18 Tone Music - Homage to Eugene Lee

18 Tone Music

Homage to Eugene Lee

It’s like that unsettling scene in 2001 with anachronistic household items.

Our perception is of a definite beating pattern, a beating pattern alien to 12-EDO, but occasional resolutions to something comforting from home–whole tone harmonies (9-EDO).

In the 80s sound was being used to help surgeons find their way to tumors in the brain.

X-EDO is outer space, but what might guide us through is recognizable beating patterns?

Lee’s music teaches me to respond to the 1/3 tones. They are infectious. His enthusiasm for them comes across in his music. The beating patters are infectious. With time, collections in the 18-tone universe may get under our skin. The composers have to lead us there and we will drink. Land it, transpose it, re-dispose it, give us a chance to feel it.

Composers are brave, risking their lives exploring the extraplanetary, the utterly not bourgeois.

Major Tom to ground control –

“I am hearing 18-tone beat patterns!

Ground control to Maj Tom –

We’ve found you. Setting tractor beam to 18 tone field…

–Wm Anderson