The First Fifty Years
David B. Doty
David B. Doty is an important artist and influence belonging to the first generation of composers that rose up after Harry Partch. To this day, his Just intonation Primer is considered a classic manual in the field of tuning and is highly recommended to beginners. He was the editor of 1/1 magazine and those in the San Francisco area were treated to his compositions, tuning, instruments and performances by his group Other Music, of which many of us could only enjoy via their two recordings. His latest CD focuses on his recent recording of compositions spanning what he optimistically presents in the title as The First Fifty Years.
For those who only know a small amount of Doty’s music, there is much variety that might surprise the listener. One finds melody in the driver’s seat and quite often counterpoint is used to strengthen the musical intent as opposed to being a device to impress. The texture is clear and transparent with an overall sense of being celebratory in the beauty that he can invoke with these elements.
“Cantiga Antiqua”, the earliest of the 13 works on the CD, dates from 1972-73. It is for solo harp, originally composed before his studies in just intonation, but appropriately transposed here into Pythagorean tuning. Less than two minutes long, the form is a rondo A-B-A-C-A. Both the B and C sections modulate to unexpected areas, showing invention beyond the typically travelled paths in such a simple piece.
“Song of the Apostate” (1978) is a composition for Other Music’s American Gamelan. The ensemble is large, requiring seven players, with a prominent focus on exchanges between metallophones and marimbas. The work incorporates the Javanese form of a lancaran of eight beats in four sections. These sections are marked by frequent shifts in texture, with the upper parts defining further subdivisions. There is an effective slowing of the tempo, common in gamelan works, but its occurrence in this piece seems placed in an unusual position to my ear. This feels appropriate for the composition not to be an imitation but an apt vehicle for Doty’s own expression. While the scale is reminiscent of the blues scale, the melodic lines are anything but the typical lines one would expect.
“Incidents Out of Context” (1983) is a new realization that takes advantage of music technology not available at the time of its composition. Originally written as incidental music to a play, acoustic instruments are combined with electronic instruments. It ventures between various gamelan-like hocket patterns in some playfully dissonant passages of small intervals and shifting scales. The occasional organ-like timbre brings an almost medieval quality, providing an enjoyable but unexpected combination of influences.
With the “Prelude from ‘The Steel Suite’” (2008) the composer explores a less strict rhythmic palette for the National Reso-phonic Just Intonation Guitar. This was the last instrument Lou Harrison wrote for before his death, and the spirit of the man’s presence can be felt. The piece follows an ever-recurring theme, sounded like a memory of a dance where each repeat is a reflective and gestural variation with implications of possibly a chaconne or passacaglia. While the tuning is limited to two full harmonic series chords plus fifths in both directions, the harmonies seem anything but restricted, following a scalar motion downward with much ingenuity.
Drawing upon a 7th century BCE Greek song, “Parthenion” (2018) features the voice of Willa Roberts expanded into a texture reminiscent of a Bulgarian women’s choir. The rhythm incorporates the Ancient Greek practice of using long and short durations instead of accents for stress. The chorus sings four stanzas of the original ancient text and is supported by harp-like software instruments and hand drums that also provide the bridges between the stanzas.
The next five pieces form the “Suite in the ‘Cinna’ tuning”. The work is dedicated to Lou Harrison and uses both his tuning as well as his chosen instrument, the tack piano. Here is a lattice of the tuning which contains the Ancient Greek and Persian tetrachordal scales used in the pieces.
Each composition is close to three minutes in length and they are predominantly contrapuntal studies of both intimacy and depth.
Returning to his Other Music ensemble after a 40-year gap, “Eight and Seven is (in’it?)”. is, as the title hints, in a 15-beat rhythmic cycle with irregular subdivisions into 8 and 7. Slower moving lines form a foundation, similar to gamelan or with a cantus firmus. The upper moving voices explore more driving lines of either 3 measures of 5, or 5 measures of 3. This type of rhythmic complexity is reminiscent of Partch’s work. While the recording is a MIDI realization using samples, this practice is not uncommon in the microtonal world where works sometimes have to be realized through recording means. For example, Partch himself was no stranger to the use of overdubbing in his recordings.
The next piece “Waters of the Abyss” (2023) stands out as the one process-oriented piece on the CD. Different melodic pattens alternate between two tones, while strict rhythmic patterns produce melodies in unusual extended harmonies that stretch tonal links to an extreme. There are interruptions in the texture of repeated patterns, preventing any sense of safety in predictability. While dissonant, the piece remains comprehensible and is imbued with a joyful playfulness.
The final piece explores parallel 7-limit harmonies in the appropriately named “WWDD (What Would Debussy Do)?” (2023). The piece sounds nothing like Debussy but the composer himself reminds us that once a piece has started, it has a life of its own. The opening could almost be a type of court music or processional. The music shies away from simple scales and ratios while at the same time invoking an almost medieval sound. Possibly the most challenging piece on the CD, it suggests that the music that might emerge from Doty’s next 50 years will look forward to further discoveries.
Overall, the music is clear and transparent, yet the moving counterpoint passes by quickly, so it is not the type of music that reveals itself in one listening. None of the works rely on present day fashionable forms or styles as a frame for its ideas which might otherwise make it easy for the listener to drift away in the familiar. They instead enjoy both a play with the past as well as having a wide geographical horizon. It is music from someone who has forged their own path and once the listener surrenders into it, they are rewarded by finding places they have not heard before.
Kraig Grady