The piece is a warmup I wrote this weekend for getting used to the sound of 17edo and adapting a non-12tet tuning to the EWI. The tuning has an interesting mix of squirmy sounds I like and squirmy sounds I like less. The semitone is awkwardly narrow and the lack of a good 5th harmonic is an interesting challenge to work with, but the perfect 5ths are great and neutral 2nds are always a blessing.
I've been toying with using my EWI Solo as a microtonal MIDI controller, this is my first test run recording something. I made a basic patch in Vital (sounding a little bit like a soggy store-brand ondes martenot) and recorded each part myself. The end result kind of reminds me of Easley Blackwood's electronic stuff. Each part is recorded using a different tuning; part 1 uses a specific 12-note set, while the other parts map the whole 17-note scale to the instrument. As a flutist, the EWI as a MIDI controller is a little finicky in two ways: 1.) Dynamic/breath control/fingerings are not a perfect match to the flute, and 2.) The fingering detection, especially when crossing an octave, is incredibly sensitive. You can see the impact of 2.) in the MIDI visual; lots of tiny blips of notes between some jumps. I removed a lot of these blips from the MIDI when they were audible (like 70 of them), but left the inoffensive ones in. I hope to do more with the EWI down the road, it hits a sweet spot of being able to add human expression to electronic sounds.
