The Music of Peter Thoegersen: Recent Episodes
Startup Podcast for Peter
To all concerned: My book, Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music, will be out Sept. 8th, 2022. https://www.routledge.com/Polytempic-Polymicrotonal-Music-The-Road-Less-Traveled/Thoegersen/p/book/9789814968294
I have a new album out through Magic&Unique Group Records on Spotify and other digital streaming platforms: https://open.spotify.com/album/5qWHmcvyAemvVn2TJH1bio?si=OD5TmPptQ-ypr8WOI0EZKA&nd=1
https://whitecentipedenoise.com/products/peter-thoegersen-facebook-cantos-cdr-flea My CD via Flea label has been out since April, 2021, featuring the wonderful Lore Lixenberg singing over my microtonal piano accompaniment Hope you enjoy it!
https://www.newworldrecords.org/collections/vendors?q=Peter%20Thoegersen
From the liner notes on my CD now available on AMAZON and New World Records: "The author of these notes has spent his life explaining radical music, and the music on this disc may be the most radical I've ever written about. Peter Thoegersen (b. 1967) is not yet a name known to the music world; not for any lack of connection to other famous musicians, but because he came to composition late, and because his artistic aims are so broad and complex that they have taken years to evolve. His aesthetic is well defined, and he is upfront about having a name for it: "Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music." That means he has musical layers simultaneously moving in different tempos, plus, even more radically, that he has different microtonal scales playing at the same time. Few composers have aimed at such fervent and heterogeneous multidimensionality. And yet, while Thoegersen's music can seem overwhelming at first, running through it is a level of charm and simplicity that belies the initial impression.
In total, these three pieces emphasize a particular side of Thoegersen's output. The image his music creates of ornately mathematical structures filled with intuitively friendly melodies maps on to the personality of the man himself: outspoken and acerbically ruthless in his musical opinions, Thoegersen is also marked by a jolly sense of humor and an inexhaustible love of cats and other animals that make him ultimately less imposing and more personable than he might seem at first. The same can be said for his music. And by going further than anyone else has gone in terms of this particularly American concept of fusing the polytempic with the polymicrotonal - extending and combining the conceptual worlds of Ives, Cowell, Nancarrow, Partch, Carter, even Frank Zappa and many others - he has created a special place for himself within American music."
-Kyle Gann (from the liner notes)
This track is another extension of the polymicrotonal etude series. This piece was made entirely in pure data. 2026
categorical enlistments of materials originally meant for strings and then realized via computer direct to digital. Since I have zero chance of ever hearing my music played by a live string quartet, due to the threat of tunings and polytempo, I must console myself with digital approximations.
Four voices timbrally from double reeds, flutes, to synthesized human voice, timbral modulation and microtonal modulation dominate the structure and background of this piece. The tempi are unrelated, no common denominator, until the ending, and all parts modulate to both 12 and 53 toward the end from the beginning set of 13-14-15-16 tet in all four voices. A new MuseKinetics MPE keyboard was used . composed July 2026
Four voices, four clocks, four tunings. This piece sets independent lines in 13-, 14-, 15-, and 16-note equal divisions of the octave against four unsynchronized tempos (55, 67, 79, 103 bpm) — no shared pulse, no common fundamental. Each voice arcs on its own schedule from its starting tempo down into a larghissimo stillness, then accelerandos back up, the four dips never lining up. Plucked string, reed-like FM, a buzzing organ tone, and a bell voice trade the foreground as the tempos drift in and out of phase. Part of an ongoing series in polytempic polymicrotonality.
Three independent lines, three unrelated tunings, three unrelated tempos — no shared fundamental, no master clock. A short polytempic polymicrotonal study built in Csound/Blue: 11-EDO at a fixed 60 BPM, a 13-tone tritave division at a fixed 88 BPM, and a 7-limit JI line accelerating 50→140 BPM underneath.
This track is using Csound, Pure data, audacity, cecelia, and is polymicrotonal in 19, 13, 14, and 15 edos. The rhythmics are quintuplets, triplets, and sixteenth note groupings in various tempi. This piece is made in Urbana, Illinois, nowhere near UIUC. 2026
and there will be updates to both sound and notation. Composed in 2026, and still ongoing.
This is my final version of string quartet 17 in full polymicrotonal polytempo. This has 13-14-15-22 tet tunings, and four competing tempos that shift and change throughout this piece. composed 2025. There are three main sections: staccato-free-harmonics and pizz.
A version without the 12tet in the background with more harmonics, and pizzicato...many versions more to come. The polymicrotonal compression of intervals sounds otherworldly as the violins flautando begin to sound flute-like. The entire timbral world of the string quartet has shifted to other timbres altogether unlike any string quartet known. This is partially due to the processing of Entonal microtonal retuner and its problems handling polyphony, such as multi-stops and makes errors in its processing, which I keep. I choose to keep these odd sounds. I create them and the errors of technology reinterpret them.
composition: many versions of the same piece. Manifold composition is not wholly new, as each performer adds their own distinctive and unique way of interpreting the score. This is actually no different, depending on the algorithmic output of computer programs always lends indeterminacy to the realizations, particularly mine, since there are numerous uncodified parameters at play in my music, not yet accepted by academia.
This string quartet is dedicated to Rob Reiner who gave me many enjoyable moments throughout my entire life. This work is a first installment and there will be a polymicrotonal version coming soon. This version is polytempic but is only standard tuning. The work is in four different and mutating tempi and differing time signatures that change throughout the work. The music is in three sections, but is fused as a single piece. I may break them up into movements, but would prefer not to. The polymicrotonal version is in progress.
Tuba solo with Brass Orchestra and third tone, eighth tone and quarter tone modulations. 2025
all brass in 12tet with dynamics, fermatas, tempo changes, and zero tonality, except for an occasional A here and there.
The 12tet version of the same piece for microtonal guitar, drums and cello, however somewhat different and with more piano parts. 2025
Price of coffee is up 5 dollars now because of Trump tariffs, which happen to be illegal, as everything he does is illegal, with full support of the idiot dumb stupid Americans.
A sampled violin is distorted and sequenced in Circuit Rhythm, along with microtonal guitar in Carlos Beta tuning and 12tet piano with pitch bending, in two sections--peace to war. Trump Hitler's war on planet Earth. 2025.
Crazy Music. 2025. Circuit Rhythm, Logic Pro 11, Pianoteq, wave samples, tar samples, 17/53 tet microtonal pitch set
Three tempi collide in this Thanksgiving Day Parade War Zone Fuck You piece, with Circuit Rhythm patterns in one tempo, sped up and slowed down, and added fx, with a faster template of the midi pattern in another Logic Drumset, with Pianoteq piano in Carlos Alpha 16 note octave tuning played by drum controllers, both Maschine and the KAT pad system. Polytempic Polymicrotonal (two tuning systems) and mass geopolitical war and confusion causing contusions on this illusion of reality, which sucks like no other period in history. Maybe except the holocaust, which is coming, again. And again and again and again, echo......echo............
A piece in 5/4 with two tunings: 12tet and 22/octave Shruti, with pure 25 cents enharmonic tone differences, and Maschine in standard 12tet and modal, with jazz feel drums external to that, playing over the sequenced Maschine . Thanksgiving Eve, 2025
Some 53tet guitar alongside two loose Drumsets like the way I used to play real drums around Los Angeles. 2025
A 12/8 Africanesque rhythm with Guitar in unequal 24/octave tuning and Viola in a heptatonic unequal overtone tuning. Both stringed instruments are in a 5:4 ratio with the rhythm . 2025. Scoreless, as most etudes of Poly are.
Triplet African feel with fast 8th note displacement under a Microtonal Guitar screaming subtle microtones quietly while Saul Pimon plans his next world tour. Not really. it's just me.
Microtonal guitar solo featuring a 12tet + 15tet polymicrotonal tuning system with 24 out of 60 pitches. 2025.
Some haptic nonsense with tone wheel organ, microtonal guitar, drums and bass and some MidiPipe solving problems with virtual ports in Logic Pro. Solving problems. 2025. Meow.
The previous microtonal guitar track along side a strange linear percussive beat with bass and drums. 2025
This is an exploration in new digital music technology, using the Native Instruments Maschine Micro with 16 drum and bass tracks split to 16 separate channels/tracks, and manipulated with panning and levels, whilst the CZ101 interferes with its inane singing, whilst other sounds from the Maschine Micro interfere, whilst a 24/60 microtonal guitar tries to break through with its soft cloudy countenance, whilst being eclipsed by the annoying CZ101 (also playing more than one part in the instrumentation) and the occasional pluck algorithms from Audacity are microtones to 75 cents up and down, along with a couple of quarter tones. The music itself also modulates to the eighth and quarter tones in the middle and towards the ending. This is therefore polymicrotonal. And since the drums are chaotic at points, this is also polyrhythmic, but not necessarily polytempic. Meow. 2025
This is an experiment with Maschine Micro and the CZ101 within Logic Pro and attempting to silence the screaming snails inside my brain. 2025
This track is the second version of 53, with added tunings and instruments: 12tet poly strings, and Nordic Whistle in Partch 43, in addition to the already established 22, 48, 53 and I forgot. Cats will soon join this eternal topic making it a trialogue betwixt myself, mat and David. coming soon. maybe. 2025
Four instruments display various musical behaviors whilst encapsulating four distinct microtonal systems: 19, 22, 48, and 53tet EDOs. The instruments are guitar, bowed harp, cello with electronic reverb, and metals with hard edge percussive mallets. Underneath are 53tet micro intervallic voice leading. Composed 2025. I tried Neural Network for a score for this one, but was unsuccessful. These poly-etudes are generally without score anyway, but I had thought about transcribing them with the new AI stem tools these days, but they still need work.
The program Neural Network, a stem separation algorithm, helped me recover some of the midi in the audio file, of which I rearranged from strings, flute and piano, to brass. The midi was recreated at a very slow tempo, so I made this version at a tempo of quarter note = 1528 bpm. It both sounds and not sounds like it. It is, of course, impossible to read and play, as the measures zip by in fractions of seconds. AI robot music performance for the future! 2025. Standard tuning and single, but fast, tempo.
Dictator Trump has taken over and is killing everyone while the republinazis clap with joy. Kristalnacht for alles ...2025.This is a polymicrotonal piece for flute, violin, cello and piano with some extended techniques and microtones count as extended techniques. Or I'll kick your fuckin ass.
This bit of Tuesday fun is a new piece created in Reaper, new, with Oddsound microtuner, and a plethora of vst instruments, and some contrabass to round out the bottom. composed in the year of 2025.
This Brass Septet features only acoustic, but polymicrotonal, brass instruments. There's a range of different tuning methods employed here, from Wendy Carlos Alpha, Beta, Gamma, to Just 7, to Pythagorean, and even Partch's 43. The trumpets are quick and squiggly rhythmically which pushed the microtonal changes with portamento into a rather insect sounding result, which I decided to keep, as a novel mistake, turned discovery. It will annoy many listeners, but I am beyond caring now. The bottom is nice and round, just like Jennifer Lopez. And if that's sexist, I still don't care.
This music has been another journey into the marriage of the human brain and technology, and what one is willing to keep or edit out. There are many passages here that are unplayable; nevertheless, I am keeping it, as I believe there are either electronic trumpets or piccolo trumpets that can or may be able to replicate it. The harmony is all Pantonal, neither atonal nor tonal, and is driven mostly by voice leading and horizontal motion rather than verticalities. Therefore, there are no chord progressions, per se, yet, due to the voice leading, there are small pockets of centricity that approach tonality. This music, uncharacteristically, is not microtonal. The technology I am using allows me to explore ideas that are beyond human performance. Since we are in AI territory, anyway, I am keeping most of the score for a future robot ensemble driven by AI performance algorithms that will be able to negotiate these rhythms. Composed 2025.
five parts in a 99-98-97-96-95 ratio with tempo changes, and trumpet 1 in 17-19-21-23-25-28-31 partials tuning; trumpet 2 in Pythagorean, Horn in Just 7 limit, Trombone in quarter tones, and Tuba in 19/53tet. This piece has other related versions, but this is the final poly version. For now. Composed 2025. Score in process.
My second brass quintet since the first, composed in 2002. This brass quintet will be in several versions but mainly in either standard tuning, or polymicrotonality. These works are not following a tonal plan, nor are they atonal. They are somewhere else. There are no chord progressions, but there is always voice leading, borrowed over the last millennium. Consider this version 2a
Two brass quintets play in close tempi, but not phased, while polymicrotonal modulations in quarter tones, third tones, eighth tones and sixth tones interrupt the somber meditation on loss of a country. 2025
line multiplied and displaced by the pdlytempo. This is not phase music. This is still polytempo but at micro rhythmic gradations. Each tempo is marked by a .5 beat difference between the five parts. There is no convergence, only separation, like our country. Frankly, like the world today.
Totally synthesized version of nonet for acoustic instruments, all with samplers. Relax and enjoy, or I'll kick your fucking ass.
Music for English horn, trumpet, violin, viola, cello, two vibraphones, guitar and piano. Tunings will be discussed later. Working on score, still. This piece is constantly evolving. 2025
This music is about how we are all fucked and Trump will destroy the Earth, as I've been fucking telling you idiots for the last ten fucking goddamned years and you just sat on your ass doing nothing. Happy Death. 2025
Like a wild Klezmer orchestra, everyone is going dixieland Mad with pdlytempo and polymicrotonality, for piano, guitar, violin, viola, cello, 2 marimbas, English horn and Trumpet. It's a mad drunken bar fight but, fun, a fun mad drinking bar fight. No one lives! Composed today and all week. This is related to the Boner happy day piece. You're welcome.
This piece is an outgrowth of the previous sextet that is now a NONET, with English Horn, C Trumpet, violin, viola, cello, 2 marimbas, guitar and piano. This is fully polytempic, but is only standard tuned, no microtones. (unless of course 12tet in-itself is already microtuned as it deviates from just overtones) . This piece is sprightly and alive, quite the opposite of its composer, so that remains an enigma.
Tunings are: five sets of differently tuned 17-19-21-23-25-28-31 overtones for piano, violin, marimba, trumpet and English horn, and 48tet for the guitar.
A polycyclic piece with 5 looping cyclic parts not in a neat order, but not polytempic nor polymetric, either. Formerly a string quartet, but with added synth, is essentially a quintet. 2025
This is the mixed trio with bassoon added: Clarinet, Bassoon, Cello, and Piano. No fireworks. Just a rather nice low key ensemble. Neither morbid nor jubilant. This is the sister piece to the trio and Polymicrotonal Quartet. My pieces will have several versions. Actually they frankly always did, but it's much more deliberate now. 2025
This, my second mixed Trio in poly, features 17-19-21-23-25-28-31 seven note scale in the cello, that loops 6X against two polyrhythmic contrapuntal 24 unequal Pythagorean scale of al Farabi in the piano, and Ben Johnston's 6th Prime row of 25 unequal per octave, in the Clarinet. The interplay is finely thought out and responsorial. The poly trio is a new form I am experimenting with for more transparency for the contrapuntal interplay between the instruments in polymicrotonality. 2025
This quartet is polymicrotonal with tuning systems: 17:19:21:23:25:28:31 in first violin; Arabic 12-tone Pythagorean in second violin; 7-limit tritone in viola; and 19/53tet in cello. The synth is 12tet, so it's actually a five-part poly piece rather than my standard 4 parts. The tempi are in loops and are in the ratios: 10.25:3.25:6:23:4.25, for v1, v2, viola, cello, and synth, respectively. No score yet, coming soon. 2025.The seventeenth incarnation of the string quartet series will be a small collection of short Polytempic polymicrotonal pieces with or without additional synth or other instruments. This piece is therefore a Synth Quintet; however, I view the synth part as an "equal democratic" participant and not a soloist.
This track may as well be experimental since the midi file standard import/export algorithms can seriously mangle a Polytempic midi file composed in finale. This version was curtailed and given a blank time change to 4/4 and one tempo. It is so opposite to my original work, I thought I'd post it. The orchestra is BBCSO Discovery and can't do microtones, and the piece is also not Polytempic, so here it is "sanitized" by the limits of commercial music applications, to which I am an outlier.
Fresh new Etude in new software, vst, controllers, synthesis, etc. Brooding over Trump cuts...preparing to die a la Beaudelaire Rimbaud. Despair ennui and death.
Composed for solo oboe, this piece places the music in tight Polytempic canon at a ratio of 116:115 while the Harp is tuned to 19tet and the Guitar is in 1/4 comma meantone. Rearranged September 23, 2025
This is a rearrangement and strict parallel chordal enhancement of string quartet 5, with 2 violins, viola, and piano slightly detuned in areas with 14tet, but not much. I'm still trying to find decent string samples. These are from SINE and the piano is Apple's Logic DLS keyboard sample. Composed initially in 2017, redux September 2025
The winds are in quarter tones, the brass are sixth tones, the percussion is normal, and the strings are 8th tones. The choirs also modulate to and from 12tet throughout the work. There have also been added parts as I revise and edit. Yes, if you hear chants you know, I used them and they are all indicated and cited in the score. Nothing is STOLEN. I don't HAVE TO STEAL. enjoy.
This is my fourth symphony, and I am using new software that sounds better. The new software is not microtonal friendly, therefore, there will be two versions: standard and poly microtonal. This version is in 12tet and it is still highly polytempic. Each choir of the orchestra is moving separately in Fuxian contrapuntal motions, such as, contrary, parallel, similar and oblique, with respect to tempi changes in the choirs.Another fact about this piece is that it uses many fragments of Gregorian chant from the Liber Usualis and is scattered throughout the single movement piece. The chants are of various lengths and are brief. The form could be considered a type of "variation" form; even if the chants are not literally repeated, they do act as a type of chaconne, over which the symphony plays and explores.As of today, Sep. 4th, 2025, a finished mix is uploaded and will remain the finished midi version of this piece in 12tet using NotePerformer.
Imagine being in the jungles of myanmar and coming across the rare saber-toothed tiger of the jungles near the Naf River
Maxmsp synthesis with polymicrotonality and bizarre artifacts poking through the veil of dreams
A polymicrotonal synth created in Maxmsp, in 2011, featuring many EDO tunings and found sounds around the house. 2013
Rather formal sounding beginning of an informal piece, a bit like Bach while dreaming of chasing notes that got away. 2016
Piano collection 3 is from 2007 and was finished in 2010 after a hiatus for a couple years. The piece is already a step away from piano collections 1 and 2.
This is an exclamatory music that is heightened mood and intense in feeling with pedal work and syncopation in both bass and treble clefs.
four hands turns into one line with very many fingers. more fingers than a human has. From many, the one. Down to a single line.
The Ewe tradition of drumming is applied to piano. Most suitably for 4 hands, but a really good pianist can pull this off alone.
This piano piece has piano string harmonics and tapping and other goodies. No samples for these sounds, however...so it's just plain straight vanilla piano.
The doctors didn't know what was wrong with my lumbar area. They said it was a herniated disk. Later it was found to be a diabetic complication that ate the nerves away from my lumbar area. Only 0.000000000000000875% of the population get this. i am very lucky.
using non binary numbers in polyrhythms and signatures as written about by Henry Cowell in 1919
One day in 2017, in September, my ambulatory apparatus quit me, where I began falling down daily, like my own free rides in life's amusement park. been crippled ever since.
we are all the hungry ghost. we all crave. we can't admit that we crave and desire. our bellies are big and our mouth is small.
Listening, reading, Alan Watts since a teenager, I only came to understand recently what he means by an ego encased in a bag of skin.
Thay passed recently after a long fruitful life spreading joy and peace all over the world, from boycotting Vietnam war (both sides), to helping Martin Luther King jr. Thay was, next to the Dalai Lama, the pure embodiment of compassion.
Baruch de Spinoza and Victor Frankl have said this in encouragement of a future work of art that needs to be created as a purpose for living.
Piano Collection: 17b, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt by Startup Podcast for Peter
I wrote this piece in 2006, and then later input it into Finale in 2016, but the nested tuplets were too much for Finale to render as a proper midi file, so David Victor Feldman rendered it through his programming skills. It's a good approximation of the original. This piece is called Mikrokomplexmos after Bartok's pedagogical series for piano, but this small ditty just remained my only foray into this project.
Act IV to The Legend of Zip Caustic, a satire from the book of the same name written by Peter Thoegersen. All music composed by Peter Thoegersen. 2013-2025
This is ACT I of a four act opera, acts 2-4 forthcoming. Zip Caustic is the fictional character who stars in this computer music lo-fi internet opera with microtones and other sounds. 2012-2025
violin intro followed by large poly timbral stabs. some microtonal pitches and extended techniques
in addition to musk and trump stealing my healthcare and social security, some kid tried to steal my car.
Performed in April of 2007, renowned clarinettist Erik Mandat performs my solo, written under William Kraft in Los Angeles, 2003
Ogg Vorbis Dynamic Tonality microtonal LMMS system disco dance in five tuplets while screaming dissociative obscenities at a totalitarian fascist dysfunctional society.
Music technology representing signal to noise ratio in life and in art as a dualistic monad. Polytempic and Polymicrotonal. 2024
Drumset in 4/4 expands into 9/8, 10/8, 11/8 and returns to head and then expands to three simultaneous tempi that increase to high pitch. It's all physics, folks.
The robots got together and jammed. all the motion is perfect 64th notes so tightly controlled they sound like mistakes. They are NOT mistakes. 2024
Csound in 6 layers of synthesis with three levels of tuning. Tunings are different but add more to the timbre than to the polyphony as this is "monophonic", yet with multiple voices. Monopolymicrotonality is a term I've used before. 2024
Csound and midi file argue and make friends. very computery. 2024. Oompa Loompas make chocolate for xmas.
Pure data computer music with basic oscilator, LFO, DAC and recorder with all parameters adjusted live while midi input triggers happenings. 2024
Polymicrotonal midi Synthfont file with Aegean Orchestra piano soundfont altered by csound spectral granular Q filter lowpass fun. 2024
synthesis all combined for the terror of being completely alone on a planet with 9 billion assholes. 2024
a midi file imported into csound blue frontend and some robot voices employed in the rendering of this short work. 2024
This is a classical four part harmonic plan with four different timbres expressing themselves microtonally. the inharmonic overtones obscure the resulting pitches lending an air of ambiguity. The tone is contemplative, not somber. 2024
Csound Cabbage direct digital synthesis and Audacity. Midi implementation of rhythm in addition to reverb, lfo, and noise driven soundscapes. 2024
Poly etude 24 with Reaktor swapped out for Csound Cabbage vsti plug in of Iain Mccurdy's amazing FM synthesis Klang. I states that if anyone uses it without his mention he will kick some ass. So...I mention. All I did was convert it into a plug in and import it into Reaper. That's it. I swear. nothing more. OK Iain?
Csound computer music via instrument sharing banks with tweaked knobs adding distortion and out of range clipping to classic R2D2 type robot sounds. Microtonal midi file converted to spectral synth as well. Inhuman sounds. Haywire. Chaos. Kaos. 2024
This is how I feel about the world today. fuck right wing extremism and nazis everywhere go fuck themselves assholes small dick low iq motherfuckers. 2024
slightly different arrangement of drums n microtonal distortion guitar, but with added csound synth pad, also microtonal. csound is a fucking pain in the ass it makes me fart. 2024
Csound blue midi file playback of spectral synth and Maxmsp amplitude modulation doing microtones on the 31 tet and others. 2024
Microtonal guitar in Csound w Blue interface and drums I recorded a while ago. All me. All Thoegersen. The Blue Csound file is playing my midi file for solo Trumpet and outputting a Distorted Guitar instrument from BlueShare. 2024
This track features technological exploration with Ableton Live, Kontakt Harpsichord and Crystal synth plugins, samples of percussion, and some spectral weirdness from Csound Cecilia. There are also microtonal modulations a few places, so this could be considered another microtonal etude...2024 (the clapping in the music is actually digital clipping distortion that I kept)
KarplusStrong algorithm with granular modulation in 19 tone horizontal and quarter/eighth tones vertical, at 75 cents. Bespoke modular synthesis program and Audacity.
StudioFactory Modular Synth and virtual cable patching for VCO, VCA, VCF and midi controlled modulators affecting FM, Q, cut off, and all sorts of goodies. Quartertones, Eighthtones and standard 12tet are used. 2024
created in LMMS, Synthfont, Audacity, and SynFactory Modular synthesis, this piece is in 27/32 time, with quartertones, eighth tones and distorted with bit crushing, pulse width modulation and FM. 2024
LMMS and Synthfont, with multiple layers in different tempi and tuning, quartertones and eighth tones, rave into the Nov. 5th elections as Trump loses the debate to Kamala Harris, on 9/10/24. Cheeto dictator goin down in flames.
Multiple systems collide and frolick in a fiendish landscape of pure human desire mopping equilibrium off the tears of the sun in equinox. Fused, at bay. 2024
Contrabass Clarinet solo in cannon with trombone at the 8th tone. Trumpet plays the extended harmonics of the clarinet.
A piece showing off the range and various characteristics of the Contrabass Clarinet: how the low end sounds like brass and the high end also sounds like a trumpet, hence the word "clarino". The music is tuned an eighth tone high throughout. Composed 2024
Four instruments from middle ages to today in 12 2nd octave overtones, 19/31tet, 19tet, and 23tet play polymetric polyrhythmic 5's, 7's and other beasties in a soul-wrenching modern-day musodrama reflecting life's tortures. 2024
A pleasant chamber ensemble with piano, two violae, harp, guitar, marimba in 22 tone temperament. Imagine Titian painting a huge dick on his Venus or Urbino in 1534, laughing, and erasing it because he would be jailed for it.
12, 18, 24, and variable pitch bend pad this snarling microsnarky vicious insidious snake of sasquatch magnificence wriggling in your ears and brain, eating through tissues and sinews and blood vessels usurping your seat of consciousness.
A short woodwind quintet in quartertone based ZalZal tuning modality. Frenetic in 17/16. 2024
Originally a short Wind Quintet, this piece, with re-orchestrated sounds, has 19tet in the "flute", 18tet in the oboe, 17 tet in the nylon guitar, or clarinet, vice versa, 12tet in the horn part, or rumbly thing, and 16tet in the psaltry, which is bowed, in this case. The piece is tightly woven contrapuntally into 17/16 with layers of triplets and other subdivisions.
A line is tuned a quartertone away from a line that is tuned a quarter tone away and the space gets shorter between them while the chasm between reality grows into a crevasse as we slip in and are eternally lost in total hopelessness and despair.
17tet Oud, 24tet Celeste, and 12tet chamber cloud bowls endeavor a sweet, busy, and tranquil birthday to the composer.
This music is for a standard woodwind quintet with a few extra voices in sections for additional effect. Probably around 10 players in total. Microtones are modally placed quartertones. Composed originally as the winds section for Milko, for large chamber ensemble, and rearranged and sped up. Imagine mice performing on meth.
Instruments from all over history from the Renaissance to Hip Hop describe a polymicrotonal landscape in quartertones, 2nd octave overtones, Pythagorean, and 12tet. Polytonal chords from the diatonic collection flank the music.
This track is for two cellos and a little extra help from violin. The tuning is on the fly, with a mixture of quartertones, eighth tones and sixteenth tones, so I guess it's polymicrotonal. this was rendered in Synthfont so the samples are not the greatest. On the other hand some added effects make up for it. I hope. There is no regard for matching the sonic environments with EQ, or reverb. They stand out as an additional articulation to the music. On purpose.
Polymicrotonal study involving 12, 13, 14, and 19 TET in various voices. Imagine Nixon picking his nose to this.
Various tunings galore and Instruments plethora. Plethorasaurus. Polyamour. love love love. All we need is love. fuck prizes.
72, 48, 53, 12, and other tunings on a Maxmsp designed multisynth, with bit crushing, granular drums, and classic synthesis techniques.2018-2024.
Maxmsp Polymicrotonal synth, granular synthesis, additive synthesis, musique concrete, and the Sun, burning your eyes out. 2011-2024. reshaped over the years.
A pianistic aural allusion to Maximus, the cat, and my best friend. A small cell of pitches is giddily manipulated like four fast little cute legs running around the apartment...
This final movement brings the total symphony to @46 minutes. The fourth movement is in four tempi in counterpoint to each other: parallel, similar, oblique and contrary tempo movement. The tunings are: 17 19 12 and 22 tet. I dedicate this to my Mom in the center of the picture. 2023
My take on a modern Scherzo and Trio w repeats. not tonal not atonal. Polymicrotonal. not polytempo. 2023
first draft of movt 2, Symphony III. The choirs are all moving independently in tempo: decelerando, accelerando. There is a counterpoint of tempo movement. There is parallel tempic motion, oblique, contrary, and similar, both faster and slower. There are also four tunings. Eat your heart out, kids. The music is neither tonal nor atonal, but there are centric moments. The form is not modeled after an 18th century dance, so it's more organic to the tempo changes.
This will be followed up by more movements as it's too short for a standalone. this is also a first draft. Finale nearly exploded on me while making this, so I'm putting what I can up here before it finally explodes. 2023
second piece in piano collection I, from 1999, and Finale input 2023. A rare moment of tonality from me. Dont expect this.
This is a brand new woodwind trio, featuring 53 on flute, 48 on oboe, and 46 on bassoon. 2023
This is the final movement to the "Tiny Symphony" in five short pieces. Yes, influenced by Webern, I decided to make my little Funf stucke fur Sinfonia. Finale has its limitations and I am doing my best. One day future microtonal orchestras will play my works. For now I can only dream, as they continue slaving away in standardness. I hate the status quo. The next phase of music after noise and noise gestures (extended techniques) is more complex stratification of rhythmic layers and microtones. For now, academia ignores these things.
second piece of symphony II, in four tunings, 53tET, 12tET, 48 tET and brass are in overtone partials. 2013
Composed in 2013, but not entered into Finale until now, Jan. 2023, this five movement symphony was my first attempt at a polymicrotonal large scale orchestra, in a short Webernian formalistic sense. Neither atonal, nor tonal, the choirs of the orchestra are mostly polymicrotonal and not polytempo until the 4th and fifth pieces. Enjoy.
This is a untuned first draft of symphony I. there may be additional movements, making this the first movement. there are four-five tempi assigned to each section, and the tunings will be: winds = quartertones; brass = 7 limit just in C; percussion piano and harp = 12tet;, and 8th tones in the strings. I am presenting this roughly midway. The final product will follow in a few weeks.
Drum Solo 11 is about brushes and hihat, polyrhythms on top of polyrhythms, and metric play. 2022
Poly rhythmic mix of meters, combinations, and a plethora of simultaneous sounds putting heavy loads of stress on your tiny minimalist brain. 2022
Prime number limbs: 11-13-17-19 with some Ginger Baker and Vinnie Colaiuta and double bass speed and the kitchen sink and five moving vans.2022
Drum solo 8 features 9-11-13-15 in each limb and extemporizations in each part, or mini compositions, in each part. There are extensive passages of ostinati, tom tom chords, and four way independence that boggles the mind. 2022. Each meter, when isolated is subjected to many subdivisional permutations and rhythmic modes.
This piece features two double bass drumsetups and two electric basses playing lead and back up, with guitar harmonics and vibraphone. There are three drumset parts to this. original tune made in 1993
6th addition to the drumset series, 6 deals with 7-9-11-13 in separate limbs, isolating the meter/tempo, extemporizing and da capo rondo form. 2022
This is the fifth installment to my polymetric/polytempic drumset series, focusing on 5-7-9-11 in each limb and soloing in each meter/tempo. Score available at Internet Archive on my bio page, 2022
In honor of Drumset Solo 1, this piece focuses on 4,5,7, and 9. The head features all four meters with a common downbeat while each particular ratio tempo is isolated for soloing in that meter/tempo, and then returns to the head.
This is an old segue style tape, showing off various styles, a demo tape of yore, where jazz, funk reggae and james brown type groove, along with a midi drum sidekick playing with the old DAT track from 1995. I am olde. No particular poly here. Sorry the grooves change. I get bored very easily.
My second solo for drumset, based on my years of study with odd meters, stickings, independence and moves around a drumset, including split doubles between toms. Lots of double bass singles and doubles. 2022. This is not jazz, nor rock, nor classical. I dont know what this is. This is not a beat track, either.
Polymicrotonal Max synthesizer playing 72 and Quartertone intervals, while modulating in tiny increments, over Max patch of granular synthesis and other things. 2022
This is a short quick ending to the tripartite SQ 1, with a much quicker, brisker pace and some ass kicking dissonance. 1999-2022
The transmogrification of string quartet 1 continues with the second movement, which, I admit, is difficult listening due to the density of texture and harsh dissonances in high harmonics strings. The melody and harmony are underneath as this pieces tears up your innards and burns your soul. 1999-2022
a repaired version of string quartet 1, 1999, revised today, 2022. The original sounds nothing like this, but the underlying harmony is the same. Neither polytempic but a little microtonal.
I love cats and this is written by the Cat Daddy himself, VC, Vampire Cat. He studied some Barry White, and King Crimson and some reggae and came up with this little ditty.
A polytempic meterless piece featuring 13tet on flute and drums both going wild in seemingly different directions, yet, they are together. strange...kind of like life.
12/22Tet Cello and Drumset travel over numerous Henry Cowellian time signatures while having brief convergences in the afterlife. Meow.
this track represents a shift in drumming to a more lyrical and expressive type of playing, rather than just playing beats as a function of time. The piano is split into two opposing meters, as well, allowing three separate meters/tempos at once in places. This music also reflects classical, jazz, and fusion in an integrated fashion.
I once was a guest on Terry Bozzio's drum channel show at DW in Oxnard, CA, and we had a couple of jams, this being the first one. I hadn't played in a while and was trying to gain my footing against Terry's percussion rack. This was 2012
Hello, I have taken time off and I'm back with piano collection 18, a polymetric pieces that is more lyrical and tonal than my usual style. Marks the ending of a two year break when I felt nothing I wrote made any difference and needed to quit for a while. the basic theme of this piece, other than atonal centricity, is that it's largely 5 against 4.
Microtonal Song Cycle based on my facebook posts. Featuring Lore Lixenberg, mezzo soprano.
This piece is in 11 and 13 limit just intonation and in two tempos, completely independent of each other, performed by Michael H Dixon, horn, and Greg Van Der Struik, trombone, from Australia. This was a Zoom performance on MU, hosted by Johnny Reinhard, Nov. 6th 2021
"Skullen a Coldie" works by centric use of various sets that constantly change through the piece. Each brass instrument has its own sets and they both share pitches, however a few cents off, due to the individuality of the tunings. The tunings have their own unique microtones that are exploited, both structurally and linearly: it's neither tonal nor atonal, but a blend. No one leads and no one follows, so it's not dux/comes; it's not a fugue, yet the polytempo provides perfect ligatural separation of beats culminating in a perpetually pushed forward linear voice leading that comes naturally due to the asymmetrical nature of polytempo. The tempo changes delineate several organic connected sections of the parts that do not coincide, thus changing the moods of each voice independently: tranquil vs agitato, e.g., and there are independent tempo changes that further create a feeling of contrapuntal separation. Then there are also repeated gestures based on pitch/rhythmic behaviors in each instrument, noticeably throughout the piece, a la idee fixe, and there are harkenings of both Chopinesque and Wagneresque stylings in each part/voice that are semi-humorously referenced smack in the middle of thickened textures--as there is also a counterpoint of textures. Each instrument has vocalizations sung into the instrument to generate multiphonics for effect, so as to add an extra dimension of texture. In terms of articulation, there are independent sections of staccato/legato that are separate and alternate between the voices that add to the spatial distancing of each part, which can be heard even in Zoom.
A linear exploration of quartertones, to third tones, to eighth tones as one tuning modulates to the next, in Cowellesque time signatures and giocoso scorrevole
Large meterless tuplets in different sizes create polytempic landscape with four tunings: 24, 26, 30, and 31 TET combine at blistering speed to shatter your consciousness into pure fragments and shards of nothingness. 2019
large swaths of measures, without time sigs, engulfed in vast tuplets, each with their own zip code and tempo. In 16, 17, 18, and 19 tet. Composed late 2018-january 2019
String Quartet V is part of my string quartet series, written for actual string quartet, but realized in PianoTeq and .scl Scala microtonal scales for full four-part polymicrotonal system interaction. This piece features 5, 7, 8, and 9 edos modulating to 17, 18, 20, and 21, respectively. The tempos are also fully independent and have separate tempo changes. Until real string players begin playing these works, pianoteq will be used for online synthestration representation of the original work. Composed August-October, 2018
Felix DelTredici performs I'm a Force of Nature with alacrity, fluidity, and an effortless virtuosity only found in the greatest of players. Concert from AFMM, 2018, New York, held by Johnny Reinhard in April, of 2018. This piece explores all types of extended techniques for trombone, in general, microtones, multiphonics, and dramaturgy.
Johnny Reinhard, bassoon, and Dan Auerbach, violin, perform my piece SUMMER IN HELSINKI at the Sibelius Acadamy, Aug 28th, 2017, in 128/octave overtone tuning.
My bassoon solo written for Johnny Reinhard in his 128/octave overtone series tuning, impeccably performed at Odessa, Ukraine, TWO DAYS AND TWO NIGHTS of New Music, April, 2017
This is a 6 percussion instruments overlay featuring tubular bells, marimba, keyboards and vibraphone, with radically altered attacks in 12, 13, 21, 36, and 159 tet, and is largely ultra-chromatic voice leading In 159tet bells and vibraphone, and 12tet marimba, all punched with bass drum. The 12tet melody is the same mapping as for the rest of the tunings and therefore the tessitura is of smaller range, due to compression of intervallic structures. 2016
This music is the same as for String Quartet #3, but for four pianos all tuned accordingly: 13, 14, 12, and 15 tet; all in different tempos: 96, 87, 100, and 80.
Lop Sided song structure mixed with jazz and electronic elements, stereophonic techniques, reverberation techniques, odd structure. Just plain odd. All purely electronic, from DrumKat to several synths, and reverb units. feedback.
Four Part midi realization of a polytempic polymicrotonal string quartet in 13, 14, 15, and 12 tet, with the tempos 92, 86, 100 and 80 BPM. Composed in 2013, input into Finale and midi realized in 2016.
This is a composite of 12 tracks: 4 strings, 4 pianos, and 4 drumsets all in four different tempos and 4 different tunings. All instruments are playing the original Hypercube score! No added notes.
This track was made with a DrumKat 3.0, Emu Procussion, Boss Dr 660, Alesis Quadraverb, Roland r8-M, Roland Sound Canvas, Alesis MMT-8, and a trusty little Fostex four-tracker from 1994
My attempt to prove I can write more than just weird microtonal stuff, or weird stuff, this piece helps round out my oeuvre. 2016
Piano Collection #4a, microtonal, is in 19tet, and was composed in 2016, and features a microtonal version of Piano Collection #4, in an ongoing series of collections mainly for 12tet piano.
Hypercube is a polytempic polymicrotonal string quartet in four tunings and tempos, 12, 19, 31, and 53 tet, and 96, 76, 124, and 106 BPM, for my doctorate thesis in 2012. Recently input into Finale and retuned in Musescore. Although only a midi realization, this is just an approximation of what it could sound like live.
5.1 channel concrete piece created in ProTools and Reaktor; a different version than the prior slings and arrows...
Nathan Mandel's first performance in Champaign, Illinois, at the Indigo Art Gallery, featuring Jove Defeats Saturn, a play on the first piece Nathan played for me, entitled Saturn Eats His Children--a reference to the Greek myth of the Titans attempting to devour the Gods before they are grown and able to overthrow them. This piece employs four tuning systems and the modulation between them in Rondo form: a-b-a-c-a-d-a, thus opening up the possibility of engaging older forms in newer pitch constructions, as microtones engorge our palette.
Slings and Arrows was created in ProTools with various household items, Reaktor, an African Talking Drum and concrete creations of various types.
Original studio version of Alien Music, in 4 simultaneous meters, and 4 different tunings: 7-tone slendro, 5-tone pelog, 19TET and 12TET. I am playing the drumset live, with added synths in the studio from Emulator IV, by E-Mu, and composed in DP4. 2002.
I play all sorts of small percussion, in this piece including synth keys in slendro and pelog tuning, 19TET, and standard 12 Tet.
jazz style drumset improvisation fighting the academics for legitimacy in a hostile academic world.
Drumset improvisation on several gestures with high hat and snare. Academics truly hate this piece and do not consider it music.
This is from 1995, a drum piece re-mastered in Logic Pro, for drumset in 4 opposing meters: 3,4,5, and 7, which all branch off into their respective tempi and solo before rejoining the "head."
This is a redux of my Logic Pro 8 realization of my double mixed quintet for my master's thesis, 2003, for 11 players that all branch out into 11 different tempi, but never had the quartertone synthesizer, nor the quartertone detuning between the quintets. This redux builds on the Logic Pro version by adding a new set of instruments from PianoTeq6, using .scl files, and PianoTeq's amazing detuning features. Also, the materials have been altered, using contrapuntal techniques of augmentation and diminution in counterpoint to the previous materials. 2018