Genesis of a Music — Harry Partch

Harry Partch built all his own instruments, invented his own scales, and is one of the most important figures in american music, and is the most important historical figure in modern microtonality. This book covers his philosophies, his rantings, the history of tuning starting with the ancient greeks and chinese, technical descriptions of the instruments he invented, and performance notes on his operas. Some of the theory, particularly his ideas about psychoacoustics, have been superseded by more contemporary research. But that doesn’t matter at all because the ideas he had all proceeded from his ear and not his theorizing and thus remain completely musically valid. This book, particularly the historical and ranting sections, is a blast to read. Lots of fun. You’ll be highlighting or underlining every page, laughing with Harry, and trying to remember the marvelously erudite ways in which he says things. It doesn’t matter what your field of interest is. You need this book. This is the one book by a microtonalist which I can recommend to everyone and anyone with no hesitation.

Harmonograph — Anthony Ashton

This fine little book is currently in print and is rather inexpensive. Essentially this book is about ways in which to visualize musical dyads. Ashton notes that this not the original Harmonograph book from the 1800s, but he found that old book and reprinted its diagrams with his own notes. The diagrams were made over 100 years ago using a mechanical device called a harmonograph, which is a contraption with pendulums that is able to draw waveforms and patterns. The book is not full of deep tuning insights, but it is delightful and worthwhile nonetheless. There is information about a few basic just intonation intervals, and a table of basic intervals in the appendix. A fun vacation project might be to make one of the old mechanical harmonographs. Directions on how to do so are included in the book, and also an overview of how to make a Kaleidophone, and how to make Chladni Patterns by bowing a metal plate covered with sand. If you have a Mac, I have a program called IntervalCalc that will create one of the types of harmonographs discussed in the book.

Harmonic Experience — W. A. Mathieu

This book is in textbook form and is nicely put together, with plenty of diagrams and discussion. Mathieu believes that 12tET is a good tuning to use because it approximates many just intervals and the ear is able to warp the mistuned degrees of 12 into actually hearing the just intervals themselves. I don’t agree with Mathieu’s basic thesis there, but even so, this is a thoughtfully produced book, a labor of love, and a lot of people really dig it. Mathieu spends a lot of time teaching the reader to sing various intervals, and to breath and feel and experience the subtleties of each interval. This is good training and a productive approach. Music is fundamentally a spiritual, mystical science — something where I do agree in total with Mathieu, who studied the teachings of the Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan. Khan’s insights into music are gathered in a collection of essays titled “The Mysticism of Sound and Music”, which I recommend to those interested in that subject. I also feel an affinity towards Mathieu when he points out that infants and animals can not distinguish octaves: that it is a learned skill. Yum to that! The exercises are so good and the production values so high that I would say that this book is worth getting, despite my disagreement with his central thesis. You will get maximum value from it if you plan to go through the exercises and really try to feel and experience the harmonies on an intuitive, visceral level, an approach I deeply respect.

Tuning — Owen H. Jorgensen

This ponderous tome is an encyclopedia of the art, practice and theory of keyboard tuning for Western art music. Meantones, well temperaments and equal temperaments are covered here, including piano bearing plans for most of them. if you want to know who first thought of a harpsichord or piano tuning, this book will tell you that, along with all the advantages and controversies surrounding tunings that were discussed back in the day. Lots of references and historical data in here, backed by solid research. Well-written, and an essential resource for anyone with any interest in historical European tunings.

Temperament — Stuart Isacoff

Temperament is a purported history of the historical development of 12 tone equal temperament. Stuart Isacoff’s book garnered a rave review in the New York Times. Because of this, this book may be the most well known, widely read and popular book ever written on the subject of tuning. The book is entertaining, with many lively anecdotes and gossip regarding famous historical personages such as Leonardo da Vinci. Despite these attributes, I can not recommend this book. Most of the book has nothing to do with tuning, but is the titillating though irrelevant anecdotes. On the few pages he dedicates to the topic of tuning, the path he lays out for its history is one-dimensional and misleading or even erroneous. As far as actual tuning material is concerned, he stays close to the path of promoting his thesis that twelve tone equal temperament is the triumph of centuries of battles between those who moved towards the superiority of that tuning, and the backwards folks, stubbornly holding on to tradition, who rejected its inevitability as the supposed pinnacle of tuning technology and artistic expressiveness. The stories chosen stick to the agenda, which unfortunately completely omits the deep and illuminating richness of the true history of musical tunings. The book is technically weak as well. It does not examine what makes tuning unique or musically interesting. Throughout the book, Isacoff talks to the readers as if even simple arithmetic is beyond them. He avoids all issues of what intervals really are and keeps everything at a do-re-mi technical level. Those wishing to cut to the chase are advised to read the last chapter, written after the book was finished. In it, he is hanging out with Philip Glass and Michael Harrison and actually, for apparently the first time in his life, hears a non-standard tuning (Harrison’s Revelation tuning) in a composition. Liking the music, he is forced to admit that perhaps everything he has said, and the conclusion of his book is simply wrong. At least he speaks honestly to those who make it to the last page!

An older page with a short bibliography of articles and books, particularly about ethnic music, and articles discussing nonoctave tunings, can be found at this link.