Ivor Darreg

I became acquainted with Ivor Darreg in February of 1978, after his article appeared in Guitar Player magazine. At that time, I was building my first Justly Intoned acoustic instruments in Honolulu, and some JI controllers for synthesizers. He was the first living person that I had the opportunity to meet, who knew about microtonality to any deep extent.

Shortly after making his acquaintance by mail, I traveled from Hawaii to California to meet him in person. He arranged for me to meet Jonathan Glasier that day, who subsequently introduced me to many people who were involved with microtonality, including Erv Wilson, John Chalmers Jr., George Secor, and many others.

Ivor was a very intense person, intellectually. While Microtonalists think of him primarily as a composer, music theorist and instrument inventor, he was also a scientist, linguist and predictor of the future.

Ivor had a list of correspondents, who were like his extended family. He was continually occupied (when he wasn't building or repairing an instrument) with typing (on a mechanical typewriter!) letters, flyers, articles, etc. which he then would photocopy or mimeograph and send out by snail mail (there was no internet and no email in those days). I kept all of it and have shared a small fraction of it here, for your edification.

He had a terrific sense of humor, and loved puns.

- Denny Genovese