Difficult Listening 3 - Harry Partch

These are the sort of noises that rattle around in my mind when it's not otherwise occupied. To me, this is a very natural sort of music. It is primitive sounding and alien in an ancient sort of way. It is all organic with no electronic enhancements. It is a sound based in zithers, marimbas, and gongs - if you can call them that. Harry Partch built all his own instruments. He called himself "a philosophical musician seduced by carpentry". But it doesn't stop there. Harry Partch built a whole new theory of music with a scale that divided the usual (in Occidental music) twelve-tone octave into an octave with 43 irregular intervals. He had his reasons. This is imperceptible to most listeners but tends to bother musicians.

There is a good selection of his work available on YouTube (including all of these records) and there are websites galore exploring his music and theories.