Harry Partch
The music of Harry Partch is unique among the output
of any American composer, and this is not only due to the fact that it
employs a just-intoned microtonal harmonic system and necessitates the
use of unique instruments Harry designed and built himself; Partch’s
music stands out mainly because of his holistic approach to artistic
creation, his colorful background and outlook on life which permeated
so much of his work, and his encyclopedic knowledge. He created a new
music theory applicable only to his oeuvre and the performance
necessity of his handmade instruments, and broke completely with all
accepted musical norms of his time (which are largely still ours
today); because of this Partch’s music was and is rarely heard, and as
a result his life story is not known and his life’s work is
misunderstood.
This paper will hopefully serve as an introduction
to what the author believes to be Partch’s greatest artistic impact,
toward whose realization the microtonal scales, special temperaments
and unique instruments were merely tools. Partch believed in the
inherent interconnectivity of all art forms, a viewpoint informed both
by his own convictions and reactions against the ‘classical music
industry’ of his age as well as his exposure to and fascination with
other, sometimes ancient art philosophies where such multifaceted
artistic creation was common. What follows is a very brief introduction
to Partch the man, an exploration of his musical mind (including his
theories), and ultimately a view of Partch as the artistic
creator.
Appropriately enough for a twentieth century mind
and a quintessentially American composer, Harry Partch was born in
1901, at the dawn of what has been called the American century. But to
identify Partch with Americanism is not to do so in the way Copland is
referred to as a quintessential American composer; no, Partch typifies
Americanism through his ingenuity, thirst for knowledge, maverickism,
impatience, individuality and work ethic. Had he not these qualities,
he never would have trekked out, alone, on the path he chose.
Harry Partch was born in southern California to
Virgil and Jennie Partch, Presbyterian missionaries to China. His
childhood saw him frequently move about the southwest and as a result
young Harry was exposed to much that influenced his later work:
Spanish, Native American, and Asian cultures, as well as witnessing the
end of the American frontier era. Perhaps even more influential was the
fact that this early period was one of almost constant transition for
Harry, with the passing years bringing new schools, towns, social
situations, and a growing sense of the mutability and unpredictability
of life.
The precocious youngster showed interest in music
beyond the abilities of his family. In his often scathing commentaries
on his family members, he offers up that although they were all amateur
musicians, “I do not think that any of my family devoured as avidly as
I did the idea of music.” (Gilmore 18)
To go into the details of Harry’s formative years
could fill and indeed has filled a volume, but for the purposes of this
paper it should suffice to stress that Harry’s intelligence and
curiosity set him apart from the start, either through real social
situations or by walls he erected himself. His constantly changing
surroundings coupled with a deep resentment toward his parents (in
particular his mother) contributed to his lifelong sense of
rootlessness and equal connectivity to all things. The menial odd
jobs he worked showed him a cross section of the real Southwest; the
hardships, poverty, and personal stories of those who worked the
once-prosperous land but had now become hobos. Finding an outlet for
all this stimuli in music is what transformed Harry Partch the young
man into Harry Partch the composer.
Beyond the basic piano skills he learned from his
mother, young Harry learned other instruments which later aided his
development of the Partch instruments. He recalls learning “the old
pump reed organ, a mandolin, and a cornet. I mean seriously. Whatever
plucked string technique I later developed started with that mandolin.”
(19) He also knew the piano well as evidenced by recordings of him
playing in his later years, although he referred to it as “twelve black
and white bars in front of musical freedom”. (53)
Of the timespan of his late teens and
twenties, when he truly came into his own, little is known. Fragmented
records and faded memories are all that remain to track his path during
these years, but it is known he was musical through high school and
attended the University of Southern California, albeit briefly. His
attitude toward formal music education is clear in his interviews; in
one he states he saw no purpose to continue formal study after “[we
spent] three long months on the resolutions of the dominant seventh
chord.” (44) Partch lashed out against established teaching modes but
not against education itself; his self determination simply led him
“from the classroom where I had to listen to teachers who were telling
me nothing, to the public library where I could discard a book that was
telling me nothing. (...) When I had formal music classes...I did
rebel, because my philosophy was already established, though it was
certainly not articulated.” (45) During these years Partch wrote music
using standard instruments and standard scales (all of which he would
later burn), but struggled to reconcile this ‘abstract’ music with his
inward, almost childlike philosophies of the interconnectedness of all
things (and all arts), art as action, and creation of art as an
everyday occurrence. (46)
At age 21, working one of his menial jobs, Partch
was exposed to Hermann Helmholtz’ On the Sensations of Tone, an
acoustico-theoretical volume which explained sound by its physical
properties (ratios of frequencies) rather than its employment in any
theoretical system of organized music. Helmholtz stated that equal
temperament was one, but not the only, solution to systemic harmonic
problems, and this revelation coupled with his exploration of Greek
modes and Greek methods of harmonic derivation opened up new
possibilities for Partch who, although disenchanted with the current
state of music, was still largely a product of his age. In his mid to
late twenties Partch experimented with writing in just intonation, and
by 1928 he was putting his developing theory down on paper. In was in
this year that he also began his self-imposed work-exile as a hobo;
with both parents dead, older siblings gone and a growing sense of
disconnectedness with the socio-musical world around him, Partch set
out to find truth and honesty, as well as artistic inspiration, in the
lifeblood of the American Southwest.
Partch did not live as a ‘homeless person’ as we may
think of them today; he found an entire ‘hobo culture’ filled with
comic and tragic life stories, and adventures borne out of the stark
reality in which he lived. All these experiences permeated his music.
His microtonal theory, which began with Exposition of Monophony in
1928, was put into practice in his journals in which we see him
transcribe speech into tones, first with the best 12 tone
approximations and later with the more accurate microtones. Partch had
gained, in this hobo culture, the second part of his artistic
foundation: the importance of the spoken word, which influenced how he
thought of sound and music in general, years before the innovations of
John Cage and others.1 He writes in his journal Bitter
Music: “Music is not a desire--it is an omnipresent condition. Tones,
like the colors of the sky, mountains, trees, and the body, are
inescapable, and not all music is man-made. Some respond--some don’t.
Much of what is man-made we ignore, such as the music of speech. Well,
I’m not ignoring it.” (Partch 13)
From Helmholtz Partch gained an expanded and (he
thought) universal definition of sound and tone; his exposure to
different cultures in his youth sparked his interest in the artistic
practices of East Asia, the Pacific, and Native Americans. Now his
‘research’ among the hobos of the southwest solidified his conviction
on the importance of intoned speech as the vehicle of his new music. In
the early 1930’s Partch put all this experience into practice and
composed Ten Lyrics of Li Po, for intoning voice and adapted viola
(held like a viol, it had a cello’s fingerboard to extend the range and
better facilitate finding the microtones). Partch traveled around,
accompanying himself and intoning (in english) the texts of the ancient
Chinese poet. It caused a sensation to those who heard it. Headlines
from New Orleans to Los Angeles read: “Student Evolves New Melodic
System”, “Speech New Route to Music”, “Spoken Word Basis for New
Musical Notation” (Blackburn, 9-14)
The Lyrics of Li Po were the beginning of Partch’s
true life as a microtonal musician, innovative theorist, and
iconoclastic musical mind. They were to be followed by many other
pieces, to be performed on an ever growing ensemble of hand made
instruments of Harry’s own devising: from his hobo journals came the
intoned travel-dramas Barstow: Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions
(‘41), and U.S. Highball (‘43); rare forays into purely
instrumental music can be heard in Eleven Intrusions (‘49), and Castor
& Pollux (‘52); then there are also his large works: his opera King
Oedipus (‘52), and the multidisciplinary art forms Revelation in the
Courthouse Park (‘60), Delusion of the Fury (‘65) and his final work
The Dreamer that Remains (‘72).
In these pieces, Partch used any number of different
microtonal scales he developed, the most famous and largest being the
43-tone scale. As mentioned in the introduction, Partch’s development
and use of the 43-note scale was simply the creation of a tool to build
the music he heard. Partch thoroughly explains and defends his theory
in a 400 page treatise Genesis of a Music, and it is both impossible
and unnecessary to go into as much detail here as he does in that
volume. What is important is that Partch learned from Helmholtz that
pitch can be expressed as a ratio of frequencies (or string lengths,
hammer masses, etc. as shown by Pythagoras). It was a postulate which
led him to think that one could have a very precise harmonic system if
one relied on these immutable mathematical properties of tone and not
abstract systems like A-B-C, triadic functional tonality, or any
tempered scale. He quickly set up his own parameters: 1) he would refer
to pitch only using ratios (1/1 being a unison, 3/2 being a fifth,
etc.); 2) due to the importance Harry placed on the human voice
in his music, he subjectively chose G as his 1/1, as it lies well in
the male baritone range; 3) since the ratio 2/1 (octave) was sonically
equivalent to the 1/1 (unison), and to keep the ratios from involving
very long numbers, he made all ratios to be expressed between a 1/1 and
a 2/1 (for example, 7/8 would be expressed as 7/4, which raises the
octave but maintains the pitch identity).
The numbers used are the ratios of frequencies in
the natural harmonic series: G is 1/1, the next G is 2/1 (or also 1/1),
D is 3/1 (to the fundamental, 3/2 to the 2nd partial G. Thus D is
always expressed 3/2), the next G is 4/1, (or 2/1, or therefore 1/1);
the B is 5/1, expressed as 5/4 (relating it to the 4th partial G rather
than the fundamental to keep the ratio between 1/1 and 2/1), the next D
again 3/2 (an octave from the 3rd partial D) and the low F is 7/6, the
actual, untempered 7th partial. Harry continued this way to the 11th
partial, the half-sharped fourth.
This ratio notation system works not only to relate
a partial to a fundamental (the 7th partial vibrates 7x for every 6x
the fundamental vibrates, thus 7/6) but also to find intervals between
two pitches (the 5th partial (B) is 5/4, a major third from G, and the
6th partial (D) is 3/2, a perfect fifth from G. This is because both
partials are related back to the fundamental, or 1st partial. Relate
the 6th to the 5th and one gets 6/5 for B-D, which is the ratio of
frequency relationships for a just intoned minor third). For the system
to become clear one must remember that to add ratios one multiplies
them, to subtract one divides. This differs from the additive nature of
the western system (a minor 3rd plus a major 3rd gives a perfect fifth.
In Partch’s system a 5/4 times a 6/5 gives a 30/20, or a 3/2, a fifth).
In Genesis of a Music, Partch shows just how
inaccurate the equal tempered system is, when he places the true just
intervals side by side. He discovers some intervals are so far from
their just equivalents that to show where they actually lie he must
give a higher note minus a few cents, or a lower note plus a few cents.
His table:
12-TONE EqualTemp: JUST INTUNED RATIO
G to G (0
cents)
1/1 exact
G to Ab (0-100 cents) 16/15
minus 12cents
G to A
(0-200)
9/8 minus 4 cents or
10/9 plus 18 cents
G to Bb
(0-300)
6/5 minus 16cents or
7/6 plus 33 cents
G to B (0-400)
5/4 plus 14
cents
G to C
(0-500)
4/3 plus 2 cents
G to C#
(0-600)
7/5 plus 17.5 cents or
10/7 minus 17.5 cents
G to D
(0-700)
3/2 minus 2 cents
G to Eb
(0-800)
8/5 minus 14 cents
G to E
(0-900)
5/3 plus 16 cents or
12/7 minus 33 cents
G to F
(0-1000)
16/9 plus 4 cents or
9/5 minus 18 cents
G to F#
(0-1100)
15/8 plus 12 cents
One can understand Partch’s sense of inadequacy with
equal temperament when one thinks that a musically trained person can
usually discern a difference of 2 cents, and most definitely hear a
difference of 4 or more. In the more dissonant intervals: the M7, m7,
m2, etc. one sees discrepancies between just tuning and tempered tuning
going as high as 18 cents, in the m3 and M6 this rift expands to 33
cents, nearly a quarter tone! The A4 (tritone) is so far tempered as to
actually lie precisely between to two just intoned equivalents (but
this compromise still cheats either true pitch out of nearly 18 cents).
This realization made Harry think that musicians trained in the western
tradition literally don’t know what they are hearing, having been fed
lies by pianos and harmony classes for decades. The ratios in just
intonation are usually small-number proportions (4/3, 5/4, 6/5),
whereas those in equal temperament are much more complex (those same
pitches are 587/433, 63/50, and 44/37). Partch maintained the ear
‘wants to hear’ the pure, small number ratios, and the mind
‘bridges the gap’ when the ear hears the false intervals, e.g. from the
piano. (Partch 109)
Partch’s original microtonal scale contained (only!)
29 pitches, but he eventually developed a scale comprising 43 pitches.
His arrival at 43 tones was a 2-step process; the first was
establishing all ratios within an octave which exist within the
11-limit (that is, not going past the 11th harmonic above a
fundamental). Partch chose the 11-limit arbitrarily, but the 11th
harmonic is the first which has never been satisfactorily approximated
in western tuning systems. This ‘11/8’ is equivalent almost perfectly
to a half-sharped fourth (551 cents). Partch then applied this system
up and down from the 1/1, so the scale exhibits symmetry about the
octave, and he derived 29 ‘primary tonalities’. This 29 note scale had
large gaps near the ends, so the second step was to fill the gaps,
which Partch did by creating ‘secondary tonalities’ derived from
multiplying the original ratios.2
Partch is most famous (if that word can be used) for
innovation of his microtonal theory and the novelty of his original
instruments, but in reality there was nothing ‘new’ about his harmonic
system and nothing novel about his creations. The pitches Partch used
were all derived from the natural harmonic series and included
intervals more consonant than those equal temperament could ever
attain; he simply used many of them in the same scale. The creation of
his instruments was an inevitability, for he needed a medium with which
to present his music. Partch’s most unique, interesting, and vital
contribution to art is rather his philosophy of corporeality, the
creation of corporeal, as opposed to abstract, music.
Unfortunately, Partch’s defined abstraction only
slightly more clearly than the Soviets did formalism. But while an
absolute definition of corporeal or abstract is difficult to
articulate, their realities are easy to spot, and thus the distinctions
between the two musics are not simply imagined. Abstract music comes in
many forms; everything from a Bach fugue to a Donizetti aria would be
considered abstract, along with all serial music of any stripe,
‘absolute’ classical forms, and music which serves more as an exercise
for the composer than an experience for the audience or performer.
Abstract music is logical, self-justifying, and often about nothing
beyond the notes themselves (although opera is always about something,
Partch’s rejection of bel canto was due to the music taking prevalence
over, and obscuring, the words).
Corporeal (‘of the body’) music encompasses many
things: the philosophical intent of the composer, the musical content,
even the method of performance. Corporeal music is always about
something, but need not be program music. It must take its starting
point from something real, something human; vulnerable, irrational,
perhaps a little orgiastic or even obscene. Most often corporeal music
contains text, and this text is presented in a clear manner as the
central focus of the work. In a Partch performance, players take on the
personalities of the instruments they play, instruments become sets and
symbols, actors sing and dance, dancers intone speech, performers move
in silent ballet, and the whole experience converges to create more a
piece of performance art than something definable only as ‘music.’
These ideas were not new or unique to Partch; he simply looked further
back than the romantic composers, further than the classicists and
baroque masters into practically anything from Monteverdi and before.
Here (from 15th century madrigals to ancient Greek theatre and even
Japanese Noh plays) he found the elements of direct communication with
an audience, a penchant for intense theatricality, a blending of art
forms (which later would became estranged), and the reality that the
modern concert hall decorum is unnatural and doesn’t necessarily
benefit audience, performer, or piece.
Jonathan Szanto, who played in the ensemble in the
60’s, recalls the experience:
“From the first rehearsal with Partch, it was clear
that the difference I sensed was correct: Harry began communicating to
the ensemble members the 'extra-musical' attitudes and actions that he
felt lead to a experiential performance. He would show how to approach
an instrument with the proper physical inclination, not unlike the
motivation of an actor in his part. The physical approach would reflect
both the nature of the notes and phrases themselves (especially the
notoriously wicked "licks" Harry could come up with), as well as the
dramatic or musical intent of the passage.
In doing so, as former 'instrumentalists', we
slowly began to see our relationships to the printed page and the
vehicle to transmit the notes changing, from one of passive translators
to active, engaged participants. What followed directly from that was a
natural inclination to move, to sing, to dance, to act. As the years
went on, we broadened our performances and productions to include as
much of Partch's 'corporeal' aesthetic as we could. This meant putting
aside fears of embarrassment and inadequacy at being those singers,
dancers and actors, to better serve the piece at hand. To this day, I
can't play a typical orchestra concert without feeling claustrophobic
and constrained; if not corporeal, to at least strive for exuberant.”3
Partch is an invaluable figure in music; not only
music history, but music of today, and tomorrow. On the one hand is the
inspiring story of a man so dedicated to the art he had to make that he
managed to create it completely alone, literally rebuilding his reality
from the ground up until he could realize the sounds in his mind. Also,
there is Partch the theorist; even if one does not care for or even
believe in his theories on tuning and physics, one must respect how
passionately he fought to show the standard way need not be the only
way. But then there is Partch the creator of art; the man who thought
art was the property, right, and creation of all, and who established a
legacy of compositions and philosophies to empower performers and
listeners to give to art without reservation, and expect art to give
back in kind.
End
notes:
1 It should be mentioned that Partch was not completely unaware
of the work of other composers, namely Cowell in California and Ives,
Varese, the ICG et al in the Northeast. But, partially due to a lack of
definite records kept at the time and partially due to an evident lack
of influence on Partch’s work, it is doubtful that anything came out of
personal or professional relationships with them (Cowell encouraged
Partch in California, but in a strictly paternal way, with no impact on
either one of their careers.) Pv
2 See the attached list of Partch’s scale
3 Jonathan Szanto, quoted from http://www.corporeal.com/how.html
It may very well be this corporeal aesthetic, which encourages one to
tap into the emotional, irrationally Dyonisean stream within, which
allows Harry’s music to be so quickly learned by performers. Partch
performers must play instruments they have never seen before, tuned to
pitches they have never heard, creating an effect they have never
experienced, and yet undergraduate music students somehow offer a
well-prepared concert of his music each semester at Montclair
University where the instruments reside. Perhaps corporeality is
invaluable as a psychological-artistic method to empower the performer
to tap into that X- factor which creates a great art.
Works Cited
Books:
Blackburn, Philip. Enclosure 3: Harry Partch. Saint Paul, MN: American
Composer’s Forum, 2005.
Gilmore, Bob. Harry Partch. Yale University Press, 1998.
Partch, Harry. Bitter Music. Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
1991.
Partch, Harry. Daphne of the Dunes. Score copy dated Jan, 1968.
Partch, Harry. Genesis of a Music. New York: Da Capo Press, 1979.
Audio Media:
Partch, Harry. Daphne of the Dunes. Newband: microtonal works 2: mode
records, 1994.
Partch, Harry. Windsong. The Harry Partch Collection vol 3.
Composers Recordings, Inc., 1997.
Internet:
Newband. “Harry Partch: Music and Musical Theatre Works.” 16 April
2007 <http://www.harrypartch.com/partchworks.htm>
Partch, Harry. “American Mavericks: Harry Partch’s Instruments.” 16
April 2007
<http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/feature_partch.html>
Szanto, Jonathan. “Harry Partch: How it Happened.” Harry Partch
Foundation. 18 April 2007
<http://www.corporeal.com/how.html>
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