I’ve had to explain this more than a few times at this point, so i figured that I would just post the whole story:
Last year I came to Madison, Wisconsin to interview Ben for my documentary on the composer Harry Partch. For those who don’t know, Ben is the only person who can lay claim to actually studying with Partch, although Harry liked to refer to it as an apprenticeship. The week that I came to Madison, Ben and I were undergoing personal hardships that differed drastically, but were both severe in nature. The week turned out to be a blessing in disguise for both of us, and the result is that a bond was formed.
We stayed in touch and he began giving me lessons via the telephone. At the beginning of this year, he invited me to come to Madison this summer to work with him and come to the rehearsals of his 10th String Quartet with the Kepler Quartet. The original idea was to shoot a documentary and study with Ben concurrently. Ben and I had been talking about color and how it’s analogous to tone…and the concept for translating the ideas of microtonality (specifically just intonation) arose. Then the idea for the website came about. Then the idea to do the website as a blog. Why not show things while they are happening?
The name “A New Dissonance” came from something Ben said while he was explaining the goals for this summer’s rehearsal period. He said that by using Andy Stefik’s improved computer realizations of the score to more accurately get the microtones just right…that the quartet would breathe new life into the piece…that they would find a new dissonance.
Now the project, just like the 10th string quartet, is taking on a life of its own.