Editing Microtonality (section)

==Microtonality in electronic music==
[[Electronic music]] facilitates the use of any kind of microtonal tuning, and sidesteps the need to develop new notational systems.<ref name="Griffiths-Lindley-Zannos-2001" /> In 1954, [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]] built his electronic ''[[Studie II]]'' on an 81-step scale starting from 100&nbsp;Hz with the interval of 5<sup>1/25</sup> between steps,<ref>{{cite book | last = Stockhausen | first = Karlheinz | year = 1964 | title = Texte 2: Aufsätze 1952–1962 zur musikalischen Praxis | trans-title = Texts 2: Essays on musical practice 1952–1962 | editor-first = Dieter | editor-last = Schnebel | location = Cologne | publisher = Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg | page = 37}}</ref> and in ''[[Gesang der Jünglinge]]'' (1955–56) he used various scales, ranging from seven up to sixty equal divisions of the octave.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Decroupet | first1 = Pascal | first2 = Elena | last2 = Ungeheuer | date = Winter 1998 | title = Through the Sensory Looking-Glass: The Aesthetic and Serial Foundations of Gesang der Jünglinge |translator=Jerome Kohl|translator-link=Jerome Kohl|journal=[[Perspectives of New Music]]| volume = 36 | number = 1 | pages = 105, 116, 119–121| doi = 10.2307/833578 | jstor = 833578 }}</ref> In 1955, [[Ernst Krenek]] used 13 equal-tempered intervals per octave in his Whitsun oratorio, ''Spiritus intelligentiae, sanctus''.<ref name="Griffiths-Lindley-Zannos-2001"/>

In 1979–80 Easley Blackwood composed a set of ''[[Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media]],'' a cycle that explores all of the equal temperaments from 13 notes to the octave through 24 notes to the octave, including [[15 equal temperament|15-ET]] and [[19 equal temperament|19-ET]].<ref>{{citation | last1 = Blackwood | first1 = Easley | first2 = Jeffrey | last2 = Kust | year = 2005 | orig-year = 1996 | title = Easley Blackwood: Microtonal Compositions | edition = Second | publisher = [[Cedille Records]] }}</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=November 2014<!--Place of publication and ISBN needed.-->}}{{Page needed|date=November 2014}} "The project," he wrote, "was to explore the tonal and modal behavior of all [of these] equal tunings..., devise a notation for each tuning, and write a composition in each tuning to illustrate good chord progressions and the practical application of the notation".<ref>{{citation | last = Blackwood | first = Easley | date = n.d. | title = Liner notes to "Blackwood: Microtonal Compositions" [CDR018] | url = http://www.dramonline.org/albums/blackwood-microtonal-compositions/notes | publisher = [[Cedille Records]]}}</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=November 2014<!--To judge from the catalog number, presumably this is a CD rather than an LP or MP3 file, which should be specified, as well as the year of release and a place of publication, if given on the disc or accompanying booklet.-->}}

In 1986, [[Wendy Carlos]] experimented with many microtonal systems including [[just intonation]], using alternate tuning scales she invented for the album ''[[Beauty In the Beast]]''. "This whole formal discovery came a few weeks after I had completed the album, ''Beauty in the Beast'', which is wholly in new tunings and timbres".<ref>{{cite web | last = Carlos | first = Wendy | author-link = Wendy Carlos | date = 1989–1996 | url = http://www.wendycarlos.com/resources/pitch.html | title = Three Asymmetric Divisions of the Octave | work = wendycarlos.com | access-date = March 28, 2009}}</ref>

In 2016, electronic music composed with arbitrary microtonal scales was explored on the album ''Radionics Radio: An Album of Musical Radionic Thought Frequencies'' by British composer [[Meadow House|Daniel Wilson]], who derived his compositions' tunings from frequency-runs submitted by users of a custom-built [[web application]] replicating [[radionics|radionics-based]] electronic soundmaking equipment used by Oxford's [[George de la Warr|De La Warr Laboratories]] in the late 1940s, thereby supposedly embodying thoughts and concepts within the tunings.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Murphy | first = Ben | title = Making Waves | journal = Electronic Sound | date = January 2017 | number = 26 | pages = 70–75}}</ref>

Finnish artist [[Aleksi Perälä]] works exclusively in a microtonal system known as the Colundi sequence.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-01-10 |title="Colundi" is Music Tuned to Frequencies That Heal the Body |url=https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/colundi-aleksi-perala-interview |access-date=2022-12-01 |website=Bandcamp Daily}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-11-01 |title=Igloo Magazine :: Aleksi Perälä (Ovuca) :: The original harmony of Human and Nature |url=https://igloomag.com/profiles/aleksi-perala-oct-2021 |access-date=2022-12-01 |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Limitations of some synthesizers===
The [[MIDI]] 1.0 specification does not directly support microtonal music, because each note-on and note-off message only represents one chromatic tone. However, microtonal scales can be emulated using [[pitch bend]]ing, such as in [[LilyPond]]'s implementation.<ref>{{cite web |author1=LilyPond project |author-link1=LilyPond |title=LilyPond – Notation Reference v2.21.7 (development-branch). |url=http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.21/Documentation/notation/supported-notation-for-midi |website=LilyPond |access-date=28 October 2020 |page=3.5.1 Supported notation for MIDI |language=en |quote=Microtones but ''not'' microtonal chords. A MIDI player that supports pitch bending will also be required.}}</ref>

Although some synthesizers allow the creation of customized microtonal scales, this solution does not allow compositions to be transposed. For example, if each B note is raised one quarter tone, then the "raised 7th" would only affect a C major scale.