A Major Part of the Microtonal Movement covered in the Interval Archive is the invention of new instruments, which were needed to play the new scales. This added another level to the holistic endeavor of the microtonal musician. Only a few orchestral instruments are truly microtonal: the bowed string instrument family and the trombone family. The other instruments need modification to play microtones. On many wind instruments different fingerings can be used, and bending notes (pitch bend) is also prevalent on other instruments, but until the development of synthesizers which were microtonally programmable, microtonal musicians had to develop instruments that would play the expanded bouquet of pitches that were newly available to them.

Since musical instruments exist in 3D space, microtonalists had a new job: become a visual artist and create sound sculptures (instruments) that would create the new musical pitches that were not available on conventional instruments. This activity adds the label of visual artist to the microtonal musician. The Sonic Arts field includes artists who have the element of sound included in their art. Of course all musicians are sonic artists as they use sound in their artistic endeavor, but the field of Sonic Arts and sound sculpture flowered in the early 80’s and 90s as we have chronicled in the Interval Archive. Harry Partch was again leading the way with his orchestra of beautiful sound sculptures.

Sonic Arts and microtonal music were comingled in those interval years and the Sound Art Exhibits represented here are only a representation of what was going on in the West Coast.
The East Coast was well represented by Bill and Mary Buchen, Skip La Plante, and many others.