Easley Blackwood (1933 - Present)

Introduction
Easley Blackwood Jr. was born in 1933 in Indianapolis, Indiana. In his career in music he studied with Messiaen, Hindemith, and Boulanger. He had studied piano and after graduating with his masters from Yale, he became a teacher at University of Chicago. He still is teaching today. His music starts of having a very specific conservative atonal style but soon after the music he created looked further into the realm of microtonality. He even created some equal tempered scales utilizing those microtones.

Work Analysis
For Blackwood, I figured that his microtonal endeavors would be the most interesting to look at, specifically "Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media". This is a collection of microtonal etudes that explore the ins and outs of what microtonal music can accomplish. Blackwood received a grant to look into these concepts and this is what he was able to create with that knowledge. Blackwood took this as basically making a sequel to The Well Tempered Clavier but with microtonality. A lot of these pieces are actually utilizing tonal means of harmonic progression to base the microtonal piece off of. These pieces do not sound like they are atonal whatsoever, they just sound like a tonal piece without definitive progressions that become slightly flat or sharp every once in a while. Below is a blurry picture of Blackwood's 24 note equally tempered scale.

Comparisons
I want to compare this directly to Bach's Well Tempered Clavier. It is taking this notion of studying temperament, but looking at it through a new modern lens that includes a broader look as to what tonality can be. It is fairly obvious that Bach was a large inspiration for Blackwood in this piece due to him specifically referring to The Well Tempered Clavier in reference to this piece. It seems to be looking at music at a completely different perspective as all the different serialists of this era. Blackwood was taking this unexplored medium and fleshing it out into the realm of tonality while other composers were taking the temperament that had already been established and taking it and using it outside the confines of traditional tonality. The legacy of Blackwood's music is definitely the idea of microtonality that is consistently being utilized indices of the past and even today.

Observations
This piece was very enjoyable to me. It sounded very familiar, but also knowing that the ideas used in this piece were foriegn was easier to swallow that completely jumping away from tonality altogether. It is showing there are even more ways to think outside the box of traditional music that can still be aurally pleasing to the ears of the average listener. Atonal music can sometimes come off a bit abrasive and hard to digest, but I feel as if this piece would be a logical move for those looking to expand their view of notation before diving straight into music with no tonal presence whatsoever.