Matthew Sheeran: The Quest for Microtonal Music 

Cheering for Matthew Sheeran's success with this record. Easley Blackwood understood very well that the value in these new tunings was in the new tonalities that each tuning could support. The way chord progressions would work themselves out in unusual ways (compared to a 12-equal framing) yet still have an internal logic of their own. Inspiring work for sure.

Amazing interview with such depth and joie de vivre from both of you. It looks like Mathew is honestly curious about taking down boundaries and accepted concepts.

Thanks for sharing. Great conversation!

Blackwood passed away four days ago, on January 22nd.

The score of the Blackwood etudes was published in 1982 by G. Schirmer.

Samuel said it "FRONTIER" ..... Sounds like Mr Sheeran may quite possibly be leading us into a NEW MUSICAL ERA. I believe that coming round to the end of the first quarter of a new century, music could definitely be ready for change, expansion so to say. We have been playing and listening to the same sound for centuries, the same twelve chords. I for one am ready to enjoy something new and exciting to ring in the years ahead. The FUTURE. I say BRILLIANT, JUST BRILLIANT. Thank you for opening my mind to new sound.

Blackwood wrote (and recorded) 5 Etudes for Piano in which he adapted some of his discoveries in microtonal chord progressions that could translate in some way to the 12 EDO piano. They are harmonically ambiguous in unusual and ear-catching ways!

just purchased Acoustic Microtonal, wish we can get a physical copy! (at 1:12 !!!! great idea, and I can't wait!) great interview gentlemen-

heavy interview 🤯

Did you get a new camera? The videography looks fantastic

Is there a coincidence that Smalin has been featuring Blackwood’s microtonal etudes on his channel these past few days? Or did you coordinate with him?

What a coincidence, Smalin just started a series of visualizations of Blackwood’s microtonal music: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SgqWPyzjrYw.htmlfeature=shared

it's actually insane to me that ed sheeran's brother works on such obscure microtonal music

Awesome, I just listened to the 16-note piece on the smalin channel and wondered who did the amazing acoustic arrangement and when and why and how and here are the answers:)

Very interesting. I've dabbled quite a bit with microtonal music myself in the past years. For some of those pieces I retuned a synthesizer to hear the harmonies, but of course had to play the synthesizer "scordatura". I found it equally interesting to play back the midi recordings of those same pieces without retuning the synthesizer (so in regular 12 EDO tuning), in some cases leading to things that sounded rather interesting but which I probably never would have thought of writing when working directly in 12 EDO. Could have been an interesting double-CD to have both the retuned and not-retuned recordings. To say that no micirotonal theory exists is probably not entirely true. Actually, there's quite a lot of microtonal theory (and a lot of it is quite mathematical - there's e.g. the xenharmonic wiki and a number of books). Certain principles like "voice leading" can be used in any tuning. In my view, music theory comes in many "layers", where some are more universally applicable than others. I think it could be an interesting research to try to separate more fundamental principles from those that are more bound to specific periods or composers.

Anyone know what Les Noces recording he's talking about?

I was a bad violinist desperately doing intonation exercises trying to sound more in tune right at the same time I was discovering Scandinavian and blues fiddle with all their neutral thirds and harmonic sevenths and spicy 4ths. It seemed so unfair. You mean there are MORE notes I have to learn!?

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I think one of the promising avenues of music progress is better instrument design. Many of the existing instruments - basically everything except for strings - are still designed around Just Intonation - whether intentionally or through convention from previous instruments. Especially in keyboard space instruments like Lumatone seem to reduce the barrier to improvisation, and maybe even technical play in general. This is especially interesting in the context of microtonal instruments, and acoustic microtonal instruments - concepts and layouts designed for 12 EDO translate to other EDO than Just Intonation centric systems, like the piano keyboard. Similarly, a notation system that does away with the awkwardness of "keys" and "accidentals" would make writing and performing experimental music more intuitive.

I like Jacob Collier’s fun use of microtonality, but I want to see it evolve where we accessibly have more nuanced intervals and can voice lead them

52:04

Excellent interview. I particularly like his chess example and how the increasing technological advances can influence human expression. I will keep this bit of philosophy in mind as I go forward, both musically and in other areas.