Beyond the Musical Horizon: Ervin Wilson
Music is a perpetual journey toward the exploration of new sounds and structures. While many adhere to traditional scales and tuning systems, there are visionaries who challenge these limits in search of uncharted territory. One of these pioneers is Ervin Wilson, a Mexican-American music theorist whose mathematical genius and profound understanding of music have led him to develop innovative tuning systems that expand the horizons of contemporary music theory.
Cultural and historical context
Born on June 11, 1928, in Colonia Pacheco, a small community in the mountains of northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, Wilson grew up in a rural setting where his mother taught him to play the reed organ and read musical notation. From an early age, he showed interest in composition, but soon realized that the sounds he imagined could not be reproduced with the conventional intervals of the organ. This discovery led him to investigate music from other cultures, developing a particular interest in the concepts of raga in Indian music.
During his service in the Air Force in Japan, a chance encounter introduced him to the world of musical harmonics, changing the course of his life and work. Inspired by the theorist Joseph Yasser, Wilson began to conceive of the musical scale as a living process, similar to a growing crystal or plant. This organic perspective led him to reinvent, in a self-taught manner, base-2 logarithms, a powerful tool for measuring musical intervals.
Mathematical genius and innovative tuning systems
Wilson was noted for his ability to merge mathematical concepts with music theory, creating tuning systems that challenged established norms. He explored divisions of the octave beyond the traditional twelve notes, developing 17-, 19-, 22-, and 31-tone scales that offered new sonic palettes. Among his most notable contributions are:
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Transcendent Tonality - is a new term that encompasses the vastness of Ervin Wilson's work and the field of tuning, going beyond "microtonality." It describes the universe of all possible tuning systems, temperaments, and modes, including the well-known ones like 12-tone equal pitch and others yet to be discovered, evoking wonder and an expansive vision for the future of music.
- Combinatorial Product Sets: Systems that explore combinations of harmonic factors to generate new scale structures, expanding possibilities beyond traditional scales.
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Hexany: A structure that represents one of the simplest forms within its sets of combinatorial products. Hexany is constructed by selecting four harmonic factors and combining them in pairs, resulting in six tones that form a network of consonant relationships. This structure is analogous to an octahedron in geometry, where each vertex represents a note and each triangular face a triad.
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Moments of Symmetry: A concept that identifies scales with symmetrical properties and repeating patterns, providing a basis for the creation of new scales and tuning systems.
Implications and legacy
Wilson's innovations have had a profound impact on contemporary music, inspiring numerous musicians and composers to explore uncharted sonic territories. One of the most prominent artists influenced by his work is Stephen James Taylor, a composer recognized for his contributions to film and television. Taylor has incorporated Wilson's theories into his compositions, creating soundscapes that challenge traditional conventions and offer unique listening experiences.
In 2012, Taylor directed and produced the short film "Surfing the Sonic Sky", a cinematic exploration of Ervin Wilson's musical universe (we leave it below in English). This documentary offers an in-depth look at the musical structures Wilson developed and how they can expand our perception of sound and music. Through interviews and demonstrations, Taylor illustrates the breadth and depth of Wilson's contributions to the world of music. The short film received the Special Jury Prize at the 2012 Houston Film Festival, recognizing its value in spreading these revolutionary ideas.
In addition to the documentary, Taylor released the original soundtrack for "Surfing the Sonic Sky" in 2021, available on platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify. This collection of 15 musical pieces encapsulates the essence of Wilson's theories, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in a sonic world that transcends conventional scales and tunings. One of the featured tracks, titled "Who Is Erv Wilson?", serves as a direct tribute to the theorist, presenting a composition that reflects the depth and complexity of his ideas. Listen on Spotify by clicking this link.
Besides, Kraig Grady supports the "Wilson Archives" project on his website anaphoria.com, where you can find Erv's original notes, as well as his theories written on paper.
Wilson's influence also extends to other musicians and theorists who have adopted and adapted his tuning systems to create new forms of musical expression. His work has opened doors to microtonal explorations and challenged artists to reconsider the fundamental structures of music.
A legacy that resonates beyond the audible
Ervin Wilson wasn't simply a music theorist: he was a cartographer of yet-to-be-discovered acoustic universes. His explorations were born not from a quest to break rules, but from a profound respect for harmony and its infinite capacity for expansion. By observing numbers and scales like one contemplates constellations, Wilson showed us that music is not a closed system, but a galaxy open to invention, intuition, and mathematical beauty.
His tunings don't pursue randomness, but rather reveal hidden structures, precise patterns that, once understood, open doors to new tonal dimensions. The fascinating thing is that these structures, although mathematically predictable, lead to soundscapes that challenge our cultural and aural expectations. The novelty doesn't arise from chance, but from looking with fresh eyes at what mathematics has always whispered.
Musicians like Stephen James Taylor have been able to translate that vision into living works like Surfing the Sonic Sky, where the viewer doesn't just hear: they travel, float, and immerse themselves in a sea of frequencies that seem to whisper from other dimensions. The music inspired by Wilson isn't decorative or complacent; it's an experience of reconnecting with the primordial root of sound, a resonance that goes beyond the physical and emotional: it's almost spiritual.
Today, Ervin Wilson's work takes on even greater value. In a world where sonic homogenization is imposed by algorithms and repetitive formulas, his legacy stands as a beacon for seekers: composers, mathematicians, luthiers, sonic artists, and alchemists of the ear. It reminds us that music need not be limited to beaten paths. That there are still treasures to be discovered in unconventional intervals, and that true innovation is born when sensitivity meets structure, when geometry becomes sound.
Ervin Wilson left us scores without bars and maps without borders. Let's keep exploring.
Documentary - Surfing The Sonic Sky
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