#microtones

Ah,, Microtonal music is music that uses intervals less than a semitone or sound systems other than the standard 12-tone system (12-TET). Intervals that divide a semitone into even smaller parts (quarter tones, third tones, etc)

As everyone knows, there are 12 notes, if you count the black keys. The octave is divided not into 12, but into a different number of parts (19, 24, 31 or 53 sounds). for example, 31 EDO, there will not be 12 notes in one octave, as in the usual 12-TET, but 31 notes in one octave, the same way they work with others.. 19 EDO, 24 EDO, 53 EDO, 72 EDO and etc,,

Carlos was a big part of the early electronic music scene, and she contributed greatly to it. With a composition degree and great computer knowledge she joined Robert Moog in developing the first commersially available synthesizer (pictured in the background). With it, she created her breakthrough album Switched on Bach, where Bach's well known music was arranged for the synthesizer. Thereafter she got to make movie soundtracks. The Shining and A Clockwork Orange are two of them, both directed by Stanley Kubrick. Those are also examples of where classical music meets the synth. Carlos did also meddle in microtonal theory and alternative tempraments.

Wendy Carlos is a trans woman. At the start of her carreer she appeard as a man, but she waited to come out because of her relative fame. When she finally came out as a woman the reactions were mostly positive or neutral. It seems like the public were more interested in her music than her identity.

Carlos is still alive, and at 86 years of age she lives in anonymity. The worls has changed a lot for trans people during her lifetime, mostly for the better. But the topic has become much more controversial. Each trans person deserves a reception like the one Carlos got in the 70s, without any hate and political extremism.

Composer Catherine Lamb (b. 1983) deals with harmonic spectra and microtones in her work. Slow, staggered presentations of overtones unfold into rich vertical sonorities,  with the tiniest shift in intonation serving more as an event than an inflection. Ghost Ensemble (Margaret Lancaster, flute; Sky Macklay, oboe; Ben Richter, accordion; Lucia Stavros, harp; Chris Nappi, hammered dulcimer; Martine Thomas, viola; Tyler J Borden, cello; James Ilgenfritz and Gregory Chudzik, contrabass) is a go-to for adventurous music-making, and they take to Lamb’s with commitment and precision.