Editing Harry Partch (section)

===Early experiments (1919–1947)===
[[File:Harry Partch high school graduation photo 1919.jpg|thumb|187px|right|alt=A black-and-white photograph.  Enclosed in an oval, the face of a young man in a suit and tie faces leftward.|Partch in 1919]]
The family moved to Los Angeles in 1919 following the death of Partch's father.  There, his mother was killed in a [[trolleycar|trolley]] accident in 1920.  He enrolled in the [[University of Southern California]]'s School of Music in 1920, but was dissatisfied with his teachers and left after the summer of 1922.{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xvii}}  He moved to San Francisco and studied books on music in the libraries there and continued to compose.{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xviii}}  In 1923 he came to reject the standard twelve-tone [[equal temperament]] of Western concert music when he discovered a translation of [[Hermann von Helmholtz]]'s ''[[Sensations of Tone]]''.  The book pointed Partch towards [[just intonation]] as an acoustic basis for his music.{{sfnm|1a1=McGeary|1y=2000|1p=xviii|2a1=Gilmore|2a2=Johnston|2y=2002|2pp=365–366}}  Around this time, while working as an usher for the [[Los Angeles Philharmonic]], he had a romantic relationship with the actor [[Ramon Novarro]], then known by his birth name Ramón Samaniego; Samaniego broke off the affair when he started to become successful in his acting career.{{sfn|Gilmore|1998|p=47}}

By 1925, Partch was putting his theory into practice by developing paper coverings for violin and viola with fingerings in just intonation, and wrote a string quartet using such tunings.  He put his theories in words in May 1928 in the first draft for a book, then called ''Exposition of Monophony''.{{sfnm|1a1=McGeary|1y=2000|1p=xviii|2a1=Gilmore|2a2=Johnston|2y=2002|2pp=365–366}}  He supported himself during this time doing a variety of jobs, including teaching piano, proofreading, and working as a sailor.{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xviii}}  In New Orleans in 1930, he resolved to break with the European tradition entirely, and burned all his earlier scores in a [[potbelly stove]].{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xviii}}

Partch had a New Orleans violin maker build a viola with the [[fingerboard]] of a cello.  He used this instrument, dubbed the Adapted Viola, to write music using a scale with twenty-nine tones to the octave.{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xviii}}  Partch's earliest work to survive comes from this period, including works based on Biblical verse and Shakespeare, and ''Seventeen Lyrics of Li Po'' based on translations of the Chinese poetry of [[Li Bai]].{{efn|"Li Po" and "Li Bai" are different renderings of the same name: 李白.}}{{sfnm|1a1=McGeary|1y=2000|1p=xviii|2a1=Gilmore|2a2=Johnston|2y=2002|2p=366}}  In 1932, Partch performed the music in San Francisco and Los Angeles with sopranos he had recruited.{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xviii}}  A February 9, 1932, performance at [[Henry Cowell]]'s New Music Society of California attracted reviews.  A private group of sponsors sent Partch to New York in 1933, where he gave solo performances and won the support of composers [[Roy Harris]], [[Charles Seeger]], Henry Cowell, [[Howard Hanson]], [[Otto Luening]], [[Walter Piston]], and [[Aaron Copland]].{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xix}}

Partch unsuccessfully applied for [[John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|Guggenheim]] grants in 1933 and 1934.  The [[Carnegie Corporation of New York]] granted him $1500 so he could do research in England.  He gave readings at the [[British Museum]] and traveled in Europe.  He met [[W.&nbsp;B. Yeats]] in Dublin, whose translation of [[Sophocles]]' ''[[King Oedipus]]'' he wanted to set to his music;{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xix}} he studied the spoken inflection in Yeats's recitation of the text.{{sfn|Gilmore|Johnston|2002|p=366}}  He built a keyboard instrument, the Chromatic Organ, which used a scale with forty-three tones to the octave.{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xix}}  He met musicologist [[Kathleen Schlesinger]], who had recreated an ancient Greek [[kithara]] from images she found on a vase at the [[British Museum]].  Partch made sketches of the instrument in her home,{{sfn|Harlan|2007|p=179}} and discussed [[Music of ancient Greece|ancient Greek music theory]] with her.{{sfn|Foley|2012|p=101}}
Partch returned to the U.S. in 1935 at the height of the [[Great Depression]], and spent a transient nine years, often as a [[hobo]], often picking up work or obtaining grants from organizations such as the [[Federal Writers' Project]].{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xix}}  For the first eight months of this period, he kept a journal which was published posthumously as ''Bitter Music''.{{sfnm|1a1=McGeary|1y=2000|1p=xix|2a1=Gilmore|2a2=Johnston|2y=2002|2p=366}}  Partch included notation on the speech inflections of people he met in his travels.{{sfn|Gilmore|Johnston|2002|p=366}}  He continued to compose music, build instruments, and develop his book and theories, and make his first recordings.{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xix}}  He had alterations made by sculptor and designer friend Gordon Newell to the Kithara sketches he had made in England.  After taking some woodworking courses in 1938, he built his first Kithara{{sfn|Harlan|2007|p=179}} at [[Big Sur]], California,{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xix}} at a scale of roughly twice the size of Schlesinger's.{{sfn|Harlan|2007|p=179}}  In 1942 in Chicago, he built his Chromelodeon—another 43-tone reed organ.{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xix}}  He was staying on the eastern coast of the U.S. when he was awarded a Guggenheim grant in March 1943 to construct instruments and complete a seven-part ''Monophonic Cycle''.  On April 22, 1944, the first performance of his ''Americana'' series of compositions was given at [[Carnegie Hall|Carnegie Chamber Music Hall]] put on by the [[League of Composers]].{{sfn|McGeary|2000|p=xx}}