Heptone
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Heptone |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Unreleased, Dial-A-Song, Power Of Dial-A-Song, Free When You Call From Work |
| year | 1983 |
| first played | July 10, 1983 (1 known performance) |
| run time | 0:32 |
| sung by |  Instrumental
|
Trivia/Info
- The title of this song was unknown to fans for decades, until John Flansburgh identified it in a Facebook comment on March 26, 2013:
It's a very obscure recording from Dial-A-Song called Heptone, celebrating the joy of riding a bike to a record store. Heptone was a record store on Flatbush Ave. that had 12" records of hip hop and UK imports of post-punk stuff. Got Malcolm McLarens' Duck Rock there, and the songs The Birthday Party and The Message.
- Like "Youth Culture Killed My Dog", this song was written by Flansburgh while he was riding his bicycle through Brooklyn.[1] It was recorded some time prior to the launch of Dial-A-Song in November 1983, and was among the first recordings placed into rotation on the service.[2]
- This song is composed in 24-tone equal temperament, a microtonal tuning system that divides the octave into twice as many notes as standard 12-tone tuning. It was recorded using John Linnell's Micromoog synthesizer, which he modified to play in this alternate tuning. In a 2019 interview with KMSU's They Might Be Playing They Might Be Giants, Linnell discussed his interest in microtonal music:
The story is that someone I know introduced me to the book Genesis of a Music by Mr. Harry Partch. That was when I was about 22. I don't know why but I devoured this book and then I called up the Moog company in Rochester, NY, which is where they used to be, and I asked them how to turn my Moog synthesizer into a microtonal instrument. And somebody there, I don't know who it was, wrote me this incredibly nice letter back with a schematic and where to buy all of the parts at Radio Shack to do this project.
I completely suck at electronics stuff but I followed the instructions, I got the little chip and some wires and knobs and things, and I constructed this thing. And I pretty much blew up my synthesizer, more or less fried its innards by trying to make it into a microtonal electronic instrument—but not before John Flansburgh wrote and recorded this great song called "Heptone", which I don't think we've ever released. But that was the first microtonal thing we ever put out—or recorded, I guess didn't put out—and that was way back in the early '80s sometime. We should put "Heptone" out. That was a good song, and it used the now-destroyed Moog synthesizer.
- This song has not been released outside of Dial-A-Song and is currently only available as a low quality over-the-phone recording. The circulating version appears to be an incomplete fragment, with unusual edits at the beginning and end. Based on the band's descriptions of the song and its appearance on a 1983 setlist, it seems that the complete version was substantially longer and included lyrics.[3]
Song Themes
Microtones, Musical Stores, New York City, Places (Real), Transportation
Videos
Current Rating You must be logged in to rate this. You can either login (if you have a userid) or create an account with us today. Heptone is currently ranked #705 out of 1081. (22 wikians have given it an average rating of 7.82) |