Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales, alongside Lou Harrison. He built his own instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, and described the method behind his theory and practice in his book Genesis of a Music (1947). Partch composed with scales dividing the octave into 43 unequal tones derived from the natural harmonic series; these scales allowed for more tones of smaller intervals than in standard Western tuning, which uses twelve equal intervals to the octave. To play his music, Partch built many unique instruments, with such names as the Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Zymo-Xyl. Partch described his music as "corporeal" (emphasizing its physical/visceral elements), and distinguished it from abstract music, which he perceived as the dominant trend in Western music since the time of J.S. Bach, whose seminal book of preludes and fugues called The Well-tempered Clavier (in German, Das wohltemperierte Klavier) is often cited as the pivot point beyond which older mean-tone and ancient just intonation tunings were abandoned (in the late-18th century) and the then-future of Western Classical (and popular) instruments were (and most are still) based, for exploitation of all 24 theoretical key signatures. Partch's earliest compositions were small-scale pieces to be intoned with simple folkloric-like string instrumental backing; his later works were large-scale (like a fusion of theater and music decidedly related to but quite apart from Wagnerian opera), they were integrated theater productions in which he expected each of the performers to sing, dance, speak, and play instruments in a "corporeal apotheosis". Ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh and kabuki heavily influenced Harry Partch's music theatre. Encouraged by his mother, Partch learned several instruments at a young age. By fourteen, he was composing, and in particular took to setting dramatic situations. He dropped out of the University of Southern California's School of Music in 1922, dissatisfied with the quality of his teachers. He took to self-study in San Francisco's libraries, where he discovered Hermann von Helmholtz's Sensations of Tone, which convinced him to devote himself to music based on scales tuned in just intonation. In 1930, he burned all his previous compositions in a rejection of the European concert tradition. Partch frequently moved around the US. Early in his career, he was a transient worker, and sometimes a hobo; later he depended on grants, university appointments, and record sales to support himself. In 1970, supporters created the Harry Partch Foundation to administer Partch's music and instruments.
Personal history
Early life (1901–1919)
On June 24, 1901, Partch was born in Oakland, California. His parents were Virgil Franklin Partch (1860–1919) and Jennie (née Childers, 1863–1920). The Presbyterian couple were missionaries, serving in China from 1888 to 1893, and again from 1895 to 1900, when they fled the Boxer Rebellion. Partch moved with his family to Arizona for his mother's health. His father worked for the Immigration Service there, and they settled in the small town of Benson. It was still the Wild West there in the early twentieth century, and Partch recalled seeing outlaws in town. Nearby, there were native Yaqui people, whose music he would hear. His mother sang to him in Mandarin Chinese, and he heard and sang songs in Spanish. His mother encouraged her children to learn music, and he learned the mandolin, violin, piano, reed organ, and cornet. His mother taught him to read music. In 1913, the family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Partch began to study the piano seriously. He obtained work playing keyboards for silent films while he was in high school. By 14, he was composing for the piano. He developed an early interest in writing music for dramatic situations, and cited his lost composition Death and the Desert (1916) as an early example. In 1919, Partch graduated from high school.
Early experiments (1919–1947)
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