "The Kog Sisters." Joe Monzo came up with many important concepts and has gathered a lot of historical and mathematical information together on his website, initially...

On this episode of Now&Xen, we talk with electronic guru Isaac Schankler about his relationship with microtonality as a composer, reasons to use just intonation or equal temperament, and creative ways to re-tune instruments during performance to mess with expectation. His piece "Alien Warp Etude," performed by Aaron Kallay, creatively chunks out the 5 + 7 nature of the keyboard with scales a neutr...

With James Mulvale, we discuss what it's like to be new to microtonality, working in a DAW and with instruments. We also talk about microtonality in pop music and in the media, creative ideas, and how recent music has been trending towards becoming more microtonal on a variety of levels. James has a new microtonal radio show - be sure to check it out at the link below! Music Lucky Numbers - James...

In this episode, we talk about the instruments of the Shadow Theatre, Anaphoria, and the mysterious Clocks & Clouds. Soar through the sonic sky with us through adventures of storytelling, shadow puppets, standing waves, meta-slendro, metal, wood, sequences, and visual corporeality. Music Intro: To Search For a Trace - Clocks and Clouds US Highball - Harry Partch Landscapes and Contours - Clocks an...

We talk with multimedia composer Hunter Ewen about what it's like to be alive in the 21st century. Microtonality has lots of potential to be used as a temporal flag, to highlight a sense of off-ness, and to expand the sonic world which we inhabit. We also answer questions such as: how does the presentation of music, and/or extra-musical factors, affect the way we perceive it? And just how many tim...

Join us for an exciting episode with the founder of UnTwelve, Aaron Krister Johnson! We talk about why Facebook sucks, early music, methods of music composition, and computers/artificial intelligence. We also figure out Aaron's secret identity in ambient music… Join the UnTwelve tuning list for great conversations about microtonality away from Facebook! http://lists.untwelve.org/listinfo.cgi/tunin...

Microtonal choral music is exciting and intense! Robin Lopez-Hanshaw premiered a piece in 72-tone equal temperament featuring the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, "vokas animo," which we talk about here! We explore techniques to train the average choir in singing microtones, out of contexts that use guide-tracks or expert performers. Discover why we need more repertoire that accomplishes this...

In this episode, we explore a brief history of regular temperament theory, and also talk about the basics of microtonal interval construction. Our Patreon bonus content for this episode features Paul and I going over audio examples of the Porcupine and Miracle examples in Paul's paper "A Middle Path," and getting more in-depth about the scales themselves and their different intonations. Music Intr...

An in-depth look at the usability and selection of tunings in drum and bass music between these three giants! We talk a lot about the writing process and how microtonality has influenced that. What makes somebody want to use a microtonal tuning in their music in the first place, if not for weirdness? What do we think about listeners noticing tunings vs. what we notice as creators? What is so speci...

This episode is an invigorating, aurally demonstrative conversation that took place in Portland, Oregon between Kite, Aaron, and Spencer in September 2019. It's about the guitar Kite invented that uses every other note of 41edo. Music theory nerds will greatly enjoy this episode! P.S. Be on the lookout for a Jacob Collier cameo... Music Intro: 12-Bar Blues on Kite guitar (played by Aaron Wolf) Fri...

Löis Lancaster is a microtonal performer and composer from Brazil who writes things in Bohlen-Pierce (and other tuning systems) all the time using Bohlen-Pierce guitar, bass, singers, and synths! He joins us on Now and Xen to talk about his influences, writing techniques, aesthetic ideas, and image. Be sure to check out our bonus content on Patreon (coming in January!) featuring an additional Bohl...

Join us for a walk in the woods with renowned composer Toby Twining as we discuss his monumental choral work, the Chrysalid Requiem. Our topics include spiraling notation, Ben Johnston, the New York scene, pragmatic approaches for performance, Dies irae, juvenilia, guide tracks, technology, and accessibility. Our first conversation takes place with Toby Twining, Thomas Schuerich, and Jacob Barton,...