Erv Wilson

Ervin Wilson was born in Colonia Pacheco, a small village in the remote mountains of northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, where he lived until the age of fifteen.

He began to compose at an early age, but immediately discovered that some of the sounds he was hearing mentally could not be reproduced by the conventional intervals of the organ.

While he was in the Air Force in Japan, a chance meeting with a total stranger introduced him to musical harmonics, which changed the course of his life and work.

Influenced by the work of Joseph Yasser, Wilson began to think of the musical scale as a living process—like a crystal or plant.

Despite his avoidance of academia, Wilson has been influential on those interested in microtonal music and just intonation, especially in the areas of scale, keyboard, and notation design.

Erv Wilson in his garden