# Harry Partch



## Sid James

*Harry Partch* (June 24, 1901 - September 3, 1974) was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit (43-tone) just intonation.

Read the full wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Partch

I remembered having a conversation about Partch with a friend last year & decided to listen to some of his stuff on youtube. Well I just did this & I am pretty amazed! I just listened to the piece below & if I could describe it in a word, it would be "chilling."

Partch is often mentioned in the same breath as John Cage, another iconoclast of modern American music. But Partch seemed to be less gregarious than Cage, less in search of the spotlight. Anyway, I am interested in people's comments about the piece below, as well as what other knowledge they have of this very interesting composer.


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## Guest

Well, one thing is for sure, Youtube is a terrible way to listen to music. Even if you hook your computer up to a decent sound system.... (I've known _Delusion of the Fury_ intimately for several decades (more than three), and I didn't recognize the music in the clip until several seconds had gone by. That's because of the very narrow range of frequencies you get on Youtube.

I'm not even sure that Youtube is a good way to explore new (or just new to you) music. You know, for getting a taste. The taste you're getting is so different from what the meal really is. (And I say this as someone who posts video clips of live concerts all the time, for giving my readers a taste.)

But that's as may be. Get yourself some recordings of Partch, Andre!! I'd suggest confining yourself to the recordings Danlee Mitchell made for Columbia, at least at first. The Gate 5 recordings are pretty scrappy (like Youtube!) and the Newband recordings while sonically great seem pretty lifeless next to Mitchell's (and Partch's). And that's with one of the original members of the group, Dean Drummond, directing!

I guess it's like the difference between Stokowski's fiery and idiomatic recording of Ives' fourth and the more accurate but rather tepid performance by one of Stokie's assistants--except that Drummond's _Daphne of the Dunes,_ at least, is _less_ accurate. It has things in it that I'm sure Drummond intends as being more accurate, but they just sound like mistakes.

If you're starting with _Delusion of the Fury,_ I think the only CD recording is Danlee Mitchell's, so you're safe there. I also have the DVD* of the original production, which I find unbearable, but that may just be me. Having lived with that piece for so long as a piece of music only, probably any production would seem wrong to me. (I need to watch that again, I think, and try to get over myself!!)

*This is also Danlee, I think, but a much earlier and less sonically satisfying production.


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## Argus

Here's an interesting documentary on the guy.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

I think 'maverick' would be a good adjective to describe him. Either that or 'big gay train riding hobo noise maker extraordinaire'.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Andre said:


> Anyway, I am interested in people's comments about the piece below, as well as what other knowledge they have of this very interesting composer.


I admire your gift in appreciating music such as that in the link above. I listened to it all. It actually initially reminded me of South-East Asian traditional music, such as Balinese and Javanese music. Though I didn't like the part near the end of the link when it started to sound like a siren from an ambulance mixed in. Not sure what he was trying to do there. But it was a listenable piece.


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## Sid James

Thanks for recommending the Danlee Mitchell recording, Some Guy, I'll hunt it up. & yes, Harpsichord, from what I've read some of his music has more to do with that of other cultures/traditions (like the South East Asian which you mention) rather than Western classical music. But don't forget that this youtube piece was only an excerpt from a much longer work (I agree with Some Guy that youtube is perhaps not the best way to experience music "fully" as all it does is give you a glimpse). But there are some longer pieces of his on youtube as well, and some docos (like the ones Argus has posted).

Partch's music, because of the custom-made instruments he uses, as well as the totally different tonal systems he was exploring, is quite complex. He was definitely not part of the "mainstream," he was at the fringes. But I suppose looking from the outside in was a part of the hippy culture of the 1960's, when Partch was around. I think that the only composer who comes anywhere near to him as being a kind of iconoclast was (as I said), John Cage. But he did things quite differently.


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## Sid James

Well I just got the cd of _*Delusion of the Fury *_& have listened to the first half. I had to stop, it was so intense rhymically & very percussive. The first part is based on the Japanese Noh tradition & the music reflects this. I am yet to listen to the second part, which is based on an African story. I think I'll confine myself to repeated listening of the first part for about a week. I want to get my head around that & then move onto the second part. There was a section towards the end of the first part which was so amazing, complex & colourful. It's a real pity that, because of the unique instruments involved (time taken to learn them, etc), this music is probably never performed live. Really, it makes the_ Rite of Spring _seem like child's play...


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## Sid James

An excellent site where you can virtually 'play,' hear clips of Partch's instruments, and the composer talking about how he made them:

http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/feature_partch.html#


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## Argus

That's a cool site. The names of some his intruments are great. The Marimba Eroica, Quadrangularus Reversum, Spoils of War, the Boo, Harmonic Canon.

I understand he uses further harmonics in the overtone series to base his tuning ratios for the tones on and uses just intonation but did he have any system to organise the tones in his compositions. In other words, were there keys and scales within his tuning system that meant certain notes were more prominent.

Just messing around with the instruments on that site I find my ear prefers the simpler ratios like 3/2, 5/4, 4/3 that are present in the 12 TET but ratios like 32/27 or 64/33 I find very striking especially in contrast to perfect fifths or fourths etc. Is this due to my familiarity with the simpler ratios as they are almost exclusive in most music I've heard throughout my life. Will becoming more accustomed to these smaller ratios make them more consonant as has been occuring since the Medieval times when triads were dissonant or will there be a point where the ear cannot 'allow' an interval to be perceived as consonant to some degree. 

Sorry for the meandering digression but guys like Partch that further 'emancipated the dissonance' ask some very interesting questions as well as making music.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Andre... thanks for the post on Partch. I've looked him up... read a bit... and listened a bit... and I find him and his music quite intriguing. I ended up ordering two of his works. As a lover of art songs/lieder and the poetry of Li Po I just had to have his _Seventeen Lyrics of Li Po_. I also ordered the _Delusion of the Fury_. Perhaps I found that the music spoke to me because of its links with Eastern music... of which I am quite fond. I've always loved Takemitsu... but still struggle with Schoenberg. As an interesting note, Partsch himself dismissed Schoenberg's work... especially his 12-tone system.


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## Sid James

Yes, Argus, that is a very cool site. I think your mention of medieval music is apt, because I have read that the traditional 12 tone note system we have is only about 250 years old. Partch was attempting, in a modern way, to go back to the situation that existed before that time.

A reason why that website I posted above, where you can see, hear, play Partch's instruments (as well as him talking about them) was developed because Sony (the ********!) didn't reissue _Delusion of the Fury_ as a 2-cd set. Originally, the 2 LP set had the work itself on one LP, and another "bonus" LP of Partch demonstrating & talking about his instruments. It makes perfect sense for Columbia to have originally issued the work in this way, because prior to that, not many people knew about what Partch had been doing for decades (the LP was released towards the end of Partch's life, in 1970).

St Lukes: I have only heard _Delusion_, but in that there are harmonies reminiscent of Japanese music (the first act being based on a Noh drama story) & also African chant/drumming in the second act, which is based on an Ethiopian tale. Apparently, Partch didn't get permission from the translators of the original texts to use them in his opera/music drama. So the work contains very little actual dialogue in English, I can only think of about 10 or so instances in all. The rest is chanting only. In any case, it is a very interesting listen as he really stretches what you might think to be a conventional opera. The instruments here are centre stage, in the original production they were actually on the stage with the performers (not hidden away in a pit), and the instrumentalists joined in the chanting. Partch really took Wagner's notions of a total art work one step further.

& I think that Partch not only dismissed Schoenberg, but the whole Western canon of classical for the past 250 years. He was more interested in early music, and music of other cultures like Asian & African. When he got back to the USA after living & studying in the UK in the 1930's (or so?), he burned all of his existing compositions for conventional Western instruments, then set about inventing or adapting old instruments. All of his existing music is written specifically for his own instruments. That is perhaps why he still is a rather obscure figure, probably better known to composers and musicians rather than the classical music listening public at large (indeed, the way I heard about Partch last year was that a composer friend of mine told me about him, otherwise I did read about him in a book recently, but he was only mentioned in passing)...


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## djj

thanks Andre, for reminding me, I wrote an essay on Harry Partch for musicology course some 20 years ago. I was fascinated at the time (and still are) by the the way the octave is divided. It really is only an accident of history (is it?) that equal temperament became the accepted as the way to divide the octave. All western music uses equal temperament dividing the octave, allowing music to be harmonically equivalent regardless of what key it is played in (a great help in allowing the evolution of the piano). Yet Eastern music , and H.P. amongst others explores other ways to divide the octave that allow greater expressive possibilities. Looking forward to exploring further.. thanks for the links.


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## StlukesguildOhio

My copy of _Delusion of the Fury_ arrived and I am absolutely fascinated. Neither Schoenberg nor John Cage have anything on Partch. He strikes me like a combination or Joseph Cornell and Adolph Wolfli in music: someone who completely invented his own artistic forms and languages in his garage. The work clearly has links with Asian music and also reminds me of Takemitsu, Messiaen, Tristan Murail, and certainly John Cage. Absolutely fabulous!


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## Sid James

Well, I'm certainly not one for comparing these guys too much, I'd rather kind of take them on their own terms (I haven't heard anything of/about Cornell or Wolfli though, so I can't comment on that). But one thing is for sure, Partch produced some of the best dramatic music of the C20th. In many ways, I think that Partch was almost the total opposite of Cage. Cage was more interested in incorporating "chance" elements into his music, while Partch had his own form of notation, which was very precise, and probably left little room for "improvisation." The way he guided the staging of _Delusion of the Fury _in 1969, specifying not only how the instrumentalists should take part, but also the way in which the actors should mime the drama, and the lighting, stage layout and costumes, suggests that he wanted more or less total control over how his work would be performed.

I also find Cage's music to be more cerebral, whereas Partch said that his stage works were like a form of ritual theatre, involving much movement and gestures from the actors and musicians. What they probably had in common was that they were both interested in the "here & now" of live performance, so that any recording of their music (to a degree) involves heavily diluting the viewer's/listener's experience of it. In both of their music, the perception of the listener and his/her view of what's going on right at that moment (and at no other moment) is probably what both these men were interested in. Partch said that listening to his work on record was only half (or less) of the total experience, and I think that Cage would have agreed with him in that regard...


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## Argus

Watch and learn, children.











Genius in action.:tiphat:


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## elp

StlukesguildOhio said:


> My copy of _Delusion of the Fury_ arrived and I am absolutely fascinated. Neither Schoenberg nor John Cage have anything on Partch. He strikes me like a combination or Joseph Cornell and Adolph Wolfli in music: someone who completely invented his own artistic forms and languages in his garage. The work clearly has links with Asian music and also reminds me of Takemitsu, Messiaen, Tristan Murail, and certainly John Cage. Absolutely fabulous!


well, harry partch as been classified as an outsider artist, creating your own "artistic form" is onw of the key elements of outsider art


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## Noak

I've always loved Delusion of the Fury but have never known much about him. But after watching the documentary about I can really say that I love Harry Partch. He seems like a really interesting personality with a cool concept about music. I admire him greatly.


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## Cnote11

That site is loads of fun.


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## Morimur

Harry Partch is the greatest composer America has ever produced.


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## Guest

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Harry Partch is the greatest composer America has ever produced.


Carter is my favorite right now, tbh, but I *need* to listen to more Partch.


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## PetrB

In the music department's men's room at the uni where I studied theory and music comp, this graffiti on a wall:

"Harry Partch died for your sins."

One huge part of Partch's intent was to bring back the community -- i.e. neighborhood members who were not professional musicians -- _as both player and participant in what were community rituals_. This is very much part of the old Indonesian culture, and Gamelan orchestras... and a-Yep, coincided with a growing interest in the commune as life style, ca. the beat era and up through the 1960's.


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## clavichorder

This documentary shows the background on just how amazing Partch was. I don't know how one man could invent and design so many instruments that also seem so logical, and play them all expertly. This man's work altogether, is an inspiration.


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## Guest

Wow, how time flies. A thread from when Sid and I were still friends, when he posted as André.

Well, one thing hasn't changed, Partch's amazingness. That's for sure.

It's funny. That clip says "buy this video at Innova." Too late, I already did it. (Innova's a sweet label, too. Lots of cool stuff.)


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## proclo

This is a new German production...they have rebuilt all partch instruments.
I think it is the biggest tribute to Partch from europe. 
Enjoy :
http://www.musikfabrik.eu/en/sound-image/stage/harry-partch-delusion-fury-ritual-dream


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## proclo

Here some information about a just intonation theorist who inspired\helped Partch. He is not very well known but he is an important figure in the just intonation movement of the west coast :
http://wilsonarchives.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Harry Partch


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## seven four

The Partch instruments used to be in NJ (or NY). Dean Drummond passed away and they found a new home on the left coast. I miss NewBand.


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## seven four

Misconceptions on Partch


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## Xenakiboy

I love Partch's music. On the seventh day and Delusion of the Fury are one of those things where it's everything you want it to be. The microtonality is amazing when you're used too it and the theatrical element of his music is partially where 'serious' music should of headed, more than it has (music rituals).


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## seven four

*Paul Simon's new album includes unique sessions from Montclair Sate*

"Whether blending Western sounds with South African styles on 1986's "Graceland," Brazilian sounds on 1990's "The Rhythm of the Saints," he has always looked for new sounds and textures to broaden his music.

Paul Simon's new album, 'Stranger to Stranger,' explores the unique sounds of Harry Partch's instruments.

So it should come as no surprise that he used the unusual musical scales and instruments of Harry Partch on his new album "Stranger to Stranger," which is being released tomorrow, June 3."


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Windsong (Harry Partch)


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Morimur said:


> Harry Partch is the greatest composer America has ever produced.


This is probably true (and not an insult to America!).


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## tdc

Another great fan of Partch here. In some ways I agree with the sentiment that his path is the way forward, in others I feel like only he could be successful using his particular format. I'm not really sure. Certainly elements of his craft could be a great template for some future composers. I find his art very inspired, like a breath of fresh air compared to what I perceive as a lot of dry academic stagnation happening in contemporary trends. His music has originality, spirituality and heart, sophisticated, yet not elitist. 

So far I have two Partch DvDs in my collection, Enclosure 7 and Enclosure 8.

Any recommendations on where I should branch out from there?


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## Mandryka

tdc said:


> Another great fan of Partch here. In some ways I agree with the sentiment that his path is the way forward, in others I feel like only he could be successful using his particular format. I'm not really sure. Certainly elements of his craft could be a great template for some future composers. I find his art very inspired, like a breath of fresh air compared to what I perceive as a lot of dry academic stagnation happening in contemporary trends. His music has originality, spirituality and heart, sophisticated, yet not elitist.
> 
> So far I have two Partch DvDs in my collection, Enclosure 7 and Enclosure 8.
> 
> Any recommendations on where I should branch out from there?


Daphne of the Dunes, Delusion of the Fury, Revelation in the Courthouse Park, Ulysses Departs for the Edge of the World


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## tdc

Mandryka said:


> Daphne of the Dunes, Delusion of the Fury, Revelation in the Courthouse Park, Ulysses Departs for the Edge of the World


The Partch Enclosure series contain numerous musical works, and extras. Delusion of the Fury is on Enclosure 7, the other ones I haven't listened to yet, thanks.


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## philoctetes

I hitchhiked through Barstow once so Partch is good with me.


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## JonSzanto

*Further information on Harry Partch*

Hello,



tdc said:


> Another great fan of Partch here. In some ways I agree with the sentiment that his path is the way forward, in others I feel like only he could be successful using his particular format. I'm not really sure. Certainly elements of his craft could be a great template for some future composers. I find his art very inspired, like a breath of fresh air compared to what I perceive as a lot of dry academic stagnation happening in contemporary trends. His music has originality, spirituality and heart, sophisticated, yet not elitist.
> 
> So far I have two Partch DvDs in my collection, Enclosure 7 and Enclosure 8.
> 
> Any recommendations on where I should branch out from there?


I'm Jon Szanto, curator/archivist for the Harry Partch Estate, and I've had a site in some form on Partch and related matters since the mid-90's. You can find us at *Corporeal Meadows*.

There is a contact form to get in touch with me and I'd be happy to make further suggestions for Partch listening, based on your input. You'll also note an entry in the News section of only about a week in age, regarding a new Partch release... of a live performance from 41 years ago! Out now on Neuma Records, the new curation place for Philip Blackburn, who brought all of our Partch material out on Inova.

Hope this is of help, and hello to all those that find Harry Partch an inspiration.


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## NoCoPilot

Woo-hoo, new Partch!!!


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