Lake at Gesundheit

The first camp took place at the Gesundheit! Institute in Hillsboro, West Virginia, from July 25 through August 5, 2011. It hosted 18 participants.

Mornings began with JI Praxis Choir, in which Just Intonation theory was combined with created attempts to sing the things we were talking about. By the end, we had made it up to the 11 limit, sung some rounds in harmonic series scales, grokked lattices and common tone modulations, and touched the tiniest bit on Combination Product Sets and the broader art of Scalesmithery. We used a combination of Andrew Heathwaite's extended solfege and Sagittal notation to bridge traditional and microtonal theories.

Before lunch, Elizabeth Adams presented a compositional concept and a related assignment. Warmup assignments led into each participant designing their own assignment for the second week.

In the afternoon, participants divided into small ensembles, where each person had the option to compose for that ensemble, urged on by the assignments. The mid-session concert represented the accumulation of this work, after which we regrouped into an acoustic ensemble (AcousCous) and an attempted laptop ensemble (the Scale Tree Orchestra).

In the evenings, we exchanged microtonal music and stories, as well as presentations:

Thanks to Chris Vaisvil, Dan Sedgwick, and Denny Genovese for recording the two concerts. Videos:

Some of the scores composed during the camp were the formative basis for the Sagittal Songbook.

CLOSING CONCERT ~ August 4, 2011

Participants of Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp 2011:
Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp is presented by Oddmusic International and UnTwelve. Special thanks to Roxanne Sawhill, the Gesundheit! Institute and School for Designing a Society.