Instruments by Harry Partch

The American composer Harry Partch (1901-1974) composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, derived from the natural Harmonic series; these scales allowed for more tones of smaller intervals than in the standard Western tuning, which uses twelve equal intervals. The tonal system Partch used has 43 tones to the octave. To play this music he invented and built many new instruments, with names such as the Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Zymo-Xyl.

Partch called himself "a philosophic music-man seduced into carpentry".^[1] The path towards Partch's use of many unique instruments was a gradual one.^[2] Partch began in the 1920s using traditional instruments, and wrote a string quartet in just intonation (now lost).^[3][4] He had his first specialized instrument built for him in 1930—the Adapted Viola, a viola with a cello's neck fitted on it.^[3]

He re-tuned the reeds of several reed organs and labeled the keys with a color code. The first was called the Ptolemy, in tribute to the ancient music theorist Claudius Ptolemaeus, whose musical scales included ratios of the 11-limit, as Partch's did. The others were called Chromelodeons, a portmanteau of chrome (meaning "color") and melodeon.^{[citation needed]}

Most of Partch's works used the instruments he created exclusively. Some works made use of unaltered standard instruments such as oboe, clarinet, or cello, and Revelation in the Courtyard Park (1960) used an unaltered small wind band.^[1]

In 1991, Dean Drummond became the custodian of the original Harry Partch instrument collection until his death in 2013.^[5][6] In 1999 the instruments began a residency at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey which lasted until November 2014 when they moved to the University of Washington in Seattle, where they remained until 2019. They are currently under the care of Charles Corey.^[7]

Those who have duplicated partial sets of Partch instruments include John Schneider, whose West Coast ensemble includes replicas of the Kithara, Surrogate Kithara, Cloud-Chamber Bowls, Adapted Guitars, Adapted Viola, Diamond Marimba, Bass Marimba, Chromelodeon, and two Harmonic Canons.^{[citation needed]}

A complete set of replica instruments was commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik in 2012 and built by German percussionist Thomas Meixner. They were used in performances of Partch's works including his large-scale theater piece, Delusion of the Fury including at The Ruhrtriennale: International Festival of the Arts.^[8][9]