Listening to the “in-between” of sounds.

Since I began exploring pure intonation,
I have come to hear sound more and more in terms of “relationships.”

That a single sound is beautiful.

And that depending on whom that sound meets,
an entirely different resonance is born.

That is what draws me so deeply.

In pure intonation,
sounds are tied to one another by simple whole-number ratios.

A perfect fifth is 3:2.
A major third is 5:4.

When those relationships align cleanly,
there are moments when sounds that rang separately melt together
and feel like one great resonance.

The overtones overlap,
the way the sound wavers changes,
and even the space itself seems to shift.

The first time I experienced that resonance,
I thought, “So this is the world that lies between sounds.”

Twelve-tone equal temperament,
used in the modern piano and many other instruments,
divides the octave into twelve equal steps.

It offers the freedom to move into any key,
and supports much of the music we hear every day.

Pure intonation
is a world where resonance is built from the ratios between sounds.

I work with both.

Because depending on the instruments I perform with and the work itself,
both the reference pitch and the relationships between sounds change.

Crystal bowls,
even when marked with the same note name,
turn out to have different frequencies when actually measured.

And when you play them,
the overtones, the way they waver, and the way the sound spreads all differ.

That is why
I measure, listen to, and layer each one.

“Who will this sound resonate with?”

I truly love the time spent
searching for relationships between sounds like this.

For me, pure intonation
is less a single answer
than a way to know the possibilities of resonance more deeply.

What is born in that “in-between,” where one sound meets another?

Even now,
I keep searching for that resonance.