Uncertainty Theory #5

Harry Partch and his instruments

INTRODUCTION

Harry Partch- Gourd Tree & Cone Gong (from the album The World of Harry Partch (1969))

WORKS

Harry Partch - The Dreamer That Remains (1972)
Harry Partch -The Bewitched (1955)

INSTRUMENT

Gourd Tree from 1964 is a percussive instrument composed of 12 Buddhist temple style bells that are placed in front of treated gourds, these function as resonators that are placed in the trunk of a not very thick eucalyptus tree that is worked, thus emulating a kind of fruit tree.

Cone Gong are a pair of treated gongs purchased at a store in Venice, California in 1965, made from church bells and eucalyptus. Both pieces function as a whole and are played by a standing person.

ABOUT THE CREATOR

Harry Partch (1901-1976) was a unique composer and designer of instruments adapted from recycled instruments. One of his main characteristics is that he was 22 years old in 1923, Partch was working on a book finally published in 1949 under the title Genesis of a Music ("Genesis of a music".). This book is a reflection on his own music, with articles on music theory and instrument design. It is considered a seminal text on the music theory of microtonalismthe microtonal system was an invention of Partch which consists of a tuning mode that divides the 12-note piano scale into 43 notes, for which he took as much inspiration from the far eastern percussion of Western Europe as necessary. Also in the book he explains his concept corporeality ("corporeality"): the fusion of all artistic forms in a single body.

Harry Partch was an extraordinary character, a fierce drinker, who avoided mainstream music - even avant-garde mainstrean - and lived most of his life in the California desert, he built his own instruments from leftover material such as: jet fuel tanks, pyrex chemical flasks, artillery shells casings, bottles and empty keyboards.

His music combines rhythmic and tonal sophistication directly with a near primitivism and mysticism. The result is one of the most distinctive works produced in the United States to date.