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Psaltery (1978-9)
Psaltery (for Lou Harrison) is constructed from 51 pitches, derived from a recording of one string of a hand-held bowed psaltery (built by Capritauraus Instruments in Santa Cruz, California) by tape manipulation techniques. The 51 pitches are the first 17 harmonics of three fundamentals, related to each other as ratios of 1:5:3, or a major triad. The harmonics from the higher series (5 and 3) are actually higher harmonics of the first. After building up the initial series on the fundamental, pitches from the next series (5, or the major third) begin to replace their closest neighbors until the series on 5 is complete. This process happens twice more, moving to the perfect fifth (on 3), and then back to the fundamental. Finally, the series on the fundamental drops out.

Harmonics enter according to their "prime complexity" in this order: 17, 13, 11, 14, 7, 15, 10, 5, 9, 12, 6, 3, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1. More distantly related harmonics of a new series enter first, crossfading with close pitches from the current series so that, at first, only a "mistuning" is heard. Gradually, closer harmonics of the new series begin to imply the new fundamental, through difference tones and our own sense of harmony. The initial buildup of the first series is the reverse of this order, and in the end, the pitches of the final series drop out in this order.

credits

from The Theory of Impossible Melody (ART 1004, 1989), released December 24, 1989
Produced and recorded at the Experimental Music Studios, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, 1978, with assistance from Mark Haag and Melissa Birch.

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Artifact Recordings San Francisco, California

ARTIFACT RECORDINGS is a project of Ubu, Incorporated, an artist-run, non-profit organization supporting experimental and electronic music based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our download and compact disk series is dedicated to representing a living experimental music tradition that continues to thrive in the cracks between the commercial, academic and classical music establishments. ... more

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