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microtonal music
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microtonal music

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Also known as microtonalism, microtonality, microtonic music

Microtonality is the use in music of microtones — intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal intervals per octave. In other words, a microtone may be thought of as a note that falls "between the keys" of a piano tuned in equal temperament.

In the Vinony graph

Vinony's link graph records 801 inbound references to microtonal music, and connects out to mean-tone temperament, Adriaan Daniel Fokker and Hermann von Helmholtz.

Vinony files it under Microtonality, Music of ancient Greece and Post-tonal music theory.

Vinony links it to 24 Wikipedia language editions.

Wikidata facts

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Commons category
Microtonal music
topic's main category
Category:Microtonality
different from
microtome
facet of
modernism
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via Wikidata · CC0

~30 min read

Encyclopedic overview

15 sections
Contents
  • Terminology
  • Microtone
  • Microtonal
  • History
  • Microtonality in electronic music
  • Limitations of some synthesizers
  • Microtonality in rock music
  • In the West
  • Western microtonal pioneers
  • Later Western microtonal composers
  • Western microtonal researchers
  • See also
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

{{Image frame|width=175 |content={ \new Staff \with{ \omit Score.TimeSignature } { \fixed c' 1 } } |caption=Composer Charles Ives chose the chord above as a good candidate for a "fundamental" chord in the quarter tone scale, akin not to the tonic but to the major chord of traditional tonalityFile:Ives fundamental chord (quarter tones).oggFile:Ives quarter tone fundamental chord arp.midTwo examples of an Ives fundamental chord with quarter tones }}

Microtonality is the use in music of microtones — intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal intervals per octave. In other words, a microtone may be thought of as a note that falls "between the keys" of a piano tuned in equal temperament.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “microtonal music” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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