How Microtonal Jazz Saved My Soul: 5 Weird Reasons Why You Need to Listen Now
Hey there, fellow music pilgrims.
Have you ever listened to a song and thought, "Something's just not right here, but in a totally awesome way?"
Or maybe you’ve felt that nagging feeling that the music you love, no matter how complex or beautiful, is still stuck in a box?
Like, it’s a brilliant, polished box, but it’s still a box.
Yeah, me too.
For years, I was that guy.
A jazz obsessive, a classical music nerd, a rock-and-roll aficionado.
I thought I knew it all.
I had my Miles Davis vinyls, my Bach sheet music, my Hendrix bootlegs.
I was the one at parties who would drop a tidbit about Herbie Hancock’s key changes or the intricacies of a Coltrane solo.
I was insufferable, to be honest.
But then, something happened.
I hit a wall.
A creative, spiritual, and emotional wall.
The music I loved just… wasn’t hitting the same way anymore.
It felt predictable.
I could hear the chord progressions coming a mile away, the melodic resolutions were old friends I no longer had much to say to.
I felt like I was staring at a world drawn with only 12 colors, when I knew, deep down, there had to be more.
And then, I found it.
Or rather, it found me.
A strange, unsettling, and utterly mind-blowing sound.
The sound of microtonal jazz.
And let me tell you, it wasn’t just a new genre.
It was a whole new philosophy.
A rebellion.
A breath of fresh, weird, beautiful air that completely changed my perspective on what music could be.
I’m not exaggerating when I say it saved me from a creative rut that was starting to feel like a full-blown existential crisis.
So, if you’re ready to get weird with me, to step outside the cozy, familiar confines of your 12-tone scale, then let’s dive in.
This isn't just an exploration; it's a conversation.
I’m not here to lecture you.
I’m here to share my journey, my weird little obsessions, and why I genuinely believe this stuff is one of the most exciting things happening in music right now.
You might think it sounds like cats fighting on a piano at first.
I did.
But stick with me.
I promise, there’s a universe of sound waiting for you between the cracks.
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Table of Contents
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Microtonal Madness: What the Heck Is It Anyway?
Okay, so let's start with the basics, but in a way that doesn't feel like a stuffy music theory class.
I’ve been to those, and trust me, they’re a snooze-fest.
Imagine you have a ruler.
A standard, 12-inch ruler.
The inches are your notes—C, C#, D, D#, and so on, all the way up to B.
And every note in Western music, for centuries, has been a fixed point on that ruler.
You can only play on the inch marks.
But what if you could play on the half-inch marks?
The quarter-inch marks?
The millimeter marks?
That, my friend, is microtonal music.
It’s music that uses notes that fall *between* the cracks of our standard 12-note system.
The term "microtone" literally means "small tone."
Think of it as adding a whole new palette of colors to your canvas.
Instead of just red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, you’re getting all the subtle shades in between.
The ones with names like “blorange” or “yellorange.”
Okay, maybe that’s a terrible analogy, but you get the point.
For a long, long time, Western music has been obsessed with something called **equal temperament**.
Equal what now?
Basically, it’s the system that makes all the half-steps on a piano sound exactly the same distance from each other.
It’s a beautiful, logical system that allows instruments to be tuned together easily and lets you play in any key without it sounding wonky.
But here’s the secret, the little lie that we’ve all been living with: it’s a compromise.
It’s an agreement that we’ve all made for convenience.
It’s not how sound *naturally* works.
If you listen to ancient music, or traditional music from other cultures—Indian classical music, Arabic maqam, some types of folk music—they’ve never been limited by this.
Their scales are full of these “in-between” notes.
It’s why a sitar can sound so mournful and expressive in a way a piano never can.
The notes bend and slide and cry.
They’re not rigid.
So, when we talk about microtonal jazz, we’re not just talking about adding a few strange notes.
We’re talking about tearing down a wall that’s been standing for centuries.
We’re talking about finding new emotional landscapes that you can’t get to with a standard guitar or piano.
We’re talking about… freedom.
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The Great Escape: How Jazz Found Freedom in Microtones
Jazz, bless its beautiful, chaotic heart, has always been about breaking the rules.
It was born out of improvisation, out of a raw, emotional need to express things that couldn’t be said with polite, classical music.
From the very beginning, jazz musicians were bending notes.
Think of a blues guitarist bending a string just so, making it wail.
Or a trumpet player using a plunger mute to create a growling, vocal-like tone that’s full of notes that don’t exist on the staff.
Even the act of playing a “blue note”—that slightly flattened third or seventh—is, at its core, a microtonal gesture.
So, in a way, microtonality has been in the DNA of jazz from the very start.
It’s just that, for a long time, it was an emotional, intuitive thing.
Not a theoretical one.
The early pioneers of microtonal music in the 20th century were often classical composers, people like Harry Partch and Alois Hába.
They were brilliant, but their music could sometimes feel a little… clinical.
It was an intellectual exercise, a grand experiment.
But when jazz musicians started to get their hands on this stuff, it was like giving a painter a new color but also telling them to throw all the old rules out the window.
It became a conversation, not a lecture.
It became about emotion, not just math.
Think of it like this: Jazz is the wild, untamed river, and microtonality is the new, deeper riverbed that allows the water to flow in all sorts of new directions, creating new eddies and currents and waterfalls.
It’s not about abandoning the old river; it's about exploring the whole ecosystem that surrounds it.
The best part is, this isn't some academic, dusty corner of music.
It's happening now.
And it’s exciting as hell.
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5 Weird, Awesome Reasons Microtonal Jazz is a Game Changer
Alright, now for the fun stuff.
Why should you, a perfectly sane person who probably likes music that doesn't sound like a theremin having a breakdown, care about any of this?
Here’s my list, based on my own personal, messy, beautiful journey into the deep end.
These aren't just bullet points; they're reasons this stuff changed my life.
1. It Makes You Feel Things You Didn't Know You Could Feel
This is the big one.
The whole point of music, for me anyway, is to feel something.
To be moved, to be challenged, to be taken somewhere new.
Our standard 12-note system has a well-worn emotional vocabulary.
Major keys feel happy, minor keys feel sad, seventh chords feel jazzy, diminished chords feel spooky.
We know these feelings.
They’re our old friends.
But microtonality introduces a whole new set of emotions.
It’s like discovering a new kind of melancholy that's not quite sad, but also not quite serene.
It’s the feeling you get when you’re looking at a painting and you can't quite make out what it is, but it's beautiful and unsettling all at once.
Or the feeling of a dream you can almost remember but not quite.
It’s a sonic palette for the ineffable.
When you hear a musician like Ben Monder or Tyshawn Sorey navigating these new scales, it’s not just an intellectual feat.
It’s an emotional one.
The music sounds… yearning.
It sounds like a question that has no answer.
It's a beautiful, confusing mess, and it’s why I’m obsessed.
2. It's a Playground for the Improviser
Jazz is all about improvisation.
It’s about making things up on the spot, creating a story in real-time with your instrument.
But let’s be real, after years of playing and listening to standard jazz harmony, the well can start to feel a little dry.
You start to fall into patterns.
You play the same licks, the same arpeggios, the same scales.
Microtonality blows that all up.
It's like someone gave you a whole new set of LEGOs.
The old ones are still great, but now you have these bizarre, new-shaped pieces that you have no idea how to use.
You have to experiment.
You have to stumble.
You have to listen with new ears.
It forces you to be in the moment, to truly react to the sounds around you, not just fall back on muscle memory.
For a musician, that’s not just a challenge; it’s a gift.
It’s a chance to be a beginner again, to feel that pure joy of discovery.
3. It’s a Bridge to Other Worlds
One of the coolest things about microtonal jazz is how it naturally connects to other musical traditions.
As I mentioned, microtones are a huge part of music from all over the world.
When you listen to a jazz group exploring these new scales, you can hear echoes of Indian ragas, or the haunting cries of an Arabic oud, or the rich textures of a Gamelan orchestra from Indonesia.
It’s not just a fusion; it's a conversation between cultures, a beautiful mess of ideas and sounds that have been kept apart for too long.
It’s a musical United Nations, and it’s a beautiful thing to witness.
It reminds you that music is a universal language, but that we’ve only been using a tiny fraction of its vocabulary.
4. It's the Sound of Rebellion and the Future
Every great art movement is a reaction to what came before.
Impressionism was a rebellion against rigid academic painting.
Bebop was a rebellion against big-band swing.
And microtonal jazz feels like a rebellion against the very foundations of Western music itself.
It's a radical act.
It’s saying, "We've had 300 years of this system, and it's time to find something new."
It's the sound of artists who are not content with what’s comfortable and familiar.
It's a big, beautiful "what if?"
And the “what if” is paying off in spades.
This isn't just an experiment; it's the beginning of a new chapter.
It's where music is going, and it’s thrilling to be a part of it, even as a listener.
5. It’s Just... Fun!
Okay, so I’ve been talking a lot about existential crises and the future of music and all that heavy stuff.
But let’s not forget the most important thing: this music is just plain fun to listen to.
It’s playful.
It’s surprising.
It’s the sound of musicians laughing and exploring and getting a little bit weird.
It's not about being "intellectual" or "smart."
It’s about being open.
So, if you’re tired of the same old music, if you’re looking for a jolt of something new and exciting, or if you just want to hear something that makes you go, “What the heck was that?” then this is for you.
It’s a sonic adventure, and the only rule is to leave your expectations at the door.
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A Trip Down the Rabbit Hole: Who's Making This Stuff?
Now you’re probably thinking, "Okay, you’ve convinced me, but where do I even start?"
It can feel a little intimidating.
Microtonal music isn't exactly at the top of the Spotify charts, at least not yet.
But trust me, there are some incredible artists doing amazing work right now.
This isn’t a comprehensive list; it’s just a few starting points that I’ve personally found to be mind-blowing.
1. Tyshawn Sorey: The Unclassifiable Genius
If you've heard of Tyshawn Sorey, you know he’s a beast.
He’s a MacArthur "genius" grant recipient, a composer, a drummer, a pianist… the list goes on.
But what makes him so special is how he blends improvisation with incredibly precise, complex compositions, often incorporating microtonal ideas.
Listening to his work is like watching a brilliant chess player.
He seems to know what's going to happen ten moves from now, but he’s also reacting in real time, with raw, emotional intensity.
His album "Pillars" is a good place to start, but honestly, anything he’s involved in is worth a listen.
He’s not just pushing the boundaries; he’s redrawing the map entirely.
2. Ben Monder: The Quiet Storm
Ben Monder is one of the most respected guitarists in modern jazz.
He’s known for his incredible technical skill and his dark, atmospheric sound.
And he’s been quietly exploring microtonal sounds for years, often in the way he bends notes and creates these incredibly dense, dissonant chords that sound like a beautiful, dark cloud.
His album "Oceana" is a masterpiece of this kind of music.
It’s not in your face; it’s subtle, but it's there, adding this layer of emotional complexity that you can’t quite put your finger on.
It's the kind of music that washes over you and changes the way you see the world.
3. The Microtonal Bass and Guitar Heroes
The real pioneers in this space are the ones who are literally rebuilding their instruments to make this music.
People like the legendary bassist Kinga Głyk, who I recently saw at a festival, completely blew my mind.
She’s not strictly microtonal, but she uses effects and techniques that get her into that territory.
Then there are people like Jon Catler and his custom-fretted guitars.
He’s been playing microtonal blues and jazz for decades.
Or the bassist **Gwilym Simcock**, who is known for his incredible virtuosity and his exploration of new harmonic territories.
He's a true scholar of the instrument, always pushing the boundaries.
And of course, there are so many others, from the avant-garde to the surprisingly accessible.
The community is small but passionate, and they are doing some of the most innovative and exciting work in music today.
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FAQ: Your Burning Questions, My Rambling Answers
Q: Does this mean I have to throw away my old jazz albums?
A: Absolutely not!
Think of it this way: learning a new language doesn't mean you stop speaking your native one.
You just have a bigger vocabulary.
Microtonal jazz isn't a replacement; it's an expansion.
It actually makes you appreciate the genius of the old stuff even more, because you can hear the subtle ways they were already hinting at these sounds.
It's like looking at a classic masterpiece and suddenly noticing a hidden brushstroke you never saw before.
So keep your Miles and your Trane.
Just add some new names to the playlist.
Q: Isn’t this just noise?
A: Sometimes, yes!
And that’s okay.
I’m not gonna lie to you.
Some of it is a bit challenging to listen to at first.
But think about your first time listening to free jazz.
Or maybe a punk rock album.
It can feel chaotic, even painful to the ears.
But if you stick with it, if you listen with an open heart and an open mind, you start to hear the logic, the emotion, the beauty in the chaos.
What sounds like a mistake at first is actually a deliberate choice, a new way of expressing something.
So, give it a chance.
Don’t judge it on the first listen.
Let it sit with you for a while.
You might be surprised.
Q: Do you need special instruments to play microtonal jazz?
A: Yes and no.
Many instruments like the violin, cello, trombone, or a fretless bass can play microtones naturally.
They’re not locked into the 12-note system.
But for instruments like the guitar or piano, you often need to modify them.
This is where things get really cool.
Some people build custom guitars with extra frets.
Others use technology, like synth plugins or pitch-shifting pedals.
It's a testament to the passion and ingenuity of these musicians.
They're not just playing music; they're building the tools to make the music.
Q: I’m a musician. How can I start exploring microtones?
A: Start small!
You don’t need a custom-built instrument.
Try playing a piece you know, but intentionally bending a few notes just a little bit.
Try singing a melody with a little more slide.
If you play a stringed instrument, try experimenting with fretless or slide techniques.
Listen to music from other cultures, like Indian classical music or Persian dastgah.
The key is to train your ear to hear the spaces between the notes.
Once you do that, a whole new world of possibilities opens up.
And be prepared to sound a little out of tune at first.
That’s part of the fun!
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The Soundtrack to the End of the World (In a Good Way)
I know this post has been a bit of a ramble.
But that's kind of the point.
Microtonal jazz isn't a neat, tidy subject.
It’s messy and emotional and a little bit crazy.
It's the sound of the human spirit refusing to be contained.
It’s the sound of rebellion against the familiar, a rejection of the comfortable.
In a world that feels increasingly polarized and predictable, this music is a beautiful, necessary disruption.
It reminds us that there are still mysteries to be solved, still new worlds to be explored, even within something as old as music.
So, I’m asking you, begging you, to give it a try.
Don’t expect it to sound like the jazz you know.
Let it be what it is: a little unsettling, a little weird, and profoundly beautiful.
It just might be the sound you didn’t know you were missing.
And if you do, let me know what you find.
I’m always looking for new weird sounds to obsess over.
Jazz, Microtonal, Music, Exploration, Theory
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