DIVISION OF THE OCTAVE WITH MORE THAN TWELVE NOTES - CONCEPTS, AUTHORS, RESULTS

Although the I2-tone equal temperament has been established as the norm of the 20th century music, the idea of enriching the sound of the sonorities of the scale finds its way back. Microchromatic music has two development paths - extending the just intonation or dividing an interval in equal steps (most commonly the octave). The both method result in generating a multitude of interval ratios, narrower than the I2 EDO semitone. Different composers choose either the one or the other path. As a rule, the European authors (Habba, Wyschnegradsky, Fokker etc.) prefer the EDO concept, and the American counterparts predominantly employ the extended Just intonation (Partch, Harrison, Johnston). This paper makes a brief review of some important theoretical aspects of the microchromatic music in the 20th century and tries to identify key figures in the development of the microtonal milieu.