 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: qualitycontrol
Date: 2016-11-15 05:31
Has anyone performed Ponder Nothing by Ben Johnston?
He was a collaborator of Harry Partch's and writes music mostly in just intonation, inspired by Partch's system. This piece is no exception. I've just received the sheet music and I'm a little bit underwhelmed by his tuning guide and not quite sure I am understanding what the score is asking for in terms of tuning. I'd be curious to pick someone's brain who has experience.
Post Edited (2016-11-15 05:32)
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Author: Wes
Date: 2016-11-15 11:43
Well, I played some in the late 1960s in Harry Parch's group on an instrument called the Blue Rainbow, a marimba like instrument, tuned to his intonation. There were no clarinet like instruments in that group that practiced in an old empty grocery store in Venice, CA. One simple flute was observed, however. I even made an alabaster bust of Harry Parch that sits in my bedroom, even today.
There was a hard cover book written about Harry Partch that might be worth investigating. Somewhere in my storage, I have a copy, but I never saw anything about clarinets in it that I recall.
To modify a clarinet to play in his system seems very difficult! Good luck!
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Author: qualitycontrol
Date: 2016-11-15 18:57
Johnston is aware of how difficult it would be to play many of these intervals on a clarinet, so he's been pretty conservative with his use of strange intervals. Most of the piece relies on a regular C major scale.
I do have that book—I'm assuming you're talking about Genesis of a Music—and I'm fairly familiar with his system, but Johnston's introductory tuning guide is just too vague to know exactly what he's asking for.
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Author: derf5585
Date: 2016-11-15 19:12
Benjamin Burwell Johnston, Jr. (born March 15, 1926 in Macon, Georgia) is a composer of contemporary music in just intonation: "one of the foremost composers of microtonal music" (Bush 1997). He was called, "one of the best non-famous composers this country has to offer" in 1990, by American critic John Rockwell (Taylor 2002, 54).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Johnston_(composer)
fsbsde@yahoo.com
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