Partch has had a strong influence on me, and I have a tendency to be a contrarian about his lineage, as I have taken a very different interpretation of microtonal music in my work. I am a huge fan of his instruments and work, and because of encountering his instruments I leaned away from making string and percussion instruments and away from very large instruments (choosing instead primarily woodwinds and small scaled instruments with very simple interfaces). Something about the complexity of playing and performing his instruments and the monumental scale of his instruments leaves me uneasy about his music (in terms of taking influences that lead to making things like it, not in the critical of it sense). I would love to make huge instruments that are difficult to tune and to play, but the exercise is very against the kind of intuitive musical ecosystems i want to make. I hope one day I will at teh very least start working larger with adequate space.
I do not plan to hash out Partch too much beyond his instruments on this wiki, information about him is much more widely available then most of the people featured on this wiki. I will focus on the people he influenced more then focusing on his own life and career.
Instruments of the Partch Ensemble in LA ¹⁾