Name: Candland Mountain
Channel: Prent Rodgers
Description: Free MP3 download! Licensing options are available for this track. Piece for Woodwind Quintet in E 6/5 subminor and E 16/13 major, with a few stray C 1/1 major, G 3/2 subminor, A 8/5 major, and B 24/13 subminor.

Candland Mountain

Prent Rodgers

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Piece for Woodwind Quintet in E 6/5 subminor and E 16/13 major, with a few stray C 1/1 major, G 3/2 subminor, A 8/5 major, and B 24/13 subminor.

microtonal csound prent r

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Prent Rodgers

Microtonal Music by Prent Rodgers. Made with Csound.

I am a composer of music using Microtonal intonation systems, including the Harry Partch Tonality Diamond. These systems draw on Just Intonation, which is different from the normal 12-tone equal temperment that western music has been based on for the last 300+ years. Some of the tuning may sound "off" to modern ears, but if you listen, you will hear sounds that are unique in the world, with a whole world between the 1:1 and the 2:1 octave. The music is created using the tool Csound, which is a publicly available, freely distributed digital signal processing tool with the ability to specify exact tone, timbre, and other characteristics of individual tones with greater specificity than the MIDI standard. All the pieces on this site are built using sample-based instruments from the McGill University Master Sample Library.

Song Info

Genre

Classical • Contemporary

Charts

Peak #62

Peak in subgenre #19

Author

Prent Rodgers

Rights

2005

Uploaded

January 01, 2005

Track Files

MP3

MP3 6.1 MB • 128 kbps • 0:00

Story behind the song

Candland Mountain is a piece for woodwind quintet, that is flute, oboe, clarinet, french horn, and bassoon. The tonality is based on three otononalities from the Partch Tonality Diamond. The piece starts on a transition from E 6/5 subminor to E 16/13 major. Those two keys predomininate throughout. The primary thematic idea is making the listener relatively comfortable in one key before moving to the next, which is often far away on the diamond. That can be a tall order, since the otonality has some very challenging notes. 

The order of keys is as follows:

E 6/5 subminor
E 16/13 major
B 24/13 subminor
C 1/1 major
G 3/2 subminor
A 8/5 major

The relationship between the major and the subminor that follows is 3/2, and they both use the same otonality. For example, C 1/1 is a major scale consisting of C 1/1, D 9/8, E 5/4, F 11/8, G 3/2, A 13/8, B 7/4, and B 15/8. G 3/2 subminor starts on the same G 3/2 and goes up from there, using the same notes, with a different bass and mode. The same relationship exists between the A 8/5 major and the E 6/5 subminor, and between the E 16/13 major and the B 24/13 subminor. So we really only have three different keys. But the notes in each key are microtonally different in many ways. 

The structure of the piece is kind of an A, B, C, D, C, B, A design, with a progression towards the middle, and then more a less a retracing of the steps back towards the end. There are short 1/8 note pauses between each section, but they often are so short that you can miss them. 

Candland Mountain was named for one of the original settlers in Utah, who had the mountain and a spring named after him. The mountain was where he summer fed the sheep, and the lower elevation spring is where he kept them in the winter. This is the third and final piece for Woodwind Quintet based on themes from the Wasatch range near the Great Salt Lake in Utah.