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Polyphony for 12 - Ballad

from Polyphony for 12 by joel taylor

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Polyphony for 12 - Ballad
is a polytempic, polymicrotonal work. It is scored for 3 pianos, 3 marimbas, 2 vibraphones, 2 tubular bells, 1 steel pan, and 1 hand pan.
Both version of Polyphony for 12 (Ballad, and Dream) are what G. Ligeti would have called micro-polyphonies, that is, polyphonies where there are so many notes flying around that the whole is essentially a flowing, complex texture, out of which the ear may pick up emergent melodic lines, rather than a weaving of individual lines into an emergent texture...
The "Ballad" part of the title comes from considering the emotive effects of the ballad-like blues lines formed out of the fundamental melody or "seed idea" that informs the piece.
Part of the composing of this piece consists of putting this seed idea into a database that a Max patch (a form of computer program) uses as its basic material. This patch develops the material using both statistical methods and deterministic methods that are derived from subtractive-additive rhythmic methods found in Carnatic music.
Each instrument in Polyphony for 12 is performing 3 melodic lines simultaneously. So there are, at most, 12 x 3 = 36, simultaneous melodic lines being played at one time. This gives rise to a swirling whirlpool of colors, as the instrument timbres and tunings in the work combine in various ways both expected and unexpected.


TUNINGS:
In the Ballad version of Polyphony for 12 the microtonal scales or tunings used are all obtained from the Scala scale library, as follows:
12-22h, Paul Erlich's hexachordal 12-tone scale derived from 22 EDO is used in all three of the pianos.
12-22, Paul Erlich's 12-tone scale better known among microtonalists as SuperPyth [12], is used in the steel pan and 2 of the marimba voices.
12-19, a 12-tone scale derived by Joel Mandelbaum in his PhD thesis from 19 EDO, is used in the hand pan voice, in one of the tubular bells voices, and in both vibraphone voices.
12-17, a 12-tone scale derived from 17 EDO is used in one of the tubular bells voices.
14-26, a double, interlaced set of diatonic scales derived by Paul Erlich from 26 EDO is used in one of the marimbas.
For more detailed information on these scales the reader is referred to the free Scala scales database, which is available on the WWW at www.huygens-fokker.org/docs/scales.zip
The Scala program can be found on the huygens-fokker site as well, and is free.

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from Polyphony for 12, released March 27, 2017
All Album Art, Copyright Yolanda Estes, 2017, All Rights Reserved

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joel taylor Quito, Ecuador

Joel Taylor is a composer/improvisor/programmer who works with a wide variety of electronic and acoustic media. He performs on analog synths, computers, keyboards, shakuhachi, suling, flute, and percussion, and has composed concert music for orchestra, gamelan, and various chamber ensembles. ... more

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