A Day at the Fair for Keyboards

A treat for you! This set of works is performable only by computer. I plan to somehow release the sheet music so that anyone can attempt to perform it, but that's after I'm done writing it. (: So far I wrote only the movements you see here; I'll add more as I write them. My goal is about an hour's worth of short pieces, with maybe a long one or two, but nothing too complicated. Each movement is set for a different synthesized instrument or sets of instruments; the Intrada is for Hammond organ, the Serenade is for vibraphone, the Carnaval is for music box, the Primera Danza is for an electric piano sound, the Temple is for sitar and bass, and the Club Groove is for a synth "orchestra". I write this partly to celebrate the memory of the composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who passed away June 2006. His music was my first true introduction to modern music, and the first piece I heard -- Ramifications -- that made me really like minimalism. That piece was for 12 strings, 6 tuned a quarter step sharp.

A Day at the Fair is in that spirit -- it uses two sets of staves, one tuned a quarter step higher, to create micronotal music by MIDI. (: However, I don't treat them as separate voices in any way: melodies, harmonies, and everything all use quarter tones whenever I can fit them in. I'm writing this for two main reasons: the first is to learn to sing and become familiar with quarter steps, which have intrigued me for a while, and the second and more important is to find out what new harmonic and melodic possibilities exist with an expanded scale. One thing you will surely notice is that much sounds "out of tune". You can only really tell in chords, since the chord members don't have the expected relationships with each other. I often use the note between the major and the minor third for triads, which has an interesting neutral sound, and I flat the minor seventh of a dominant chord an additional quarter step (which brings it closer to, albeit on the other side of, the "natural" overtone seventh). Leading tones should be raised a quarter step to make them closer to the tonic. So a dominant 7th chord in C can be spelled (where d means half flat and t means half sharp) G Bt D Fd or G Bd D Fd. In the first case, the interval between the 3rd and 7th is a perfect 4th; in the second, a tritone. The normal 12-tone scale has a good solution for this that sounds fine, but in the 24-tone scale, these changes make it a bit odd. So I'm experimenting. One of the big problems is that the most important relationship, the fifth relationship, doesn't generate any quarter tones, so it doesn't bother anyone that these are normally missing -- to show you what I mean, 12 stacked fifths will take you from C to C, but if these are natural fifths, the final C will be 23 cents -- a quarter of a semitone, so an eighth tone -- sharp. That's not much. That interval (called a comma) will spoil unisons, but that's about it. Thirds will give you a quarter tone quite quickly, but our system of tonality is based almost entirely on the fifth, so that leaves little room for quarter tones. Therefore, fundamentally quarter-tonal melodies and harmonies are less intelligible to the ear. Hopefully this experiment will discover some pretty ones. (: Try the Serenade, for instance!

Listen to A Day at the Fair - I - Intrada (right-click to download)
Listen to A Day at the Fair - II - Serenade (right-click to download)
Listen to A Day at the Fair - III - Carnaval (right-click to download)
Listen to A Day at the Fair - IV - Primera Danza (right-click to download)
Listen to A Day at the Fair - V - Temple (right-click to download)
Listen to A Day at the Fair - VI - Club Groove (right-click to download)