Genesis of a Music, by Harry Partch

Harry Partch’s book was first published in 1947. It is clear to see that Partch was an enthusiastic entrepreneur who possessed a very strong drive to create his musical compositions and performances in spite of the fact that the instruments and tuning systems required had not been completely constructed yet. Partch had an endearing and eccentric distaste for equal temperament tuning. His book, Genesis of a music (Partch, 1974) outlines a history of tuning defined by intervals of ratio. Early on in this work, Partch signals Ling Lun in the twenty-seventh century BCE. This court musician is documented as scribing a pentatonic scale that forms the beginning of Partch’s journey through tuning. In chapter fourteen History of Intonation Partch attempts to describe a chronological development of tuning which can be cross referenced with a comprehensive diagram in chapter five. The diagram charts the Chronology of the recognition of intervals and Partch has included himself in the final most recent stages of the chronology. With this book, Partch tips his hat to Helmholtz’s On The Sensations of tone (Helmholtz, 1885) by referring to what Helmholtz calls the beats found in dissonant combinational tones. Partch gives detailed descriptions of his own systems of tuning that suit his method of just intonation with up to fourty-three notes per octave. There are photographs of dozens of Partch’s new musical instruments and close-ups of the keyboard of his Chromelodeon and it’s many additional keys. Like many composers, Partch highly valued the human voice as a source of inspiration and as his work progressed he began to rely more heavily on the corporeal performance. His increasingly large instruments with many keys or strings required great physical agility of each performer, so it follows that Partch developed a fine sense for the appearance of the performances of his works.

HELMHOLTZ, H. V., & ELLIS, A. J. (1885). On the sensations of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music. London, Longmans, Green.
PARTCH, H. (1974). Genesis of a music; an account of a creative work, its roots and its fulfillments. New York, Da Capo Press.