Xenon

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(This collection includes works for solo harpsichord, solo percussion, string quartet, and wind quintet.)

Xenon is a collection of studies in microtonality, written for an elective course in Microtonal Performance and Composition at the University of Illinois, under the instruction of Dr. Stephen Andrew Taylor. Each short etude is named after a property of the element xenon, in a way that connects either through imagery or punnery to the instrumentation or tuning system of that etude. Additionally, the use of xenon as the title and inspiration for the collection is a pun on the description of microtonal music as being “xenharmonic”. Finally, the titles of each of the five etudes, when abbreviated in order, spell out X-E-N-O-N. The etudes and their tuning bases are as follows:

I. “X is For…”: An exercise in historical European temperaments, this etude for solo harpsichord utilizes Rameau tuning on C, which leaves the fifth between Eb and Bb upon which the work is based the most dissonant compared to the ideal fifth.

II. “Electrostatics”: This etude for a solo percussionist with chimes and bass steel pans is written in twelve-tone equal temperament, but utilizes a scale derived from analyzing the inharmonic spectrum of the timbre of chimes.

III. “Noble”: This short 8-bar phrase for string quartet in 5-limit just intonation, is designed to end on a major chord exactly one syntonic comma higher than it started. The phrase may be repeated as many times as desired.

IV. “Old Planets”: This is a jazzy etude for a wind quintet in 7-limit just intonation, exploring the just intonation dominant seventh chord.

V. “Nuclear Poison”: This work for Harry Partch’s diamond marimba, an 11-limit just intonation instrument, is built by spiraling around the instrument’s layout from the corner to center and back, also serving as a HEJI transcription of the instrument.