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xenharmonic music

Xenharmonic Music

United States · 1970s
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Description

Xenharmonic music is music that uses tuning systems other than 12‑tone equal temperament (12‑TET). The term was coined by American microtonalist Ivor Darreg, drawing on the Greek xenos, meaning both "foreign" and "hospitable." In Darreg’s formulation, xenharmonic explicitly welcomes just intonation and equal temperaments such as 5‑, 7‑, 11‑, 19‑, 22‑, 24‑, 31‑EDO (equal divisions of the octave) and far beyond, as well as non‑octave and alternative interval cycles.

In practice, xenharmonic music emphasizes scales, chords, and melodic gestures that arise naturally from these tunings rather than attempting to imitate 12‑TET. It includes everything from pure, beating‑free JI harmonies to vividly "alien" sonorities from non‑octave and higher‑prime temperaments, realized on acoustic, electronic, and hybrid instruments.


Sources: Spotify, Wikipedia, Discogs, RYM, MB, user feedback and other online sources

History

Prehistory and precursors (1900s–1960s)
•   Long before the term existed, Western and non‑Western traditions demonstrated rich alternatives to 12‑TET. Outside the West, traditions such as Indonesian gamelan established stable non‑12 tunings; within the West, composers like Julián Carrillo, Alois Hába, and Ivan Wyschnegradsky explored quarter‑tones and other equal divisions, while Harry Partch built an entire JI instrumentarium in the mid‑20th century.
Coining the term and community building (1970s–1980s)
•   In the 1970s, Ivor Darreg popularized the term “xenharmonic” to describe any tuning and music “unlike 12‑TET,” explicitly including just intonation and a wide constellation of equal temperaments (EDOs). •   DIY experimentation flourished: rewired organs, refretted/fretless strings, and early analog electronics helped composers realize tunings like 19‑EDO, 31‑EDO, and custom JI lattices.
Digital tools and dissemination (1990s–2000s)
•   The personal‑computer era catalyzed a wave of practice through software such as Scala and hardware/software synths that accepted microtuning tables (e.g., MIDI Tuning Standard). Composers like Easley Blackwood Jr. (with his Microtonal Etudes) systematically surveyed equal temperaments. •   Internet forums and mailing lists (e.g., the Tuning and Xenharmonic community) connected builders, theorists, and artists, accelerating exchange of scale files, temperament theory, and performance practice.
Cross‑genre expansion and public visibility (2010s–present)
•   With MTS‑ESP and widespread microtuning support in DAWs/synths, xenharmonic language permeated ambient, IDM, experimental pop/rock, and metal. Artists and bands released accessible xenharmonic albums (e.g., microtonal rock and electronic releases), bringing unfamiliar tunings to broader audiences. •   Today, the term functions as an inclusive umbrella for non‑12 practice across just intonation, EDOs, non‑octave systems, and emergent temperaments, uniting a global community of theorists, builders, and musicians.

How to make a track in this genre

1) Choose a tuning system
•   Decide whether you want pure‑ratio consonance (Just Intonation), a specific equal temperament (e.g., 19‑, 22‑, 24‑, 31‑EDO), a non‑octave system (e.g., Bohlen‑Pierce), or a rank‑2 temperament family (e.g., meantone, porcupine, mavila). •   Use tools such as Scala, LMSO, Bitwig Micro‑Pitch, Surge XT, Vital, or any MTS‑ESP‑compatible synth to load or author tuning files.
2) Build a usable scale
•   From your tuning, derive a scale that supports musical goals: MOS (Moment‑of‑Symmetry) scales, well‑formed scales, or custom JI collections (e.g., 7‑limit or 11‑limit subsets). •   Consider keyboard or fret layouts: isomorphic keyboards, lattice‑based mappings, refretted/fretless strings, or MIDI controllers with per‑note pitch bend/MPE.
3) Harmony and melody in context
•   In JI, favor stable low‑integer ratios (e.g., 5:4, 3:2) for consonance, and explore extended primes (7:6, 11:9, 13:8) for novel color. Voice‑lead along the JI lattice/tonnetz to preserve smooth interval motion. •   In EDOs, learn each system’s “best” approximations to JI intervals and its characteristic triads/quasi‑triads. For example, 19‑EDO yields warm meantone‑like thirds; 22‑EDO highlights 11‑limit colors; 31‑EDO gives very fine shadings of meantone harmony. •   Melodically, exploit step sizes unique to the scale (neutral seconds, sub‑/super‑minor intervals) and cadences native to the temperament rather than importing 12‑TET clichés.
4) Rhythm, texture, and form
•   Xenharmonic doesn’t prescribe rhythm; both metrical grooves and drones work well. Many pieces use sustained textures to spotlight beating patterns and spectral alignments in JI, or agile lines to reveal EDO step structure. •   Consider spectral/formant thinking: align harmonic content (partials) to your tuning for clear, low‑beating sonorities or, conversely, embrace complex beating for expressive tension.
5) Instrumentation and performance
•   Practical options: microtunable soft synths (MTS‑ESP), retunable samplers, fretless strings, voice, wind instruments with flexible intonation, refretted guitars, and custom keyboards. •   Calibrate ensembles carefully: agree on reference pitches, temperament maps, and intonation targets; rehearse slow chords to minimize unwanted beating in JI.
6) Notation and workflow
•   Use scale degree notation, ratio labels (for JI), or EDO degree numbers. Lattice/tonnetz diagrams aid composition and voice‑leading. •   Keep alternate versions of parts for live vs. studio (e.g., simplified fingerings or different mappings) and export .scl/.kbm or MTS‑ESP snapshots with the session.
7) Production tips
•   Tame chorus/unison detuning that fights carefully tuned intervals. Prefer subtle modulation or phase‑aligned layers for JI clarity. •   If mixing genres (e.g., microtonal rock), design bass and percussion to complement the tuning’s cadential degrees; avoid 12‑TET melodic fragments that clash with your scale.

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Influenced by
Western Classical
Western classical is the notated art-music tradition that developed in Europe from medieval Christian chant into the large-scale secular and sacred forms of the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and modern eras. It is characterized by staff notation, evolving systems of modality and tonality, and forms such as symphony, sonata, concerto, mass, opera, and chamber music. Across its history, Western classical established an extensive theory of harmony and counterpoint, refined orchestration across strings, winds, brass, and percussion, and cultivated performance practices from a cappella chant to full symphonic and operatic forces. Its repertoire, pedagogy, and institutions (conservatories, orchestras, opera houses) made it a global reference point for compositional craft and instrumental technique.
Experimental
Experimental music is an umbrella term for practices that prioritize exploration, process, and discovery over adherence to established genre norms. It embraces new sound sources, nonstandard tuning systems, indeterminacy and chance operations, graphic and open-form scores, extended techniques, and technology-led sound design (tape, electronics, computers, and live processing). Rather than a single style, it is a methodology and ethos: testing hypotheses about sound, structure, and performance, often blurring boundaries between composition, improvisation, sound art, and performance art. Listeners can expect unfamiliar timbres, unusual forms, and an emphasis on how music is made as much as the resulting sound.
Electronic
Electronic is a broad umbrella genre defined by the primary use of electronically generated or electronically processed sound. It encompasses music made with synthesizers, drum machines, samplers, computers, and studio/tape techniques, as well as electroacoustic manipulation of recorded or synthetic sources. The genre ranges from academic and experimental traditions to popular and dance-oriented forms. While its sonic palette is rooted in electricity and circuitry, its aesthetics span minimal and textural explorations, structured song forms, and beat-driven club permutations. Electronic emphasizes sound design, timbre, and studio-as-instrument practices as much as melody and harmony.
Early Music
Early music is a modern performance movement devoted to the repertoire of the Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque eras (roughly before c. 1750), approached with historically informed performance (HIP) practices. It emphasizes period instruments (or faithful replicas), historical tunings and temperaments, original notations and sources, and performance conventions documented in treatises of the time. The sound world ranges from monophonic chant and modal organum, to intricate Renaissance polyphony, to the emergence of basso continuo and dramatic affect in the early Baroque. Rather than being a single historical style, early music is a contemporary practice of reviving diverse pre‑Classical musics with scholarly rigor and artistic vitality.
Gamelan
Gamelan is a traditional Indonesian ensemble music, centered on tuned metal percussion (metallophones and gongs), drums, and soft-sounding melodic instruments. It is most closely associated with the islands of Java and Bali, where distinct courtly and village traditions evolved. Its sound is defined by cyclical structures marked by gongs (colotomic cycles), interlocking figurations, and modal systems (laras) called sléndro and pélog. Textures are “stratified,” with a core melody (balungan) surrounded by elaborating parts. The result ranges from serene, floating atmospheres to dazzling, kinetic brilliance, depending on region and context. Beyond ceremony and theater (wayang), gamelan has influenced global composers and experimentalists, while continuing to thrive in Indonesia as a living, communal art.
Microtonal Music
Microtonal music is music that uses microtones—pitches that fall between the notes of the Western 12‑tone equal temperament (12‑TET). In practical terms, it employs intervals smaller than a semitone or uses alternative tuning systems that do not align with the customary twelve equal divisions of the octave. Beyond simple “quarter‑tone” writing, microtonality encompasses historical and global pitch systems (such as those of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Southeast Asian traditions), just‑intonation lattices, and equal divisions of the octave with many steps (e.g., 19‑EDO, 24‑EDO, 31‑EDO, 53‑EDO, 72‑EDO). It may be realized on retuned acoustic instruments, specially built or modified instruments, voice, or digital synthesis/samplers. Aesthetic results range from delicate, shimmering pitch colors and continuous glissandi to rugged, “in‑between” harmonies and new modalities—often creating sensations that sound ‘between the keys’ of a piano.
Avant-Garde
Avant-garde music is an umbrella term for boundary-pushing practices that challenge prevailing norms of harmony, rhythm, timbre, form, and performance. It privileges experimentation, conceptual rigor, and a willingness to reframe what counts as music at all. Historically tied to early 20th‑century artistic modernism, avant-garde music introduced atonality, the emancipation of noise, and new forms of notation and process. It embraces indeterminacy, extended techniques, electronics, spatialization, and multimedia performance, treating sound as material to be sculpted, questioned, and reinvented.
Has influenced
Microtonal Music
Microtonal music is music that uses microtones—pitches that fall between the notes of the Western 12‑tone equal temperament (12‑TET). In practical terms, it employs intervals smaller than a semitone or uses alternative tuning systems that do not align with the customary twelve equal divisions of the octave. Beyond simple “quarter‑tone” writing, microtonality encompasses historical and global pitch systems (such as those of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Southeast Asian traditions), just‑intonation lattices, and equal divisions of the octave with many steps (e.g., 19‑EDO, 24‑EDO, 31‑EDO, 53‑EDO, 72‑EDO). It may be realized on retuned acoustic instruments, specially built or modified instruments, voice, or digital synthesis/samplers. Aesthetic results range from delicate, shimmering pitch colors and continuous glissandi to rugged, “in‑between” harmonies and new modalities—often creating sensations that sound ‘between the keys’ of a piano.
Experimental Electronic
Experimental electronic is an umbrella term for electronic music that foregrounds exploration and innovation over convention. It treats the studio, computer, and synthesizer as laboratories, using techniques such as tape manipulation, modular and software synthesis, feedback systems, granular and spectral processing, algorithmic/generative composition, circuit-bending, and field recording. Rather than regular song forms or dancefloor functionality, it prioritizes timbre, texture, space, and process. Structures may be nonlinear or open-form; harmony is often non-functional or drone-based; rhythm can be free, irregular, or machine-deconstructed. The style overlaps with electroacoustic music, sound art, industrial, ambient, and noise while continually interfacing with club culture and contemporary art contexts.
Ambient
Ambient is a form of electronic and electroacoustic music that prioritizes tone, atmosphere, and texture over conventional song structures and rhythmic drive. It typically features slow-moving harmonies, sustained drones, gentle timbral shifts, and extensive use of space and silence. Rather than drawing attention to itself through hooks or beats, ambient is designed to be as ignorable as it is interesting, rewarding both background listening and focused immersion. Artists often employ synthesizers, samplers, tape loops, field recordings, and subtle acoustic instruments, with reverb and delay creating a sense of place. Substyles range from luminous, consonant soundscapes to darker, more dissonant atmospheres.
Drone
Drone is a minimalist music genre defined by sustained tones, long durations, and extremely gradual change. Harmony is often static or centered on a single fundamental with subtle overtone shifts, while rhythm tends toward stasis or very slow pulses. Sound sources range from acoustic instruments (e.g., strings, organ, bagpipes, shruti box, tambura) to electronics (sine waves, oscillators, feedback, tape loops, and later digital synthesis and processing). Many composers favor just intonation or other alternative tuning systems to emphasize beating patterns, psychoacoustic effects, and the internal life of sound. Although drone as a sonic principle is ancient and global, the modern experimental genre cohered in the 1960s through the New York minimalists and related avant‑garde circles, then spread into ambient, experimental, and heavy music scenes. The focus is less on melody and more on timbre, resonance, and the phenomenology of listening.
Spectralism
Spectralism is a movement in contemporary classical music that treats timbre and the acoustic spectrum as primary compositional materials. Rather than building music from abstract pitch-class sets or functional harmony, spectral composers derive harmonies, orchestrations, and formal processes from the real-world spectra of sounds. Using tools such as Fourier analysis, they decompose a sound into its partials and then re-synthesize or orchestrate those partials across instruments, often employing microtonality, extended techniques, and slow, morphing processes. The result is music where color, resonance, and perceptual phenomena shape structure as much as melody or rhythm.

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