Folded thought of the day:

In case you haven't been paying attention, Below the Fold 
is an area for celebrating the human spirit.  A place 
where you can go and know that you belong -- that you can 
say and feel and be whatever you want... as long as what 
you want to be is what you are.  

I've always had deep respect for people that I think of 
as true individuals.  People that never compromise 
themselves.. who live their lives a certain way that 
could very well be outside of society's convention -- 
not to be "cool" or whatever -- but just because they 
don't know how else to live.  

Harry Partch was such a person.  And I'd like to share 
a piece I wrote about him a little while ago.  I hope 
you take a moment to read it and perhaps take the effort 
to learn more about Mr. Partch.  

And if you have any such individuals you know of, then 
I please invite you to write to me about them.  

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     "The creative person shows himself naked, 
      and the more vigorous his creative act, 
          the more naked he appears."

         "I think life is too precious to 
          spend it with important people."

                 -- Harry Partch


What's that sound...?  is it the whistle of a ghost train blowing 
through hell on its way to some broken promised land...?  with a 
mad conductor caught somewhere between departure and Armageddon, 
sounding his arrival in your particular sphere of influence?  

Could be... considering the source.  A creature of bellows, reeds 
and organ pipes, an instrument called the Blo-boy, one of the 
many musical concoctions of Harry Partch. 

Thus raising the question, who was Harry Partch? 

First and foremost, an innovator.  Running a close second, 
a rebel, raconteur, hobo, composer, outsider, philosopher, 
sewer cleaner, archivist of roadside attractions and scattered 
memories, a poet out of words, an artist with no pigment, 
a visionary whose head was filled with a collection of sounds 
that no instrument or accepted tonal scale could possibly 
convey... so he created his own. 

Harry Partch was a collector.  He traveled the United States 
gathering ideas from the sounds he heard, the sounds of a 
country, organic sounds, or as he referred to them, 
"corporeal".  His experiences led him to develop a 
microtonal 43-note scale -- a distorted, disfigured 
(some say dysfunctional) division of the accepted octave. 

And to make the music he heard singing in his head possible, 
Harry Partch designed his own instruments. 

Instruments with names like The Boo, Chromelodeon, Eucal 
Blossom, Harmonic Canons, Marimba Eroica, Quadrangularis 
Reversum, the Spoils of War and Zymo-Xyl.  Instruments made 
from "found objects" -- Pyrex containers, artillery shell 
casings, empty bottles -- treading some fine line between 
works in progress and contraptions, looking more like 
skeletons than what one might imagine an instrument looking 
like that could make such beautifully human sounds. 

    "It was as if one had drunk the music instead of 
           accepting it through the ears"
                    -- Anais Nin 

Harry Partch created a musical system that captured the 
dramatic colliding of human speech, movement, music, 
collected history and undeniable harmony.  He created an 
audible beacon of what it means to be alive, of seeing 
the limits to your dreams all around and simply paying 
no attention. 

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