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Candland Mountain
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Piece for Woodwind Quintet in E 6/5 subminor and E 16/13 major, with a few stray C 1/1 major, G 3/2 subminor, A 8/5 major, and B 24/13 subminor.
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Prent Rodgers
2005
Microtonal Music by Prent Rodgers
Sat Jan 01, 2005
Classical : Contemporary
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Charts position
» highest in charts:   # 203   (31,057 songs currently listed in Classical)
» highest in sub-genre:   # 36   (6,971 songs currently listed in Classical > Contemporary)
About the song
Candland Mountain is a piece for woodwind quintet, that is flute, oboe, clarinet, french horn, and bassoon. The tonality is based on three otononalities from the Partch Tonality Diamond. The piece starts on a transition from E 6/5 subminor to E 16/13 major. Those two keys predomininate throughout. The primary thematic idea is making the listener relatively comfortable in one key before moving to the next, which is often far away on the diamond. That can be a tall order, since the otonality has some very challenging notes.

The order of keys is as follows:

E 6/5 subminor
E 16/13 major
B 24/13 subminor
C 1/1 major
G 3/2 subminor
A 8/5 major

The relationship between the major and the subminor that follows is 3/2, and they both use the same otonality. For example, C 1/1 is a major scale consisting of C 1/1, D 9/8, E 5/4, F 11/8, G 3/2, A 13/8, B 7/4, and B 15/8. G 3/2 subminor starts on the same G 3/2 and goes up from there, using the same notes, with a different bass and mode. The same relationship exists between the A 8/5 major and the E 6/5 subminor, and between the E 16/13 major and the B 24/13 subminor. So we really only have three different keys. But the notes in each key are microtonally different in many ways.

The structure of the piece is kind of an A, B, C, D, C, B, A design, with a progression towards the middle, and then more a less a retracing of the steps back towards the end. There are short 1/8 note pauses between each section, but they often are so short that you can miss them.

Candland Mountain was named for one of the original settlers in Utah, who had the mountain and a spring named after him. The mountain was where he summer fed the sheep, and the lower elevation spring is where he kept them in the winter. This is the third and final piece for Woodwind Quintet based on themes from the Wasatch range near the Great Salt Lake in Utah.