Symmetric Palaces
Keyboard Study
Duration: 4:00
Released: March 30, 2025
Symmetric Palaces is my second piece in reaction to the work of Erv Wilson (1928-2016), a music theorist (and gardener) who spent his life exploring and mapping a vast universe of beautiful musical-mathematical structures.
Wilson worked almost completely outside of academia, focused on directly serving the creativity of composers and listeners. Speaking as a person who’s creative flow never seems to feel completely accessible until I can see, touch, and breathe the organizational structure of my materials, he cuts a saint-like figure in my mind.
I believe it’s only a matter of time before his work is more widely known.
I like to think that Erv would have encouraged composers to learn by doing — working toward comprehension of his concepts through the act of actively creating music with them. In that spirit, I started working on a study to explore some of his tuning concepts (specifically the scale structures he called “moments of symmetry”).
This piece was originally published on Music and Math and Feelings. At the link below you can read more about it and add the track (and all my new releases) to your favorite podcast player. ⬇️