Dean of the College Presents
Professor Kyle Gann
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Hyperchromatica: A New Approach to Harmony
The natural number series - translated into sound as the harmonic series - is a richly fertile and greatly underused resource for music composition. Earlier this year Kyle Gann released (as a two-CD set) a two-and-a-half-hour piece for pianos called Hyperchromatica, in seventeen movements based entirely on 33 pitches per octave from a single harmonic series. The piece represents a new approach to microtonality, in that it includes traditional chord structures yet bends them around the edges in a way that pushes the listener to new perceptions of harmony and rhythm. Gann will explain the (simple) mathematics of the tuning, and demonstrate how different movements take advantage of its various numerical aspects. (For instance, 49 turns out to be an unexpectedly interesting number in tuning structures.) As The Wire magazine commented on the piece, "Time itself seems to lurch into an intoxicated reel as glinting microtones teem and teeter woozily within its elastic measures... Gann has created something distinctive, aurally and conceptually cleansing, often startling and strange."
Please join us for a reception prior to the event beginning at 6:00 p.m. in the Faculty Commons Room
Please join us for a reception prior to the event beginning at 6:00 p.m. in the Faculty Commons Room
For more information, call 845-758-7421, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm EST/GMT-5