December 01, 2012

Multiinstrumentalist and Tonal Plexus devotee Dolores Catherino has been hard at work again, this time reworking her composition Toward the Continuum for Tonal Plexus, tuned in in 106ET using a special layout of her own design. Check out the score which features colorcode and shapenote notation. The video can be viewed on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB-MSUahx6I

Here are a few words from Dolores:

My current approach is to create microtonal music that retains enough melodic/harmonic familiarity to create a perceptual and aesthetic bridge between traditional macropitch (12ET) music and higher resolution micropitch music systems. My initial introduction to microtonal music was emotionally reminiscent of the atonal music that accompanied the old grade school film reels about the atomic bomb. The music was also associated with old frightening sci-fi (pre John Williams) and horror movies. Later, I found Harry Partch's Delusion of the fury to be very intuitively and emotionally accessible musically. My hope is to compose microtonal music with romantic stylistic tendencies - strong melody, emotionally driven harmonic development. This is an amazing era in music history, Rapid technological advancements are allowing epic advancements in the creation of artistically expressive tools. I believe a new mindset is required to take full advantage of the rapid changes (instability vs removal of entrenched limitations). We are at a pre-rule stage with these new instruments in which we can create the approach as well as the music (blank slate). This allows for the development of pluralistic musical pitch systems systems and microtonal perspectives. The potential dimensions and limits of musical perception/appreciation await discovery and artistic development. Optimally, the pluralistic development of microtonality through collaboration and multiple perspectives may lead the way to new approaches and perspectives in many other fields of study. In this way music can change the world. A visual analogy always with me these days is that of a 2 dimensional sheet of music with black notes/note boundaries, which, when viewed in a 3 dimensional perspective 'accordions' out to a spectral color continuum for each note. Going back from the 3D perspective to the 2D, the note colors combine 'subtractively' and appear black once again. The continuum awaits …