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November 20, 2004

Podcast Review: Podcast1024

This entry posted in: 4 stars , I subscribe , Podcast Review

Microtonal Podcasts

Format: musical tracks
Content: primarily microtonal music
Rating: 4 stars
What I'm going to do: subscribe
Typical Length: 5 - 10 minutes

What is microtonal music you say? I'm not an expert, either on microtonal music ro music in general, but here is my layman's definition: microtonal music is music composed for instruments that are tuned with greater than 12 distinct tones (frequencies of sound) between one tone and the tone one octave up or down. In most Western music, there are 12 tones in an octave (like on a piano - 7 white keys and 5 black ones) - microtonal music alters those relationships between octaves. This is a gross over-simplification, but it'll give you enough to go on for now, I think.

Prent Rodgers at Podcast1024 is podcasting primarily microtonal music for various instruments in his podcast, some of which is composed by him and some by other composers. He also occasionally throws in some other contemporary composers not specifically working in a microtonal scale. This is kind of like the IndieFeed for contemporary composition; in fact the format is very similar. Prent inroduces the piece(s) he's 'casting with a brief vocal introduction and plays the track(s). That's it; simple and to the point.

The name of Prent's podcast comes from his ideas about composing and listening:

"I believe that composers should spend ten minutes a day, every day, making music. You can skip composing on those days you don't eat. Listeners should also spend ten minutes a day listening to music that is totally different from what they usually hear."

This is very challenging music to listen to, and for that reason also very enjoyable. I was somewhat surprised to note that much of the music was not merely tonally challenging, but was also highly rhythmically challenging. One might be tempted to think that the 1024 in the podcast name was related to the time signature of some of the pieces (regardless of the fact that I don't know how to play a tenth note). There is little discernable "melody" in many of these pieces - it's not "whistle-able" music, which makes it even more challenging to me (being an inveterate whistler).

One of the things I found the most refreshing about this music was its innate realization that the 12-tone scale is nothing more than a creation of humanity - a friend of mine, when I told him a little about this said "There's a reason why there are 88 keys on a piano" to which I responded "Yes there is. Becasue someone decided to put 88 keys there." Much like modern physics realizes that the artifacts of time are human creations and essentially meaningless, microtonal music emphasizes that a particular scale is nothing more or less than a shared musical syntax, to be discarded or overridden when the music requires it.

Sorry, waxed a little abstract there for a second. Suffice it to say that this music will challenge your ideas of what music should be, especially if you're not already familiar with contemporary composers.

This podcast is well-produced; Prent uses a consistent and recognizable intro, and provides some detail for each 'cast. The music is clear, although it's encoded at 64 kbps, which will turn off some audiophiles - please though, listen anyway. Prent's vocals are also clear and easy to understand. The tracks are short - some as short as 2:30, and I'm inclined to agree with Prent that anyone interested in music at all should have a little of this in their daily musical diet. In fact, it would be wonderful if Prent published this on an absolutely daily basis, but that's a pretty tall order. It would also be nice if Prent would give a little larger tidbit of information in his intro; I would be very happy to have Prent tell us a little about microtonal music in general in every 'cast, to help those of us who don't quite get it yet (OK, to help me) - he does give some details in most 'casts, but sometimes they assume more of a basis in the ideas behind microtonal music than his potential podience is likely to have.

Prent's meta-data is satisfactory, and since each podcast is essentially a single track, there's no need for time-stamping.

Subscribe to mp3s.

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Posted by cori at November 20, 2004 06:37 AM