 Chris Brown (b. 1953) composes music for traditional instruments, acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, improvisers, and computer networks. With Six Primes (2014), for retuned piano in 13-limit just intonation - drawing on the Rhythmicana ideas of Henry Cowell, the pure keyboard focus of Conlon Nancarrow, the affection for just intonation of Lou Harrison, and the unadulterated clarity of mathematical process of James Tenney - Brown is staunchly positioned, aesthetically, as a West Coast American experimentalist. "Six Primes is composed using the first six prime numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13 to govern both its tuning and temporal structure, including harmony, rhythmic subdivisions, and form. I wrote this music to explore the limits of using the same integer ratios to simultaneously provide melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic materials. The piano must be retuned in just intonation using the tuning system factor of 2, three ratios with highest prime of 3, and two ratios each with highest primes of 5, 7, 11, and 13. This creates a great diversity of interval relationships: whereas 12-tone equal temperament has just twelve distinct intervals, this tuning has 75.
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