Student Series (Microtonal Piano) - by Chris Vaisvil

Thanks to the suggestion of my friend Neil Haverstick, I started to write student level microtonal piano pieces meant to be played on a regular midi controller using a microtonal sound source. There are several free microtonal VSTis available and many more paid ones. In the near future I will list some here to help you. The compositions are targeted students with modest a skill level and are free for academic or non-commercial use.

An academic performance in a setting where a fee is charged is allowed. Any other commercial use without my permission is not. Please write me (chris@untwelve.org) for permission in such a case.

Thank you Neil Haverstick for suggesting this project.

Notes:

Piano Exercise in 17 Notes per Octave (May 18 2016) is an attempt to write something playable for a piano student that has modest skills. The score is purposely scordatura because I think that notating in various microtonal accidentals is simply a burden when a person with a 12 equal midi controller and microtonal aware sound source set to 17 notes per octave (like a free Xen-Arts VSTi) can simply play the score as if it was written for 12 equal but the sound will be in 17 equal and produce the microtonal music of the score. A note on the composition: it is a of a nested ABA'B' form.

Piano Exercise in 15 Notes per Octave (May 22nd 2016) is another attempt to write something playable for a piano student that has modest skills. The score is purposely scordatura because I think that notating in various microtonal accidentals is simply a burden when a person with a 12 equal midi controller and microtonal aware sound source set to 15 notes per octave (like a free Xen-Arts VSTi) can simply play the scare as if it was written for 12 equal but the sound will be in 15 equal and produce the microtonal music of the score. A note on the composition: it is ABACC' form with held chords serving as a sort of compositional 'glue'.

Etude for Piano in 22-edo Superpyth [12] (July 7th 2016) is another in my series of writing something playable for a piano student that has modest skills in a microtonal tuning. Since this tuning is in a 12 note per octave subset of 22 notes per octave the score is to be played as written after setting your sound source to 22-edo "superpyth" tuning.

Piano Exercise in 17 Notes per Octave (August 8th 2016) is another in my series of writing something playable for a piano student that has modest skills in a microtonal tuning. The score is purposely scordatura because I think that notating in various microtonal accidentals is simply a burden when a person with a 12 equal midi controller and microtonal aware sound source set to 17 notes per octave (like a free Xen-Arts VSTi) can simply play the score as if it was written for 12 equal but the sound will be in 17 equal and produce the microtonal music of the score. The composition is somewhat free form with development.

Animated score version HERE

Now Yer Talkin' (August 23rd 2016) is a short piece for piano. The composition is through-composed. The tuning was developed by Doug Blumeyer and he asked for a piano piece. This composition uses the comma shifts in the tuning to a fair degree in the right hand part.

Here is a half-time version to bring out the harmonies a bit more.