Microtonal music

Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, which are also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal intervals per octave.

Terminology

Microtone

Microtonal music can refer to any music containing microtones, therefore it is important to comprehend what a "microtone" is. The words "microtone" and "microtonal" were coined before 1912 by Maud MacCarthy Mann in order to avoid the misnomer "quarter tone" when speaking of the srutis of Indian music (Mann 1912, 44). Prior to this time the term "quarter tone" was used, confusingly, not only for an interval actually half the size of a semitone, but also for all intervals (considerably) smaller than a semitone (Ellis 1877, 665; Meyer 1903). It may have been even slightly earlier, perhaps as early as 1895, that the Mexican composer Julián Carrillo, writing in Spanish or French, coined the terms microtono/micro-ton and microtonalismo/micro-tonalité (Donval 2006, 119).