Welcome to Interval Archive

The Interval Archive represents a specific time and place in the history of microtonal music. The time; the last quarter of the 20th Century, the place; the West Coast. This is also the story of the journey of Jonathan Glasier, who has collected and presented this information and chronicled this movement as it happened.

In this microtonal time period, before functioning microtonal electronics which would make the development much easier, there were two specific instrument categories that were mostly used for creating new non-twelve scales for general use, strings and percussion. Other than the violin family of bowed strings, which of course are thoroughly microtonal, plucked strings of the guitar and harp and psaltery strings were used extensively. Microtonal percussion instruments were mostly metallophones and marimbas made of wood, bamboo and glass.

The process of being a serious microtonal creator was very holistic. Once you had created your scale, you would invent and/or build a viable instrument, learn to play it well enough to perform; compose music for the instrument; find a venue for a performance (be your own manager), and usually cover all the details of PR and costs. Harry Partch paved the way, accomplishing many of these tasks and hardships first, so we knew what we were all getting into.

The Interval Archive aggregates the ideas, hardware, and music created by these very enterprising individuals on the West Coast who were all doing this work during the last quarter century. A nod must be given to the microtonal development on the East Coast at the time, mostly pulled together by Johnny Reinhard and Dean Drummond. The emphasis on the East Coast was more about presenting microtonal music by integrating conventional instruments into concerts and presentations. By the 1990’s the Partch instruments were in New York under the direction of Dean Drummond. Microtonality was alive and well during the same time as the activity on the West Coast. It was just a different flavor