Harry Partch

SOMETIMES IT'S BEST to wipe the slate clean, in music as well as in life. Such was the philosophy of Harry Partch (1901-1974), one of the most extraordinary musical minds America ever produced, a pioneer spirit who had more in common with American innovators like Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright than most composers. A sometime hobo, Partch not only developed a completely new musical scale, but also went the extra mile and built the instruments on which to play the music he wrote to that scale.