Then, with the support of Larry Simpson, Roger Brown, and Matt Marvuglio, the more advanced students work on extra repertoire for concerts outside of Berklee. So far the Planet MicroJam Institute touring ensemble has performed at festivals in Italy, Lithuania, and the Republic of Georgia, as well as concerts in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Germany, and Austria. We’ve done clinics in France, Spain, and Switzerland where we encourage MicroJam students to answer questions and teach.

The next step is to offer a microtonal minor for undergrads in Fall 2015 and and a graduate level micro major in Fall 2016. The program will offer rigorous microtonal studies in a classical, jazz/groove/free-improv and a ”non-western” context. The goal is communication. Any student from any country, background, musical style, or preference will be able to explain precisely or perform a sequence of notes or chords that are outside the Western 12-note-per-octave system to any other student from a different background or style. I would like to remove the hurdle of not being able to work on music merely because it is outside of the Western 12 note system and, as Berklee President Roger Brown put it, “Create the conditions for miraculous music making.”

Future goals include just intonation writing and performing methods, more advanced harmony beyond quartertones, and the use of 21st century state of the art keyboards, which would greatly advance microtonal harmonic thinking and learning. The challenge though is to find a cost effective but also playable and useful keyboard. A universally used keyboard of the future may look like the Terpstra: