Seamus Cater: A History of Musical Pitch

Seamus Cater is a British-born musician whose parents were active folk revivalists in London in the '60s, meaning that folk and singing permeated his early music experiences. He learned to play harmonica when he was 19. It was only when he was 23 that he attended an Access course for mature students, playing improvised music and jazz. After a jazz degree at Salford University, he moved to Holland where he has lived ever since. After the Millenium he moved towards electronic music as a performer and composer.

In Amsterdam, Cater met musicians involved with Wandelweiser and, in 2017, he was playing concertina in an octet which recorded Antoine Beuger's "Ockeghem Octets (2005)" released by Another Timbre and much praised. In 2019, Cater was invited by Beuger to write a composition to present at the annual Wandelweiser festival Klangraum. He wrote "Tree Space: The Trees They Do Grow High (2019)" which features a drawing of a tree with a variety of musical couplets hanging from its branches; musicians can play these in any order they choose. At Klangraum, over five days a different ensemble played the piece each day; Beuger described this as a binding ritual where participants all went and sat in the tree at different times each day. A seven-and-a-half-minute voice and piano version of the piece, recorded during lockdown, appeared on Amsterdam—Berlin—Moscow (Edition Wandelweiser, 2021). A thirteen-minute version of the piece, performed by the DNK Ensemble, including Cater on duet concertina, is at the centre of A History of Musical Pitch. Although its instrumentation gives this version a very different atmosphere to others, that demonstrates the piece's flexibility and scope for interpretation.

The other two pieces on A History of Musical Pitch reflect another facet of Cater's musical explorations, his interest in the work of the nineteenth century musicologist Alexander J. Ellis on the tuning of instruments. Cater came across some of Ellis' writing while trying to re-tune a concertina in Just Intonation; this eventually led him to avenues in which he felt he was somehow continuing Ellis' work. (In fact, "The History of Musical Pitch" was the title of a paper that Ellis presented to the Royal Society in London, in 1880.) The album's opening track, "Checking" comprises the sounds of long notes on double bass and skhismic duet concertina alongside tuning forks playing long notes; contrary to expectations, the intention was to check each fork against the instruments, not vice versa. Apparently when Ellis gathered 223 forks, supposedly of the A note, their actual notes ranged from F sharp to C sharp, so some were a long way from A. Rather than sounding like an experiment, of academic interest, "Checking" has a mesmerising charm.

The final track, thirty-seven minutes long and sharing its title with the album, superficially sounds similar to "Checking" in that sustained notes from tuning forks are the main focus. However, these ones were all tuned in just ratios and contribute to a rich soundscape which they share with Anne La Berge's flute and Frederick Rasten's e-bowed acoustic guitar, the totality making first-rate listening.

On this evidence, one cannot help thinking that Seamus Cater has a bright future ahead of him. At present it is still unclear whether it will be as an academic following in the footsteps of Alexander J. Ellis or as an equally distinguished musician and composer with strong links to Wandelweiser. Or maybe both....

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