Harry Partch Virtual Instrument Library

jbenzola · Joined: Dec 11, 2003 Posts: 77 Location: NY

You know, sometimes the Internet makes me so happy that I could just cry!
On the Music Maverick site ( An NPR radio program and website didicated to the American maverick composer tradition), they have setup a virtual studio with all of Harry Partch's handmade instruments which you can play via your mouse or keyboard. This is just sooooooooo damm cool. The link to this vision of satori is http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/feature_partch.html#

After that, you need to check out the interview section that has such groovy cats as Harold Budd, Lamont Young, Glenn Branca and more... a lot more:!: Exclamation

mosc · Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2004 3:16 pm Post subject:

A great site for sure. Thanks for sharing the link...

I have a little bit of trouble playing the instruments. The keyboard doesn't seem to work for me, just the mouse. I tried Firefox and IE. Also, if you play fast on the instruments and generate a bunch of overlapping notes, there seems to be not enough headroom and it distorts badly. Anybody else see this?

zynthetix · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 3:36 pm Post subject:

Thats a great link. I'm glad somebody fused Harry Partch's unique instruments with an interface that allows you to get some sense of how and what kind of sound they create.

the keyboard in firefox worked fine me. The audio was a bit gritty, but I figured that was compression.

mosc · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 8:09 pm Post subject:

ATTENTION: Go to OTHER -> Voice and play the Voice music clip. http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/feature_partch.html#

This is a must hear. Harry Partch sings with his playing in unison. It's very effective. There is something we can all learn from here. The words are very inspirational as well.

zynthetix · Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:18 pm Post subject:

my programs don't want to open the voice file. (maybe it was a bad download?) What program did you use for playback?

seraph · Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 12:34 am Post subject:

mosc · Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:51 am Post subject:

zynthetix · Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:04 pm Post subject:

mosc · Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:09 pm Post subject:

Well, Zynth, temper your techno biases and download the player. It's worth it.

Ponk · Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 4:18 am Post subject:

I just droned with the marimba eroica and the surrogate kithara. It is simply incredible for a musical illiterate like myself to be able to create sounds that are almost like music.

Droning is the actual form of trance music. That so called "trance music" has nothing to do with trance Laughing

. As Sonic Boom from Spacemen 3 put it:

seraph · Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 5:31 am Post subject: