Summary: <br> The phrase “one of a kind” would seem fairly useless when applied to the arts in general or music specifically. Really, aren’t all great musical artists – by definition – “one of a kind?” Monteverdi, Purcell, Sebastian Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Stravinsky, Springsteen, Weird Al? <br> <br> <br> <br> Yes: these good folks (and many, many, MANY more) are indeed all “one of a kind.” <br> <br> <br> <br> But then<br> <br> <br> <br> But then there are those very few who are SO truly weird (sorry Maestro Yankovic; you are not really that weird), SO far out, SO iconoclastic, so radical, subversive, and idiosyncratic that they stand utterly solitary, disconnected from anything and everything but themselves; singular, detached, ALONE: truly, one of a kind.<br> <br> <br> <br> Such a person was the American experimenter, instrument builder, guru, high priest and “composer” – and that’s “composer” in scare quotes – Harry Partch, who died on September 3, 1974 – 44 years ago today – in San Diego, California, at the age of 73.<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://d3fr1q02b1tb0i.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/03080511/4.-harry-partch-5-300x225.jpg"></a>Harry Partch sitting among a few of his instruments<br> <br> <br> <br> Harry Partch was one of a kind. He rejected the entire Western musical tradition and created, in its place, an alternative musical universe for which he proselytized and composed. He created a tuning system that divided the octave into 43(!) different pitches. He created a complicated, tablature-based notational system that remains almost indecipherable to anyone but one of his disciples. He designed and built a wide variety of stringed and percussion instruments capable of playing his complex tunings.<br> <br> <br> <br> A brief word about these instruments. Whatever we think about Partch’s ideas and his music, he was an inventor and builder of genius. The instruments are strikingly beautiful, sonically gorgeous and so exotic as to make the Cantina band in Star Wars look like a drab old string quartet by comparison. In a letter to a friend, Partch described a bamboo marimba he called the “Eucal Blossom” this way:<br> <br> <br> <br> The “Eucal Blossom”<br> <br> <br> <br> “This is the third instrument in which I have used the contorted boughs of eucalyptus as part of the base structure. A branch with an appropriate crotch extends from a redwood base; one arm above the crotch is cut at the top and the angle desired for the disk holding the bamboo, and is there bolted to the disk; the other extends upwards through a slot in the disk and holds the music wrack.” <br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://d3fr1q02b1tb0i.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/03080636/1.-Partch-and-Cloud-Chamber-Bowls.jpg"></a> Partch sitting in front of his “Cloud Chamber Bowls” <br> <br> <br> <br> Partch – like so many percussionists before AND AFTER HIM – built his percussion instruments using found objects. In the case of an instrument Partch called “Spoils of War”, the “found objects” are seven artillery shells, cut to different sizes. The “Mazda Marimba” consists of 24 gradually larger light bulbs with their guts removed. (Best to play this instrument very carefully, as a heavy hand will result in a lot of broken glass!) Then there are the “Cloud Chamber Bowls”, one of Partch’s most famous creations. These are large Pyrex gongs that began their lives as Pyrex carboys: big rounded jugs with narrow necks, used for holding corrosive liquids. Partch discovered them while dumpster diving outside the radiation laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.<br> <br> <br> <br> My Goodness, What a Life!<br> <br> <br> <br> Harry Partch was born on June 24, 1901 in Oakland, California at 5861 Occidental Street (the house is still there; according to Google maps it is a 14 minute drive from where I am writing th...
