The Tuning in The Trees

Course Description

Summary

The Tuning in the Trees is an advanced seminar in microtonality that treats tuning systems as both technical structures and living landscapes. Students will explore how musical intervals emerge from natural patterns—such as tree bifurcations, harmonic ratios, and number sequences—while engaging deeply with Just intonation, Meantone, Bohlen–Pierce, and other non-Western tunings. The course emphasizes both analysis and experience: the monochord becomes a tool for visualizing and hearing musical numbers, while environmental listening and field recording connect tuning to the wider soundscape.

At the center of the course is a collaborative musical board game, designed as a map of harmonic terrains. Through gameplay, improvisation, and composition, students will navigate branching pathways of sound, encountering intervals as landmarks, detours, and vistas. By weaving together theory, environment, and play, the course cultivates a psychogeographic approach to music where number meets nature, and structure opens into exploration.