On this day, June 24, 1901, the eclectic composer, theorist and instrument builder, Harry Partch was born in Oakland, California.
He studied piano as a child and was skilled enough to play the music for silent films in Albuquerque. At the age of 19, he returned to California and spent more than a dozen years as a proofreader, piano teacher and violist.
He built upon Helmholtz’s approach to "just intonation," which he called “monophony,” because he realized that traditional instruments and performers would not work with his “system.”
He said he was "a musician seduced into carpentry."
According to Grove Music online, he built and adapted instruments, created national systems and trained performing groups wherever he lived and worked. He emphasized a “physical and communal quality in his music.”
