Bass Marimba

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Recreation of a instrument designed by Harry Partch in 1950

Videos with Bass Marimba

  • Three Dances (1952) by Harry Partch

    Notes

    1. Samba—A DECENT AND HONORABLE MISTAKE
    2. Heartbeat Rhythm—RHYTHM OF THE WOMB–MELODY OF THE GRAVE
    3. Afro-Chinese Minuet—HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

    We begin this evening’s concert with the Three Dances that begin the third section of Partch’s Plectra & Percussion Dances (1952). The composer warned, “It’s an amazing fact that the world of dance music, and of Latin American dance music particularly, has produced an army of purists that is equal of anything that serious classical music can offer. I say this in order to advise you that the first scene, for example, “A Decent and Honorable Mistake,” may not be recognizable to you as a samba. The second scene, “Rhythm of the Womb, Melody of the Grave,” is based on a rhythmically contrapuntal heartbeat. The third scene, “Happy Birthday to You!” begins with an African-sounding marimba and somehow gets involved with a Chinese- sounding guitar in a pentatonic melody, and so I call it an Afro-Chinese Minuet.” This last dance ends with these directions: “Slowly enough that canon TRIADS are distinct,” after which they are to be played “faster than the previous runs so that the triads are NOT distinct.” The harmonies of each of those descending triads are wildly divergent, as if the composer is pausing to reminisce about various years past, but finally admits that as a 51-year old they are, in fact, a blur.

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  • Five Intrusions (1950) by Harry Partch

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    Performed by PARTCH Ensemble at REDCAT, June 2024

    1. Study #1 Olympos’ Pentatonic
    2. The Wind (Ella Young, Lao-tze)
    3. Study #2 Archytas’ Enharmonic
    4. The Street (Willard Motley)
    5. The Waterfall (Ella Young)

    Those instruments were also explored in Partch’s chimerically titled suite of twelve compositions called Intrusions. This subset of five include his Two Studies on Ancient Greek Scales that were originally for solo Harmonic Canon, to which he later added a bass marimba obligatto. Another Canon was strung and bridged in his 43-note octave from C#3-C#4 for The Wind whose hyperchromatic arpeggios hauntingly evoke two moods of that natural phenomenon that can both caress or destroy. The first text comes from the pen of Irish born poet Ella Young who lived in the Bay Area for many years, with the second from 6th century Chinese poet/philosoper Lao Tze that Partch had previously set in his 1935 memoir Bitter Music. In The Street, the chilly wind that blows over the jails and cartracks of Chicago sets the final paragraphs of Willard Motley’s 1947 best seller Knock on Any Door that describes a young Italian immigrant’s downward spiral from altar boy to criminal. And finally, Ella Young—also a Celtic mythologist who believed in fairies, pixies, and praised the benefits of talking to trees— returns to interrogate The Waterfall, curious as to why it would possibly seek oblivion after such a vivacious life in the sunlight.

    — JS

    This performance was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

    This performance was also made possible in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture.

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  • Scenes from Huxley’s Last Trip, live at REDCAT, June 2024

    Notes

    “LSD: Huxley’s Last Trip,” an opera with music by Anne LeBaron and a libretto by Gerd Stern, Ed Rosenfeld, and Anne LeBaron, charts the powerful cultural, political, and spiritual forces ignited by Albert Hofmann’s discovery of lysergic acid diethylamide. Represented by three sopranos, the LSD Trio (Love, Sex, and Death) embarks on a journey, encountering a diverse cast of characters influential in science, literature, entertainment, national security, and politics. The four scenes on this video represent about half of the opera. (For the remaining scenes, see “LSD: The Opera” on this YouTube channel.)

    Performances took place at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles on June 14-15, 2024.

    Librettists: Gerd Stern, Ed Rosenfeld, and Anne LeBaron

    • Scene 1: Huxley’s Last Trip—Part 1
    • Scene 3: Double Helix: Soliloquy No. 1 (a twisted example…)
    • Scene 6: Three Lunches: Soliloquy No. 2 (Finnegan’s Wake)
    • Scene 8: Mary Meyer and JFK

    The Cast (in order of appearance)

    • Aldous Huxley SCOTT GRAFF
    • Laura Huxley; LSD Trio (Death) AUBREY BABCOCK
    • LSD Trio (Love); Jackie Kennedy ANNA SCHUBERT
    • LSD Trio (Sex); Marilyn Monroe NELLE ANDERSON
    • James Watson; John F. Kennedy DOMINIC DELZOMPO
    • Francis Crick; Timothy Leary TODD STRANGE
    • Albert Hofmann; Marshall McLuhan JON KEENAN
    • Anita Hofmann; Mary Meyer MARIA ELENA ALTANY

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  • The Letter — A depression message from a hobo friend (1943/55)

    Notes

    PARTCH Ensemble performing Harry Partch’s San Francisco—A setting of the cries of Two Newsboys on a Foggy Night in the Twenties at REDCAT on June 16-17, 2023.

    “A collection of musical compositions based on the spoken and written words of hobos and other characters—the result of my wanderings in the Western part of the United States from 1935 to 1941.”

    ~ Harry Partch on The Wayward

    Program note by John Schneider:

    The text for The Letter comes from the composer’s long-lost hobo journal Bitter Music (1935-36) that he initially set to music in 1943 under the title “Letter From Hobo Pablo,” a friend whom he met at a Federal Shelter in Stockton. The 24-year old Pablo was, “… the one sensitive person I have met and the only one I can bear to talk to,” so when they are told that they must go to a work camp “…to work 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, tobacco & work clothes furnished, and $4 a month besides,” they both chose Harrington Ranch. Pablo only lasted three weeks, being expelled for drinking, but Partch was clearly pleased when he recounts the letter he received three months later, which he introduces as “Echoes from Mandolin-Face of the tooth-fretted Lips.

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  • Ulysses at the Edge of the World (1955/62)

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    PARTCH Ensemble performing Harry Partch’s Ulysses at the Edge of the World — A Minor Adventure in Rhythm at REDCAT on June 16-17, 2023.

    “A collection of musical compositions based on the spoken and written words of hobos and other characters—the result of my wanderings in the Western part of the United States from 1935 to 1941.”

    ~ Harry Partch on The Wayward

    Program note by John Schneider:

    Ulysses at the Edge of the World was written for jazz great Chet Baker, to be accompanied by double bass and BooBams, bamboo tubes with skin heads that inspired Partch’s own 64-note tongue drum version he called “Boo.” Sadly, Baker was too busy to premiere the piece, and a few years later Partch added a baritone sax part as he had become a fan of Baker’s duets with Gerry Mulligan. The piece was eventually recorded by another pair of players, and in the liner notes to the LP New Music for Trumpet, the composer relates:

    At the time I was writing it the feeling of my hobo years was strong. As a wanderer myself (like Ulysses) I had often been asked the question, “Have you ever been arrested before?” and it struck me as very humorous to be able to ask another wanderer the same question.

    However, the duet version did not include the previous invitation, “Trumpet can improvise here if it wants, preferably on this six-tone scale…using the same 7/8 accompaniment.” So tonight, we couldn’t resist honoring Partch’s initial intent since both of our soloists are not only recognized stalwarts of the new music scene, but also major contributors to this city’s vibrant jazz scene.

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  • Cloud Chamber Music by Harry Partch

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    PARTCH Ensemble performing Harry Partch’s Cloud Chamber Music at REDCAT on June 16-17, 2023.

    Program note by John Schneider:

    Cloud Chamber Music (1950) opens with a sonorous carillon on four Cloud-Chamber Bowls, their distinctive bell-like tones yielding to a mournful microtonal lament on Adapted Viola and Adapted Guitar. Following this, in a faster tempo, the Viola introduces the melody of “Canción de los Muchachos” of the Isleta tribe of New Mexico (a tune Partch learned when transcribing it from an Edison cylinder recorded by Charles Lummis). This is then sung by all the musicians, accompanying themselves on their instruments, except the Kithara, whose player takes up a Native American deer-hoof rattle. This ritual provokes another outburst on the Cloud-Chamber Bowls. Ben Johnston has suggested a scenario implicit in this sequence of musical events: “Cloud-Chamber Music,” he writes, “begins as a depressed reaction to a false clarion, but then seizes American Indian incentives as a reinvigorating antidote.”

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  • Amateur California Prune Picker (2022) — by Kyle Gann

    Notes

    Live at REDCAT, June 16-17, 2023

    Program note by Kyle Gann:

    As a long-time microtonalist, I’ve always wanted to write something for the Harry Partch instruments, so I am extremely grateful to John Schneider for offering me the chance. My idea was to prove, or perhaps I should say test, the universality of Partch’s ensemble by trying to write in a style that didn’t sound like Partch. Accordingly, I concentrated on the microtonal relationships among the various harmonies, and had to wrestle with the fact that not all of his instruments had the same pitches. After fifty years of composing, I was made to feel like a rank amateur in this totally idiosyncratic environment, and as Partch inveighed against his performers looking like an “amateur California prune picker,” I thought I should embrace the title. Were I to attempt a second essay, I would probably surrender and write “à la Harry.” — K.G.

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  • PARTCH Ensemble and Del Sol Quartet premiere “One-Footed” by Taylor Brook

    Notes

    Live at REDCAT Theater in Los Angeles on June 17, 2022.

    Program note by Taylor Brook:

    The title of this work refers to a fascinating chart in Harry Partch’s Genesis of a Music: “The One-footed Bride.” Resembling the outline of a foot, this chart marks out just intervals and their inversions along either side of a central axis. In this chart, one finds diatonic interval regions associated with expressive qualities; seconds and sevenths with “approach,” thirds and sixths with “emotion,” perfect fourths and fifths with “power,” and the tritone region with “suspense.” While highly subjective, there’s a certain intuitive sense to these pairings. Even more fascinating for me was how Partch fits his 43-note scale into a diatonic structure. What this suggests is that we might understand the many intervals of Partch’s scale as shadings within each region. This became the foundation of my piece, One-footed: an exploration of the expressive potential of thinking about pitch and interval in this way. The instrumentation for One-footed combines a string quartet with many of Partch’s famous instruments. As a composer writing in 2021 I enjoy the legacy of composers like Partch and Ben Johnston, where performers like the Del Sol Quartet now deeply understand just intonation, and I see the PARTCH ENSEMBLE as a whole new type of orchestra that can finally be bridged to as a result. One-footed was written for the combined forces of Del Sol Quartet and PARTCH Ensemble in 2020-2021.

    This performance was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

    We also acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

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  • Making Music: T.J. Troy

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    T.J. Troy discusses his composition “Five-Corner Square” for the Partch Mallet Trio, including Bass Marimba, Boo, and Diamond Marimba. Together with Artistic Director John Schneider, T.J. discusses the idiosyncratic behaviors and melodic tendencies that informed his part writing for each individual instrument, as well as the broader rhythmic and harmonic schemes employed across the entire work.

    This video is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

  • Five-Corner Square (remote presentation)

    Notes

    Presented remotely on June 4-5, 2021

    Five-Corner Square is the first in a series of planned compositional studies designed to explore the melodic and harmonic possibilities of the Mallet Trio of the Partch instrumentarium, consisting of the Bass Marimba, Diamond Marimba, and Boo (Bamboo Marimba). The Mallet Trio is a distinct voice used throughout Harry Partch’s repertoire, and having served 18 years as PARTCH Ensemble’s resident Bass Marimbist, it has brought immense joy to my life as a performing artist to engage these unique compositional moments, and so given the opportunity to create new music for the Ensemble to perform, this instrumentation was a natural fit for my compositional endeavors and a great opportunity to create new music to perform with my bandmates Erin Barnes and Nick Terry. A virtuosic tour de force, the piece is intended to light the fire of inspiration under each player, as its rhythmic complexity and statistical density only become magnified as the trio enjoins itself in its culminating counterpoint.

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  • Mount San Antonio 1944 (remote presentation)

    Notes

    Mount San Antonio 1944 is inspired by a text written by Dale F. Stewart on June 27, 1944, in a notebook found at the peak of Mt. San Antonio (AKA Mt. Baldy). Stewart was at Caltech that year, and Caltech was heavily involved in the USA’s war efforts in both Europe and the Pacific. US troops had landed at Normandy only three weeks prior, and the US military would detonate atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki about one year later (several key Manhattan Project personnel were from Caltech). Meanwhile, JPL co-founder Jack Parsons would soon leave the institution – due in part to his devotion to occultist (and mountaineer) Aleister Crowley and budding friendship with Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. All of this is to say that there was probably a lot on Dale F. Stewart’s mind as he surveyed the vistas from Mount San Antonio. 

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  • Castor and Pollux (remote presentation with choreography by Sarah Swenson)

    Notes

    World premiere choreography by Sarah Swenson

    Performed by Cheryl Banks-Smith, TamsinCarlson, Queala Clancy, Tori Cone, Miranda Cox, and Sarah Swenson

    Perhaps the only ‘triple exposure’ in music history, Partch called this infectious dance music, “A tribute to the twin stars of luck. Atonal-dynamic dithyramb. A ritualistic ecstasy…In Castor each of the first three sections requires pairs of different instruments and dancers, all three of which have identical measure patterns, but not necessarily the same rhythms. Number 4, then, is the total of these, played and danced simultaneously. Thus, three different compositions become one composition—the “Delivery,” the logical result and the sum total of the factors that make it inevitable. Pollux follows the same plan: Numbers 5, 6, and 7 combined to result in Number 8.”

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  • Dark Brother

    Notes

    Music by Harry Partch (1901-1974)
    Final two paragraph’s of Thomas Wolfe’s “God’s Lonely Man.”

    Performers:
    Alison Bjorkedal – Kithara I
    Vicki Ray – Chromolodeon
    Derek Stein – Adapted Viola
    T.J. Troy – Bass Marimba and Voice
    Video captured and edited by Video Angel Productions
    Audio recorded by Chris Votek

    Presented by Jacaranda Music Series, First Presbyterian Church, Santa Monica, CA, November 9, 2019.

  • World Premiere of “Future Lilacs” (2016) by Ken Ueno

    Notes

    Color Theory Concert: PRISM Quartet and Partch

    Ken Ueno: My work, “Future Lilacs,” metaphorically connects to color theory in blending different temperaments. It is the scientific reduction of sounds to a common denominator (thinking in terms of frequencies rather than scales) that helps me with this approach, which I consider a Newtonian way of rationalizing the ineffable.

    June 12, 2016

    Co-Presented by PRISM Quartet and Roulette

  • Partch performing Castor & Pollux at Roulette, New York, NY

    Notes

    PRISM Quartet and Partch (East Coast Debut)

    CASTOR & POLLUX (1952) by Harry Partch (1901 – 1974)

    A Dance for the Twin Rhythms of Gemini

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  • O Frabjous Day

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    PARTCH Ensemble performs “O Frabjous Day” on June 20, 2015

    Set to poem of the same name, by Lewis Carroll

    Music composed by Harry Partch

    Live at the REDCAT Theater, Los Angeles, CA

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  • Ulysses at the Edge of the World

    Notes

    Harry Partch’s Ulysses at the Edge of the World, originally written for jazz trumpeter Chet Baker and subtitled “A Minor Adventure in Rhythm,” also exists in multiple versions. In its 4th and final incarnation, the composer joined trumpet and baritone sax to honor the popular Chet Baker/Gerry Mulligan duo [he was a fan], replacing the initial double bass part with the Bass Marimba. Syncopations and time signatures of five and seven easily predate Dave Brubeck, culminating in a pithy punchline that features a cop arresting the titular homeless Greek hero for vagrancy.

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  • Castor & Pollux, live at REDCAT, 2008

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    Performed by Partch Ensemble on May 31, 2008

    A wild ride in Disney Hall as Music of Microtonal Composer/Inventor Harry Partch Is performed on amazing Instruments by PARTCH, an acclaimed ensemble Under the direction of John Schneider, -Noted Musician, Educator, Founder of Microfest, He hosts the KPFK weekly Radio Show “Global Village” and also hosted the “SOUNDBOARD TV series.

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