Quarter tone

[1] However, the first evidenced proposal of the equally-tempered quarter tone scale, or 24 equal temperament, was made by 19th-century music theorists Heinrich Richter in 1823[2] and Mikhail Mishaqa about 1840.

[3] Composers who have written music using this scale include: Pierre Boulez, Julián Carrillo, Mildred Couper, George Enescu, Alberto Ginastera, Gérard Grisey, Alois Hába, Ljubica Marić, Charles Ives, Tristan Murail, Krzysztof Penderecki, Giacinto Scelsi, Ammar El Sherei, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tui St. George Tucker, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Iannis Xenakis, and Seppe Gebruers (See List of quarter tone pieces.)

[citation needed] Many Persian dastgah and Arabic maqamat contain intervals of three-quarter tone size; a short list of these follows.

[10] The invention of the scale is attributed to Mishaqa who wrote a book devoted to the topic[11] but made clear that his teacher, Sheikh Muhammad al-Attar (1764–1828), was one among many already familiar with the concept.

[10] Previously, pitches of a mode were chosen from a scale consisting of seventeen tones, developed by Safi al-Din al-Urmawi in the thirteenth century.

[13] Several quarter-tone albums have been recorded by Jute Gyte, a one-man avantgarde black metal band from Missouri, USA.

[16] Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's albums Flying Microtonal Banana, K.G., and L.W.

[17] Jazz violinist / violist Mat Maneri, in conjunction with his father Joe Maneri, made a crossover fusion album, Pentagon (2005),[18] that featured experiments in hip hop with quarter tone pianos, as well as electric organ and mellotron textures, along with distorted trombone, in a post-Bitches Brew type of mixed jazz / rock.

In 2019 he started a research project at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent, titled 'Unexplored possibilities of contemporary improvisation and the influence of microtonality in the creation process'.

[20] With two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart Gebruers recorded 'The Room: Time & Space' (2018) in a trio formation with drummer Paul Lovens and bassist Hugo Anthunes.

Aristoxenos, Didymos and others presented the semitone as being divided into two approximate quarter tone intervals of about the same size, while other ancient Greek theorists described the microtones resulting from dividing the semitone of the enharmonic genus as unequal in size (i.e., one smaller than a quarter tone and one larger).