Music of a Visionary Tinkerer
I’m a philosophic man, seduced into carpentry.
-Harry Partch
The Japan Society in New York is currently staging “Delusion of the Fury,” the best-known work of Harry Partch. Partch was a pioneer of microtonal music who began modifying conventional instruments, then eventually manufacturing his own instruments in order to write music that conventional instruments couldn’t play. “Assembled onstage, the mostly wood instruments — with rows of bells, dangling chamber bowls, unconventional marimbas and such — [are] more beautiful to look at than most theater sets.”In this video from 1968, he is seen playing an instrument of his creation, the harmonic canon. [kottke]
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