Saw The Outsider: the story of Harry Partch (2002), a brief documentary about an avantgarde musician, Harry Partch, who drew inspiration from Greek and primitive, pre-twelve-note-scale music. He spent some time as a hobo in his youth, and also drew inspiration from the accents and intonations of people as they whined or celebrated or bragged. He created giant, whimsical instruments that sound utterly alien, prehistoric. The film talks about him in fond terms before leaving him alone. Harry worried, in his later life, that he would become a strange curio, fossilized like other composers before him. I think he had a canny understanding of how the world works.
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