Kyle Gann: Microtonal Music Scores
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.

Microtonal works:

Almost all of these pieces use between 20 and 39 pitches per octave (The Insomnia of Lilacs uses 58, Amateur California Prune-Picker and Ballad for Harry use Partch's 43), and all are in just intonation except for Two Creatures, a quarter-tone piece. About half the scores here use Ben Johnston's just-intonation notation, with new accidentals for 7th, 11th, and 13th harmonics and subharmonics, usually explained in the preface to the score. Those are mostly 11-limit or 13-limit, although Whisper #4 goes up to 23-limit. Most of the rest give merely MIDI information, so that you can't tell what pitches are intended without consulting the pitch key, usually also in the preface to the score. My only microtonal work not yet included here is my chamber opera The Watermelon Cargo.

The Aardvarks' Parade (MIDI score) for microtonal keyboard and soundfile (2009) - 10 minutes; recording

The Afterlife of Sitting Bull for electronic soundfile (2024) - 7 minutes; recording (no score)

Amateur California Prune-Picker for Partch instruments (2018/2022) - 10 minutes

Anaconda (MIDI score) for microtonal keyboard (2022) - 17 minutes; recording

Arcana XVI (MIDI score) for three keyboards (1998) - 8 minutes

Ballad for Harry (MIDI and Johnston) for Partch Chromelodeon (2024) - 6 minutes

Charing Cross for keyboard and soundfile (2007) - 8 minutes; recording

Cinderella's Bad Magic for five singers, flute, three electronic keyboards, and fretless bass (2002) - 43 minutes

Custer and Sitting Bull for actor, keyboard, and electronic background (1995-1999) - text assembled by Kyle Gann from historical sources - 35 minutes; recordings here

The Day Revisited for flute, clarinet, two keyboard samplers, and fretless bass in 29-pitch just intonation (2005) - 13 minutes; recording

Echoes of Nothing (2011) - 2 movements, 14 minutes; 1. Nothing; 2. Something;

Fractured Paradise for keyboard sampler and soundfile (1995) - 4 minutes; recording

Fugitive Objects for retuned keyboard sampler (2007) - 7 minutes; recording

Ghost Town (keyboard score only) for soundfile (1994) - 10 minutes; recording

Homage to Cowell for keyboard sampler (1994) - 5 minutes; recording

How Miraculous Things Happen for keyboard sampler and soundfile (1997) - 11 minutes; recording

Hyperchromatica for three retuned Disklaviers (2015-17; 2020-21); total duration 3 hours, 23 minutes; recordings here

Study scores in Johnston notation:

Andromeda Memories- 8:21
Futility Row- 8:53
Orbital Resonance - 11:30
Pavane for a Dead Planet - 9:07
Star Dance- 6:39
Ride the Cosmos- 6:15
Dark Forces Signify - 8:14
Busted Grooves - 7:12
Rings of Saturn - 13:31
Pulsars - 10:24 (revised)
Spacecat - 4:21
Extravehicular Activity - 9:10
Reverse Gravity - 5:56
Romance Postmoderne - 8:32
Geometry - 17:14
Galactic Jamboree - 7:16

Videos with scores

MIDI scores for three pianos:

Andromeda Memories- 8:21
Futility Row- 8:53
Orbital Resonance - 11:30
Pavane for a Dead Planet - 9:07
Star Dance - 6:39
Ride the Cosmos - 6:15
Dark Forces Signify - 8:14
The Lessing Is Miracle - 9:38
Busted Grooves - 7:12
Rings of Saturn - 13:31
Pulsars - 10:24 (revised)
Delta Oracle - 9:03
Neptune Night - 14:11
Spacecat - 4:21
Extravehicular Activity - 9:10
Reverse Gravity - 5:56
Romance Postmoderne - 8:32
Geometry (Homage to Schillinger) - 17:14
2.7 Kelvin - 12:37
Liquid Mechanisms - 13:20
Galactic Jamboree - 7:16

The Insomnia of Lilacs for soundfile (2018) - 31:16; recording

Love Scene for string quartet (2003) - 6 minutes; MIDI version recording

Mystic Chords for soundfile (2012) - 6:20; recording

New Aunts for retuned keyboard sampler (2008) - 5 minutes; recording

Nursery Tunes for Weird Children for three retuned pianos (2012/15) - 10 minutes; recordings:

1. Down to the End of the Town
2. Up the Hill and Up Again
3. Tiger, Tiger, Turning Right
4. The Cracked Bells of St. Swithun's
5. Jack Ate a Blackbird

Romance Postmoderne, version for two keyboards (2012) - 9 minutes; recording

Snake Dance No. 3 for four percussionists, two microtonal keyboards, and fretless bass (or third microtonal keyboard) (2010) - 11 minutes; recording

Solitaire for keyboard sampler and soundfile (2009) - 14 minutes; recording

So Many Little Dyings for keyboard sampler (1994) - 6 minutes; recording

Superparticular Woman for keyboard sampler and soundfile (1992) - 4 minutes; recording

Triskaidekaphonia (MIDI score) for retuned keyboard sampler (2005) - 4 minutes; recording

Two Creatures for quarter-tone accordion (2015/8) - 9 minutes; recordings:

1. Reticent Behemoth
2. Affable Denizen

Two Random Microtonal Studies for retuned keyboard (2020) - 10 minutes

Study No. 1
Study No. 2

The Unnameable for keyboard sampler and soundfile (2012) - 12 minutes; recording

Whispers for retuned keyboard (2020-21), in study score or performance score - 42 minutes; recording



return to the scores page
return to the alternate tunings page
return to the home page