Michael's Meditation Music

An excellent example of the way in which intervals of the harmonic series occur in music comes from the Prologue to Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor solo, Horn and Strings.  Britten asked that the player use only natural harmonics, a…

Pitch and intervals are so interesting. (I won’t relegate rhythm to a lesser status, just musing with pitch as all good brass whisperers do.) 

Many of the just intonation pieces I write have a different ‘tonic’ or reference pitch from…

‘Brass’ instruments that can play the 7th harmonic 

(and probably the 2^nd , 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and 6^th)

Here’s more of my exploration of harmonics and instruments played by vibrating the lips.

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In a previous post I looked at playing 19 equal divisions of the octave on my horn with a modified stopping valve slide. My composition Epictetus The Younger uses a few pitches from the 36-division equal system. This piece is…

The la-pa in China also known as the tongjiao has a range of harmonics 2 to 5 (Sachs 1964: 238). It is made of telescoped metal sections, like the Tibetan dung-chen yet is shorter. The same instrument in Taiwan is…

I recently performed the compositions to observe sea and sky by Donald Bousted. He wrote it for the flute to play in 12 equal divisions of the octave (standard tuning) and the horn in 19 equal divisions of the octave…

The contemporary music quartet LOCANA (Janine Grantham - flute; Rachel Westwood - violin; myself - horn; Matthew Farrell - cello rehearsed in Brisbane on Saturday August 18 and Sunday August 19 in preparation for the Sydney MicroFest 2 in Sydney…

In 2017 I worked out how to play 19-equal divisions of the octave on a standard french horn which is pitched in F and B-flat. My solution was to flatten the 1st note of the scale using the right hand…

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‘Brass’ instruments that can play the 3rd harmonic and probably the 2nd also

This blog presents some more exploration of the wide range of instruments that make a sound from the vibrating lips of the player…

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Nexus between brass and strings in just intonation

Temporary conclusion: the best nexus pitch is a C.

I’ve been composing a just intonation piece for 6 horns and decided to re-write some of it for a mixed ensemble of…