“Tuning in all of its varied forms has been one of the most important throughlines of making my music, reshaping how I hear and approach harmony,” writes US composer and performer Tashi Wada in his Epiphanies essay in The Wire 484. “I use the term tuning to refer to the intervallic relationship between pitches and different generating principles, as well as to the basic act of tuning with which musicians are constantly involved.”

When creating his latest album What Is Not Strange?, Wada worked with an “adjusted meantone tuning system based on an early 18th century temperament proposed by the French composer and music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau” – using these principles as the foundations from which a more spontaneous way of composing could launch.

In his essay, Wada goes on to mention many other artists who try different approaches, some of whom he has included in this themed Wire mix. “This selection was made intuitively,” he explains over email “ – music by family, friends, and family friends that’s close to the heart; music that has perked my ears and stuck with me over the years; and music from my new album What Is Not Strange? Settle down into the strangeness of it all.”

Tracklist

Tashi Wada “Grand Trine” (Performed by Ezra Buchla, Corey Fogel, Dev Hoff, Julia Holter, and Tashi Wada)
Franz Tunder “Christ Lag In Todesbanden” (Performed by Lena Jacobson)
Kyle Gann “Andromeda Memories”
La Monte Young “The Well-Tuned Piano 8 VI 64 – Day Of Gammedeon”
La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela “31 VII 69 10:26-10:49 PM”
Toru Takemitsu “In An Autumn Garden” (Performed by Tokyo Gakuso)
Yoshi Wada Singing In Unison (Performed by Richard Hayman, Imani Smith, and Yoshi Wada)
Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang “Eclipse”
Marc Sabat “Intonation After MF 1”
Catherine Lamb “Pulse/Shade” (Performed by The Present)
Tashi Wada “Calling” (Performed by Dev Hoff, Julia Holter, Tashi Wada)
Éliane Radigue, Charles Curtis “Naldjorlak (Los Angeles, 2020)”
James Tenney “Diapason” (Performed by SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, conducted by Kwamé Ryan)
Glenn Branca Symphony No 3 (Gloria) “Third Movement”
Umm Kulthum “Al-Atlal”

Read Tashi Wada's Epiphanies essay in full in The Wire 484. Wire subscribers can also find the article online via the digital library of back issues.