Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp 2012

UnTwelve is now accepting applications to the second annual Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp, to take place August 3-17, 2012 at the Gesundheit! Institute (Hillsboro, West Virginia). Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp is a time and a place for musicians to compose, practice, and perform new and oddly-tuned musics together.

Introduction | Activities | Who is eligible? | Which instruments, tunings, notation? | Fees | Apply  | Facilities | Travel | Instructors and Presenters | Partners

Towards a Xenharmonic Praxis

Through a series of historical accidents, Western society’s music—instruments, history, theory, practice, pedagogy, consciousness—has come to be dominated by a single tuning system, often called “twelve-tone equal temperament.” This dominance is so pervasive that it is often completely invisible. Students of music who wonder “Why these notes on the piano, and not some others?” are all too often answered with “Those are the only correct notes—anything else is out of tune!”

A world of more satisfying answers to this question unfolds to those looking for it: millennia-old traditions of music tuned differently; surprising inquiries & insights into how we hear; proposals for new systems yet untried. This camp is for those who want to dream up and realize new, thoughtfully-tuned music and contexts which support it.

We use the term xenharmonic after microtonal pioneer Ivor Darreg, to refer to these unfamiliar-yet-hospitable musical terrains.

We use the term praxis after radical educator Paolo Freire, to refer to an ongoing dialectic between theory and practice, between action and reflection, each process informing and completing the other.

We envision a Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp where musicians from a variety of backgrounds converge and suspend the need for “one true answer” for long enough to get deep into a new, unpopular proposal; where distinct roles of audience, composer, theorist, performer, designer are inhabited temporarily, not reserved for experts or assumed as an identity.

 Activities

Composer-Performer Ensembles—Everyone will experience both composing for others and performing the music of others, in ensembles small and large. Potential ensembles will be organized in May around the available instrumentation known at that time, so that participants may begin composing before the camp begins.

Xenharmonic Praxis Choir—Learn tuning theory by singing it! We will focus on developing relative pitch and expanding the palette of intervals tunable by ear. This summer we will attempt to sing in 16EDO* (Armodue) and Erv Wilson’s 1-3-5-7-9-11 Eikosany. Led by Andrew Heathwaite.

Assignment Kitchen/Response Rehearsal—What unusual structures and performance practices does a new tuning suggest? Require?  To what unthought-of uses can new-tuned music be put?  Taking our cue from Mark Enslin, we will grow our own criteria for the composition assignments we need.  We will cook up new, delicious assignments and offer them to each other.  In good company we will bravely attempt dangerous music-recipes and with gravity and humor consider the results.  We will compose and perform engaging responses and take stock of their effects. Led by Elizabeth Adams.

Instrumentation/Tinker Time—Most instruments were not created with xenharmonics in mind; sometimes the resulting logistical challenges are welcome; other times they have a paralyzing effect. A space for sharing and discovering designs, fingerings, techniques, and tricks to detwelvulate—or even build—the musical instruments we wish to play and compose for, together. Featuring instrument builders Denny Genovese and Gayle Young.

Sagittal Notation 101—Learn how to read and write Sagittal notation, an elegant system invented in 2004 by Dave Keenan and George Secor with the intent of notating every tuning imaginable. Textbooks/workbooks/songbooks are included in the camp fee. Led by Jacob Barton.

Scale Tree Orchestra—A networked laptop ensemble exploring dynamic tonality—the possibility of real-time changes of tuning system during music-making. Led by Aaron Krister Johnson.

Downtime—impromptu jams around the fire, listening sessions, nature walks, etc.

*) EDO = Equal Divisions of the Octave.

Who is eligible to attend?

All self-described musicians with an interest in alternative tuning systems are encouraged to attend, from curious beginners to seasoned veterans. Ability to read Western music notation is helpful but not necessary; an open mind, however, is mandatory. We recommend that you have at least three years’ experience of a musical practice before attending.

Which instruments, tunings, notation?

The camp will be focused on making live performances on acoustic instruments and voice. It is recommended that you choose a primary instrument for the duration of the camp (which may involve electronics). You are also encouraged to bring any extra (microtonally-capable) instruments for an ad hoc communal instrument library.

The camp is premised on the necessity of using tunings which depart radically from the possibilities of 12-tone equal temperament, including extended Just Intonation, empirical tunings, and equal divisions of the (non)octave. We aspire to a pan-intonational, pan-notational environment where we each acknowledge our inherited and chosen biases.

Fees

The total fee to participate in Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp 2012 is $1000. Earlybird Discount: Those who confirm their participation before May 20 will receive a $200 discount (for a total fee of $800)! This fee includes room, board, and tuition. A $100 deposit will confirm your place; the remaining balance is due at the beginning of camp. A total of 25 spots are open; registration will remain open until all spots are filled. We have a limited number of scholarships for those who demonstrate considerable financial need.

To pay via PayPal, use this page.

Applying

To apply, simply fill out the online application form. Send other inquiries to xpsc {at} untwelve [dot] org.

Facilities

The Gesundheit! Institute is a project in holistic medical care based on the belief that one cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the family, the community, the world, and the health care system itself. Gesundheit! owns 320 acres of mountain land in West Virginia, the future site for a free, silly hospital which will serve one of the poorest areas in the U.S. and act as a global model for health care delivery.

Each year, hundreds from around the world participate in volunteer and education programs on the land. This summer, thanks to the generous commitment of the Gesundheit community, Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp will be among these programs. With our presence, we have a chance to reflect on the relationship between our musical practices and healing the world and ourselves.

We will use the existing Art Center and various small buildings for classes, rehearsals, and individual study and practice. With more than two miles of established trails, a three-acre lake, a waterfall, numerous springs, small and vast meadows, and many acres of forest, opportunities for site-specific creation are ample. Participants will sleep in communal yurts, or may camp out on the land. Meals are covered in the fee; minimal food preparation and tidying tasks will be shared between participants and Gesundheit! volunteers.

Traveling to Gesundheit

Please plan to arrive on Friday, August 3 and depart on Friday, August 17.
AMTRAK: The Cardinal 50/51 line stops at White Sulphur Springs, WV (WSS). On Fridays the westbound train arrives at 5:02pm; the eastbound train arrives at 11:31am.

BY AIR: the Greenbrier Airport in Lewisburg is served by Delta Airlines connecting from Atlanta, GA arriving in Lewisburg at 12:08pm.

It’s also possible to fly to/from Washington DC and take the AMTRAK train from/to there.

Gesundheit staff will be available to shuttle people to and from the train station in White Sulphur Springs and the airport in Lewisburg on August 3 and 17 only.

BY CAR: Driving directions are available on request.

Instructors and Presenters

Gayle Young is a Canadian music artist, involved in composition and sound sculpture. As a composer and performer, she developed notational systems and designed musical instruments. The invention and performance upon the microtonal percussion instruments, the Amaranth and Columbine, have been mentioned in several publications. Along with creating her own electroacoustic compositions, Young has authored a biography of Hugh LeCaine, the foremost Canadian inventor of electronic instruments. She has worked with R. Murray Schafer, Pauline Oliveros, Michael Snow, Gerry Hemingway, David Mott, Don Wherry and many others prominent names in contemporary new music.

Aaron Krister Johnson is the founder and creative/artistic director of UnTwelve. He is also Chicago-based multi-keyboardist, teacher and composer. Ever eclectic and multi-faceted as a virtuoso keyboard artist, his experience ranges from the Western classical keyboard tradition, to folk music and to modern electro-acoustic free improvisation. The Chicago Sun-Times called his composition ‘evocative’, and his keyboard improvisations have been hailed by Keyboard Magazine as “challenging and creative”. His work has been hailed by Chicagocritic.com, the Chicago Tribune, the Windy City Times, and the online music journal Tokafi.com. His education includes the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory division, SUNY Purchase (BFA Magna Cum Laude) and Northwestern University (MFA Magna Cum Laude) for his graduate studies.

Jacob Barton (woodwinds, invitational art) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work focuses on acoustic microtonal practice and theory. Jacob studied composition at Rice University, where he received a BMI Student Composer Award for composing Xenharmonic Variations on a Theme by Mozart. Jacob later retuned two pianos at Rice and curated a global call for microtonal scores, resulting in the Seventeen Tone Piano Project concert series. After attending School for Designing a Society in 2005, Jacob co-invented the udderbot (a slide woodwind instrument) and began experimenting with composing in the domain of everyday life actions. Jacob co-founded Oddmusic-UC, a microtonal teaching space and musical instrument library in Urbana, Illinois. He has offered workshops in microtonal singing and udderbot making in Urbana, Houston, Cincinnati, Boston, Baltimore, New York, London, and hometown Virginia Beach.

Andrew Heathwaite (plucked strings, xenharmonic theory) is an experimental human and songwriter whose songs reflect a passion for mythology, geometry, constraints, and living with intention. For example, in 2008, Andrew followed the Discordian & K’iche’-Mayan Sacred calendars and wrote an epic poem per day, setting several of them for voice and cumbus in 17-EDO. As co-founder of Oddmusic-UC, Andrew has hosted guitar re-fretting workshops, radio shows, and courses in xenharmonic composition. He is a member of music/puppetry collective An Exciting Event, and his compositions form the repertoire of xenharmonic band The Enslins.

Elizabeth Adams (assignmentology, orchestration, response dramaturgy) writes music for small groups of people. Her work often critiques or models social dynamics and exchanges of power.  She looks at every neighbor as a potential critic, composer, and performer of our musical and social environments. In New York City, she and the Orfeo Duo co-founded the Garden Performance Project, a community-garden-based workshop of recycling, instrument-building, composition and performance; and Songlines, a collaborative mapping of neighborhoods in song. She frequently participates at the School For Designing A Society so that she can concentrate in company on connecting composition and social change. She holds degrees in Music, English, Composition, and Experimental Musictheater from Barnard, Stonybrook, and the Hochschule der Künste, Bern. Her work has been performed throughout Europe, but she is currently focussing on community venues in the five boroughs. As a doctoral composer at the CUNY Grad Center, she has taught music history and electronic music at Baruch College. The teachers who have most influenced her current thinking are Joe Dubiel, Georges Aperghis, Mark Enslin, Susan Parenti, and Elizabeth Hoffman. She is a co-founder of the experimental chamber ensemble, Praxis.

Dan Sedgwick (keyboards, sequencing) is a composer, pianist, and teacher living in Somerville, MA. His introduction to the xenharmonic world took place in March of 2003, via Jon Wild’s 19-tone piano project at Harvard. Since then, he has explored, composed, and performed music in a variety of tuning systems via such projects as The 17-Tone Piano Project, 31-Tone Singing Camp, and The World’s First Udderbot Recital. As a graduate student at Rice University, Dan designed and taught a course introducing non-music majors to harmonic resonance, tonality, and relations between equal temperament and just intonation, and composed a string quartet in 5-limit JI for his doctoral dissertation. His recent projects include finishing a work for two bassoons and string orchestra (inspired by late chamber music of Gabriel Fauré), performing Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen, for two pianos, and preparing for An Exciting Event’s Xenharmonic Round Project.  He works as a teaching assistant in music theory at the Harvard Music Department.

Marji Gere (violin) builds her life and work around meaningful, complex, long-term, collaborative projects with idealistic artists and thinkers from a wide variety of backgrounds. One such project is the xenharmonic composition/performance exchange among Dan Sedgwick, Jacob Barton, and Andrew Heathwaite, three composers who are devoted to using the musical round as a vehicle to explore new tuning concepts, orchestrations, educational practices, rhythmic energies, and social dynamics. Marji participates in the composition of some of these rounds, but counts herself mainly as a lyricist, lover, and performer of these rounds. Also in round-obsessed partnership with Dan, Jacob, and Andrew, she has organized An Exciting Event, an unwieldy chamber ensemble of musician/puppeteers, and is the artist and writer behind its Moondog Madrigal Puppet Show. By trade, Marji is a violinist and teaching artist, working at the Chittick Elementary School in Mattapan, MA and at the Charlestown Working Theater, and performing with the Boston Public Quartet. She is in the planning stages of forming Xenharmonic Bowed Strings, an educational band committed to exploring the latest, most daring rounds of An Exciting Event. Marji received a Master’s in Arts in Education from the Harvard University and Bachelor’s degrees in Music and English from the University of Iowa.

Partners

OddMusic Urbana-Champaign, a working group of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, is interested in sharing the awareness, the tools, and the passion needed for people to make awesome xenharmonic music. We have offered workshops in instrument building and modification, a Microtonal Theory Study Group in Urbana. We have a growing library of odd musical instruments, which include prototype keyboards built by Aaron Hunt; 22-EDO, JI, and nonoctave retro-fretted guitars by Andrew Heathwaite; Denny Genovese’s Lambdoma Starrboards; the Udderbot Marching Choir; and a recording studio equipped with Li’l Miss Scale Oven. We invite you to join us in Urbana as we design and build community oddmusic projects year-round; for people with long-term commitments elsewhere, we offer this Summer Camp as a temporary solution. For more information, visit http://oddmusicuc.wordpress.com

UnTwelve is a Midwest-based not-for-profit dedicated to exploring the current and historical frontiers of music beyond the 12-note tuning system. We have made it our mission and vision to commission and perform musical works which display the excitement and beauty available to those who venture into this new territory, both for audiences and musicians. For more information, visit http://untwelve.org

The School for Designing a Society, established in 1991, is a project of teachers, performers, artists, and activists. It is an ongoing experiment in making temporary living environments where the question “What would I consider a desirable society?” is given serious playful thoughtful discussion, and taken as an input to creative projects. The school currently offers fall and spring semesters in Urbana, Illinois, and summer sessions at the Gesundheit! Institute. For more information, visit http://designingasociety.net.