Depends what you mean by microtonality. Twelve equal is relatively new. Even Chopin didn't use twelve equal, he used a temperament. So in that sense all cultures have used microtonal music. The reason is that twelve equal is a compromise temperament which is ideal if you want to modulate to any key and they all sound the same. But none of the intervals in it are pure ratios. The fifth is a bit flat, not noticeably so but you get beats in long held chords. The major third is sharp, quite a bit, compared to the harmonic series major third. The minor third is flat.
In Western music, early music was basically pythagorean, chains of pure fifths (ratio of frequencies 3/2) which is close to twelve equal.
Later on, it went through an experimental phase with Vicentino's Archicembalo
Bach's "well tempered Klavier" is written for a tempered twelve tone scale, not twelve equal (though for practical reasons lutes in his day and guitars were fretted in twelve equal) - they thought they sounded better.
So microtonal enthusiasts can get keen on exploring the various temperaments of twelve tone tunings.
Anyway so apart from that, there's also modern microtonal music. If you want to listen to it, there's a long list of present day microtonal composers here
xenharmonic (microtonal wiki) - MicrotonalListeningList
(though some of the links may be out of date).
Apart from that some of the main strands are, in no particular order (this will be a bit random, just to give a taste):
Just to give a first impression of the diversity out there.
In Western music, early music was basically pythagorean, chains of pure fifths (ratio of frequencies 3/2) which is close to twelve equal.
Later on, it went through an experimental phase with Vicentino's Archicembalo
So microtonal enthusiasts can get keen on exploring the various temperaments of twelve tone tunings.
Anyway so apart from that, there's also modern microtonal music. If you want to listen to it, there's a long list of present day microtonal composers here
xenharmonic (microtonal wiki) - MicrotonalListeningList
(though some of the links may be out of date).
Apart from that some of the main strands are, in no particular order (this will be a bit random, just to give a taste):
- Thai music
- Indonesian gamelan music - each "gamelan" is a uniquely tuned orchestra of mainly gongs and other percussion, strings, woodwind, but the interesting thing is each village has its own gamelan and each one is tuned differently. In a way there are as many tunings as there are gamelans, though certain common principles.
- Indian music - this music is usually played with a drone, which highlights tiny differences in pitch so they have a lot of sensitivity to minute inflections of pitch.
- Chinese music
- Japanese music
- Maqam music (e.g. Turkey, Iraq) - the tuning is based on a structure of two four note scales a whole tone apart - our seven note system for the white keys is just one example of this pattern - it dates back to Greek times which they developed one way while "western music" developed it another way
- Pygmy music
- Many others
Just to give a first impression of the diversity out there.
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Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
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