Harry Partch

This is a set of videos by bbc, that talks about one of the most brilliant man of all time, harry partch the inventor of micro tonal here in a great documentary.

Interested in the potential musicality of speech, Partch found it necessary to build instruments that could underpin the intoning voice and develop notations that accurately and practically instructed players what to play. His first instrument was the "Monophone," later known as the "Adapted viola". He then secured a grant that allowed him to go to London to study the history of tuning systems and word-setting. While there, he met the poet W. B. Yeats with the intention of gaining his permission to write an opera based on his translation of Sophocles' Oedipus the King. He accompanied himself on the Monophone while intoning "By the Rivers of Babylon," and also transcribed the exact inflections of actors from the Abbey Theatre reciting lines from Oedipus. Yeats was enthusiastic, saying "a play done entirely in this way, with this wonderful instrument, and with this type of music, might really be sensational", and gave Partch's idea his blessing.

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