One-Footed (2022)

One-footed was written for the combined forces of Del Sol Quartet and PARTCH Ensemble in 2020-2022.

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 measures out just intervals and their inversions along either side of a central axis, forming the foot-shaped ouline. 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, these descriptions resonates with my intuition. Even more fascinating is how Partch fits his 43-note scale into a diatonic structure, suggesting is that we might understand the many intervals of Partch’s scale as shadings within a diatonic superstructure. This became the foundation of my piece, One-footed: an exploration of the expressive potential of thinking about pitch and interval as suggested by the “One-footed Bride.”

The instrumentation for One-footed combines a string quartet with many of Partch’s invented instruments. As a composer writing in 2022, I enjoy the legacy of composers like Partch and Ben Johnston, where performers like the Del Sol Quartet now deeply understand just intonation. I see the PARTCH Ensemble as a new type of orchestra that can finally be bridged to as a result of performers like the Del Sol Quartet achieving the kind of precise tuning that seemed impossible only a couple generations ago.

 View the Score