Pauline Oliveros
The Beauty of Sorrow [excerpt]
I chose to tune my accordion in Just Intonation for the greater resonance yielded and for the colorful intervallic relationships that produce a variety of beat frequencies. The tuning gives me a broader range of sounds. The Beauty of Sorrow is the first piece that I made after my accordion was tuned in Just Intonation.
Tuning system for Pauline Oliveros’s accordion: The left hand is tuned in 5 limit; the right hand is in 7 limit. The tuning was done by Walter Vergini of Oxnard, CA under the supervision of Alfred Shabda Owen. The tuning system was suggested by Loren Rush. The tuning was done in a ten day period in May of 1987.
