31 Touch Tones

Instrumentation: ,

Duration: 4:12

Written in: 2010

Category: Playback

31 Touch Tones is played via laptop and MIDI connection to the Fokker organ. The number 31 refers to the tuning system of the Fokker organ (31 equal temperament) and the international country code for the Netherlands while “touch tones” refers to the pitches produced by pressing the individual buttons of a telephone. The piece is based on these pitches, though it was necessary in some cases to make small adjustments in order to match the 31 equal-tempered tuning of the Fokker organ (these adjustments were very small, ranging from 3 cents to 16 cents). Using this schemata, six numbers are then “dialed,” including the Huygens-Fokker Foundation, two numbers from the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, my home phone at the time, the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Stuttgart, and Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.