SYZYGYS

[seraph]

http://www.syzygys.jp/e_pages/index.html

[xjscott]

Great find! I bought this album based on Carlo's recommendation.

This is a pretty awesome album. Some of the Syzygys tracks answer what would happen if Juan Esquivel had cloned Partch's microtonal harmonium, and wasn't a Mexican man but was two Japanese women. But it moves on to middle-eastern influenced songs (violinist Hiromi Nishida studied Arabic music under Abdo Dagir in Cairo and has toured Tunisia playing classical arabic music), irish folk music, all sorts of different styles. If any of this concept sounds appealing then definitely take a look at this album.

It's not purely microtonal though, on several of the tracks some of the instruments like guitar are played in twelve equal (12tET). Although it therefore has 12tET and JI played simultaneously in places, once you get used to the pairing, it works out ok. Nonetheless, I find it's a bit distracting when 12tET in particular is coupled with another tuning since 12tET is an "attention whore" of a tuning that continually distracts attention away from other tunings.

Twelve's desperate attention seeking behavior is very different from the effect in the spectacular section formed by tracks 5-9 in which the Partch JI scale plays with arabic maqams on violin, which results in a stunning and lush texture in which every disparate and incompatible element nonetheless fits together gorgeously in perfect harmony.

This album is a good introduction into the mysteries of Polymicrotonality where we find that using multiple tunings at once doesn't have to sound "out of tune". How can this be? We know that if you were to play two 12tET guitars together which are not tuned together, or a 12tET guitar and piano not tuned together, they will sound out of tune and unpleasant. It turns out that this is very different from what happens if you use two entirely different tunings!

The reason for this is the sensory dissonance theory - when two instruments are using the same tuning some notes are close enough to create beating in the unpleasant 14-22Hz-ish range, and since a lot of notes played together will be unisons or octaves or other close relationships, it just sounds awful when the instruments are tuned a bit off relative to each other but are all about in the same range. This effect is worse when the instruments have similar timbre structures to almost-but-not-quite line up, like ensembles of string and wind instruments with harmonic overtones.

When instead you have two instruments using completely different tunings, this doesn't happen because the notes don't trample on top of each other.

And that is why polymicrotonality works. Well, that and talent - Ms. Nishida is quite adept at weaving and warping her majestic maqam melodies in and out of the Harmonium's microtonal metropolis.

Syzygys created their own Partch Harmonium by retuning two Yamaha Reed organs themselves, which deserves mad props to be sure. Furthermore, they have even provided us with a virtual Syzygys Harmonium by sampling their organ and putting a playable version on their web site - if you click on the keys, it plays microtonally! It's really a pity that Syzygys is no longer an active ensemble, but this compilation album improves the situation somewhat. Check it out and see if it's for you. If you play this at a dinner party, you will instantly establish yourself as the hippest hepcat in the room in tune with the funkiest grooves of funkadelicism.

[Drew83]