microtone
/ˈmʌɪkrə(ʊ)təʊn
/noun Music
An interval smaller than a semitone.It was at this time that he divided the scale into 43 microtones - there are 12 semitone intervals in a traditional chromatic scale - and began inventing instruments that could play his new microtonal music....
- Oh, but only having twelve notes per octave is a distinct limitation: let's make it not only possible but straightforward to play microtones and true glissandi without loss of tone quality, just as the violin can.
- The vast array of techniques explored in the 20th century, the lead often taken by jazz musicians, included a wide variety of glissandos, multiphonics, microtones, expressive attacks, and mutes.
Derivatives
microtonal
- Unusual techniques abound but these performers careen through the tone clusters and microtonal brambles like dancers through dense forests.
- His music, in fact, had changed dramatically in the past twenty years, from anguishly atonal to transparently microtonal, pervaded by all kinds of Eastern influences.
- The minimalist musical style - expressive vocal lines made up of twisting microtonal chants and incantations accompanied by a small ensemble of trumpets and drums - also helps cast a spell.
microtonality
- For myself, however, I have had different approaches to microtonality at different times.
- The microtonality is so rich, so expressive, and it reveals a great deal of emotional quality.
- On most wind instruments microtonality is applicable with the help of special blowing techniques and fingerings.
microtonally
- These experiments began with microtonally tuned pianos, and player pianos.
- The trio have the uncanny and much-welcomed ability to wax microtonally one minute and rattle the shutters the next.
- A version of the Hellertion was produced in 1931 microtonally tuned to 10 divisions of an octave.