A quarter tone play, is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale, an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which is half a whole tone.
Many composers are known for having written music including quarter tones or the quarter tone scale (24 equal temperament), first proposed by 19th-century music theorist Mikha'il Mishaqah, including: Pierre Boulez, Julián Carrillo, Mildred Couper, Alberto Ginastera, Gérard Grisey, Alois Hába, Ljubica Marić, Charles Ives, Tristan Murail, Krzysztof Penderecki, Giacinto Scelsi, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tui St. George Tucker, Ivan Alexandrovich Wyschnegradsky, and Iannis Xenakis (see List of quarter tone pieces).
Read more about Quarter Tone: Types of Quarter Tones, Playing Quarter Tones On Musical Instruments, Music of The Middle East, In Popular Music, Ancient Greek Tetrachords, Interval Size in Equal Temperament
Famous quotes containing the words quarter and/or tone:
“Like the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue, and you can easily tell it from the white ice of the river, or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, a quarter of a mile off.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (17891851)