This practice-based research (driven by an initial improvisatory pluck on the opposite side of a fretted note, producing a microtone) focuses on the development of a new hybrid microtonal system derived from inverting the measurements of a 24-fret guitar fingerboard and superimposing them onto a normal fretboard, produced a 40-fret guitar with numerous additional microtonal intervals. This resulted in a composite scale structure consisting of a standard twelve-tone equal temperament (12-TET) system in addition to microtonal intervals of varied sizes. The structure of this fretboard produced a distinctive, performatively accessible, cluster of microtones at the beginning of the fretboard, contributing structural definition to the resultant evolving practice. The attractiveness of such an approach is that the idiomatic performance structures of the microtonal fretboard can be seen as contributing to the definition of the resulting scale’s performative potential. The research aims centre on how the interaction of 12-TET and unequal-division microtonal intervals can contribute to the development of a novel musical language (in the specific context of structured improvisations). The research also aims to explore how collaborative performance practices can contribute to the definition of this musical language. Key contexts for this work are provided by the work of a number of twentieth- century microtonalists, most notably Catillo, Haba and Partch. An exploration of Haba’s bicbrvmalic (two separate parallel chromatic structures with microtonal offsets) and ultrackromatic (integrated microtonal scales) models, alongside an awareness of various competing structural rationales within the present project’s composite fretboard model, yielded the descriptive term pofyrystem (after a literary practice in which different competing traditions exert influences upon a text within a different tradition) in relation to the interacting 12TET and microtonal dynamics. Newly-coined terms (micro+chromatic, analogous to Haba’s bichromatic, and itlinimicrocbmmatii) are advanced as part of the analysis of the performative outcomes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:730923 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Nielsen, Michael |
| Publisher | Ulster University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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