Just Intonation
Just Intonation uses tuning based on whole-number frequency ratios rather than equal temperament, producing intervals with unusually pure consonance, complex beating, and unfamiliar harmonic gravity. Its sound can be radiant, strange, ancient, or psychoacoustic: adapted keyboards, custom-built instruments, voices, strings, long-string instruments, and drones reveal overtones that standard piano tuning flattens away. The music often slows harmonic motion so the listener can hear tuning as color, architecture, and physical vibration.
History
Modern Just Intonation draws from ancient tuning theory, non-Western modal systems, experimental instrument building, and twentieth-century dissatisfaction with equal temperament. Harry Partch created a large instrumentarium and theatrical works, La Monte Young used sustained just-intonation drones and "The Well-Tuned Piano," Ben Johnston brought microtonal ratios into string quartets, Terry Riley and Lou Harrison incorporated alternate tuning into spacious works, James Tenney investigated psychoacoustic perception, Ellen Fullman’s Long String Instrument made tuning physical, and Michael Harrison extended the just-intonation piano tradition. It influenced minimalism, drone, microtonal composition, experimental rock tuning, spectral listening, and contemporary instrument design.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Kyle Gann microtonal writings
- Harry Partch archives
- Grove Music Online
- Discogs