World Harmony Project

Associates of World Harmony Project

World Harmony Project's Exotic Music Ensemble 1994

Back row: Joshua Lederman, Buddy Young, Buzz Kimball, Denny Genovese, Wade Hines, Keton. Bob Nuefeld. Front: Karen Boon von Ochssee, Dawn Delo

This group fulfilled WHP's first mission: to discover the musical properties of the Natural Harmonic Series as a scale, compose and perform music based on these discoveries and to record it for posterity. Elements of this scale formed the roots of  the music of many of the worlds cultures, so the stylistic theme of the ensemble was the  musical traditions from  around the world. EME took this a step further however, by composing new music, based on an expanded version of the scale, in the spirit of unifying the roots of the various nations in a planetary cultural effort to share in the development of a Universal Music for our time and for the Future.

 EME was a pioneering effort in the cause of World Music.

See the Exotic Music Ensemble page

Harry Partch

Harry Partch was the musical pioneer who returned Just Intonation to Western music after 3 centuries of forgetfulness. In the process, he introduced Western Music to three additional pitch classes, based on the addition of the seventh, ninth and eleventh harmonics to the tonal pallet. This made possible the expansion of the triad (harmonics 4, 5 and 6) as a basic harmonic unit to the hexad (Harmonics 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11) providing 6 tonal pivot points in each chord.

 Partch also implemented the mathematical inversion of the Harmonic Series (Subharmonic Series) in his music and the resulting network of scales formed a 6x6 matrix of tonalities. Arranged in sequence by frequency, the pitches of the matrix, along with those of related secondary tonalities form a 43 tone scale that increases the melodic and harmonic resources of  Tonality many fold.

To implement his music, Partch built an orchestra of instruments especially designed to play his expanded musical scale, and used odd numbered rhythmic meters and polyrhythms as well. Much of his music was vocal and presented in a theatrical context, portraying mythical themes.

Harry Partch with Peter Coraggio - 1971 

Peter Coraggio,  was a pioneer of Electronic Music in the 1960's and 1970's. A student of Vladimir Ussachevsky at the Colombia/Princeton Electronic Music Studio, he brought Electronic Music to Hawaii in 1971 when he began his career as professor of music at the University of Hawaii. In that same year, he brought Harry Partch to Honolulu for a series of lectures and performances. Subsequently, one of Peter's students, Denny Genovese learned of the Harmonic Series and Just Intonation.

The instrument they are playing in this photo is the ARP 2500 modular analog synthesizer. This Instrument formed the core of the Analog studio of the Hawaii Electronic Music Group and later the Southeast Just Intonation Center. Some of it's components continued in the custom Theremin, played by Denny Genovese.

Ivor Darreg

Ivor Darreg  was a prolific and visionary Writer, Composer, Music Theorist, Instrument Designer and Networker whose tireless efforts helped to develop the theory and practice of Microtonal Music, including Just Intonation and the Harmonic Series, in the 20th century. He was a mentor to Denny Genovese, as well as a number of others, and an early supporter of World Harmony Project.

Ivor Darreg's page

Denny Genovese and Robert Moog

at Moog's laboratory in Asheville, NC in 2001

Robert Moog was a leading pioneer in Electronic Music technology. Here, he and Denny pose with Moog's solid state Theremin.

Erv Wilson and Denny Genovese - 2001 

Erv Wilson was the great guru of microtonal music theory in the United States. This picture was taken at his home in Los Angeles in 2001. 

Joe Monzo, Denny Genovese 

and Jonathan Glasier - 1998 

Jonathan Glasier grew up in San Diego with Harry Partch as a frequent house guest. His father, John Glasier senior, was a great cellist and violist, who could improvise in many different microtonal scale systems, and was one of Partch's most constant friends and supporters. Jonathan was a member of Partch's ensemble, and personally cared for the composer in his last years of failing health.

In addition to his life long career as a microtonal musician and instrument builder, Jonathan self published the historic magazine, Interval - a microtonal newsletter throughout the late 1970's and most of the 1980's. As a child, he developed a form of Harmonic Singing  and shared his method with Harry Partch, Jonathan Goldman and others. He is the co-proprietor with his wife Elizabeth, of the Sonic Arts Gallery in San Diego.

Joe Monzo is a composer, musician, author, computer programmer and teacher specializing in Just Intonation. His method of organizing tonal materials into multi dimensional lattice configurations provides clear pathways for tonal explorations.

Denny Genovese (L) with

Dr. Easley Blackwood (R)

Chicago, 1985 

Dr. Easley Blackwood, of the University of Chicago is an important author, composer, performer and teacher of microtonal music . In 1985, he released an album of 12 compositions, one in each of the equal temperaments between 13 and 24 pitches per duple (octave). Each composition was a masterpiece that clearly exemplified the properties of the scale it was created with. For this reason, he is best known as a proponent of equal tempered scales. However, he was an important theorist of just Intonation as well. Denny Genovese interviewed him that summer for an article about the album which appeared in Interval Magazine, and returned many times after that for tutorials in Just intonation. 

Easley Blackwood with the Motorola Scalatron

The Motorola Scalatron was an early polyphonic synthesizer that was capable of being tuned in any configuration of up to 48 pitches per duple (octave). Each of the two 5 octave keyboards was programed with a specific pitch by the user. Tunings were stored in memory banks that the player could quickly switch between with radio style buttons. 

Photos courtesy of www.EMEAPP.org

George Secor

George Secor, a master of microtonal music commissioned Motorola to build a custom model of the Scalatron, an organ/synthesizer able to precisely resolve up to 1024 pitches per octave, in the 1970s. The Scalatron utilized the theories of Wilson and Chalmers and a microtonal keyboard design by Wilson. 

George's Scalatron may be said to have been the predecessor of the 21st century instrument known as the Lumatone, a powerful MIDI instrument that also uses a keyboard design by Erv Wilson.

~

I had the extremely good fortune while Visiting Erv Wilson in the late 1970s, to sit at the side of George Secor's custom Scalatron, while he played it for me. He started with a demo of his then-new 17+2 unequal temperament. The music was fascinating and as I followed his various ingenious modulations, my head moved around in space to follow them. Then suddenly, he pressed one of the tuning buttons and began playing a different kind of music in a different tuning. Immediately, without intending to do so, I sat up straight with perfect posture. My breathing became deep and effortless. My vision and mind became crystal clear. I felt fantastic! I said "George, what did you do?" He smiled and said "Oh, that's Helmholtzian Just" and then he switched to yet another tuning and musical idiom. I involuntarily slumped in the chair, My breathing became constricted, my eyes crossed and I had trouble thinking clearly. With effort, I said "George, push the other button!" He went back to Helmholtz and I got instant relief. This was my initiation into what Ivor Darreg called the "moods" of different tunings. 

Denny Genovese

 

Dean Drummond (L)    Denny Genovese (R)

Dean Drummond

Montclair, New Jersey 2001

Dean Drummond was a member of the Harry Partch Ensemble, was the heir of Harry Partch's instruments, following their era with Danlee Mitchell in San Diego, and was the founder of the Partch Studies department at Montclair University in New Jersey.

Denny Genovese, Barbara Hero and Robert Faulkrod at the SEJIC studio

Gainesville, FL 1997 

Barbara Hero was a scientist, author, lecturer and music therapist who has done extensive research on the applications of the Pythagorean Lambdoma (the frequency matrix that forms the basis of Harry Partch's Tonality Diamond), in various bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. 

Robert Faulkrod was a poet and electrical engineer, who built a keyboard to play the Lambdoma scale and simultaneously project the combinational waveforms in a laser light show. When they produced a limited number of these keyboards for sale, Denny Genovese facilitated a collaboration with British programmer, Robert Walker to create a component of his MIDI program, Fractal Tune Smithy that allows musicians to play Lambdoma music with their PC computers.

Robert Walker

Robert Walker developed the microtonal music program Fractal Tune Smithy. It has many features, useful to microtonalists, including the ability to play an ordinary 12tet synthesizer in any microtonal scale. Of special note, is the Lambdoma function, which makes it possible to play the Lambdoma on a 2 dimensional chart with a mouse, MIDI keyboard or the computer keyboard.

Barbara Hero, Dick Lord, Robert Faulkrod, Linda Joy Lewis - Wells, Maine 2002

Dick Lord created an alternate operating system for the Ensoniq Mirage, a historic sampling synthesizer, in the 1980's. This operating system facilitated the use of microtonal scales, including Just Intonation. Linda Joy Lewis, a gourmet vegan chef and author, served as Hospitality Coordinator and has been a board member and devoted supporter of World Harmony Project from it's inception in 1992. 

Mark Rankin

Mark Rankin produced interchangeable fret board kits for guitars, and other stringed instruments for many years.

Kraig Grady plays music in Just Intonation on instruments of his own design in Los Angeles. He is closely associated with Erv Wilson. Photo taken at his studio in Los Angeles, 2001.

Denny Genovese and Warren Burt

San Diego 1998

Warren Burt is an Australian composer, performer and author of world renown. He has been involved with Microtonal music and Just Intonation since the 1960's

John Starret

John Starret is a professor of Mathematics at the University of New Mexico. He is a Microtonal composer, musician and instrument builder who has been very active in networking microtonal musicians on the web. He, with drummer, Ernie Crews played in the Neil Haverstick Microtonal Band when he lived in Denver. He is the inventor of the Starrboard, a stringed instrument that was adapted by Denny Genovese to play in the two dimensional Lambdoma Matrix scale. 

Norman Henry

Norman Henry built a harpsichord with a special keyboard that allowed it to be played in Partch's 11 Limit Tonality diamond scale in the early 1980's. For several decades he was occupied with building an 11 limit piano with a similar matrix keyboard. It now exists.

Norman Henry's Page

Carl Lumma built this Kosmolyre during his residency at the SEJIC in the 1990's. Carl later developed many advanced microtonal concepts and served as moderator for the Microtonal Tuning List. 

He now serves as an advisor for World Harmony Project and has been helpful in calculating tunings for instruments.

Don Slepian at Bell Labs (1970's)

Don Slepian was a pioneer of Electronic Music since the 1960's. He participated in the development of Digital Music Synthesis at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1970's and has been a loyal supporter of World Harmony Project since it's inception. 

While not a microtonalist per se, some of his early work with Analog synths and tape recorders is microtonal.

Michael Jewel and Denny Genovese

Honolulu, Hawaii - 1976 

Michael Jewel is a Cosmic Poet from Burlington VT. He and Denny collaborated on many projects, including a weekly TV show, while they both lived in Honolulu. Don Slepian accompanied this performance with analog synthesizers, slide guitar and other instruments, using resonant filters, tape echo and other effects. 

Johnny Reinhard

One of the original members of Ivor's Xenharmonic Alliance, Johnny is the founder of the American Festival of Microtonal Music in New York and an authority on the tunings used by J.S. Bach.

Jacob Barton has organized a large number of microtonal retreats that have yielded significant music.

He is at home playing in Just Intonation as well as several different Equal Tempered systems.

Inventor of the Udderbot

Multi-instrumental microtonalist, specializing in non-12 Equal Temperaments. Host of Now and Xen Podcast