Harry Partch

While Harry Partch was finishing writing “Genesis of a Music” he lived in Madison Wisconsin, where my grandparents Gilson and Marybell lived. Also living at the 1919 Rawley address was my Uncle Marshall, a painter who was a janitor at the Art Dept. at the U. of Wiisconsin. Marshall was a well known visual art maverick who met Harry, the music maverick, and became good friends. Soon, my father and mother visited Harry and also became friends Later Harry visited them in Fayetteville Arkansas where Jonathan’s father John was a professor of music. This friendship continued throughout Harry’s life. Soon after Harry’s book was finished he went to El Centro (1947) where the younger Glasier family moved It was there that Jonathan was introduced at the age three to the world of Harry Partch and his instruments. Later the Glasiers moved to San Diego and every time Harry got a chance, he visited John and Alletah there where Harry’s lifetime friends Bertha and Harold Driscoll lived. At different times through Jonathan’s early life an instrument of Harry’s would be parked at the San Diego Glasier home and Jonathan had the unique pleasure of playing the Boo or Diamond Marimba during those times. Unfortunately he did not realize what a gift it was and did not take full advantage of the opportunity.

When Harry moved to San Diego during the last years of his life from 1966 to 1974 Jonathan became a gofer and assistant to Partch. He played in the Partch Ensemble various times between 1965 and 1972, and most memorable was playing the Harmonic Cannon II in “Castor and Pollux” , Diamond Marimba in “Daphne of the Dunes”, and Harmonic Cannon I in the film “The Dreamer That Remains”. Some time after Jonathan’s apprenticeship with Harry and after Harry died, Jonathan realized that Harry Partch was the catalyst of a “New Music” and started gathering information and learning from living microtonalists about different scales. Jonathan studied with Erv Wilson and and built the requisite 31 EDO Tubulong. He played refretted guitar pieces and improvised microtonal music with Ivor Darreg and by 1978 decided to publish Interval Journal, a document to bring together microtonal ideas and activities from all over the world, dedicated to the spirit of Harry Partch. Interval Journal spanned almost a decade from 1978 to 1987. By the time Interval ceased to be published, there were several publications to take its place. The first two predated Interval, John Chalmers’ “Xenharmonikon”, and Ivor Darreg’s “Xenharmonic Bulletin”. Then, in the space of a few years three other magazines grew out of Interval’s idea: “Experimental Musical Instruments” by Bart Hopkin, “1/1” (“One/One”), a Just Intonation Journal edited by David Doty, and “Pitch” edited by Johnny Reinhard.

Although microtonality or Xenharmonics has not taken the world by a storm, there are practicing “xenharmonicists” all over the world and in the last few years the Microtonal University, an online Zoom class on Sundays moderated by Johnny Reinhard, has been vital to those who have embraced going beyond the shackles of the 12-tone (EDO) “Squirrel Cage”. – Jonathan Glasier