New Album: The First 50 Years
I am pleased to announce the release of my new album, The First Fifty Years, on MicroFest Records. The album is availabe both as a physical disc and for download, and from the various streaming services. It contains 13 original compositions, with a total running time of one hour and fifteen minutes. Three additional “bonus tracks,” totalling over seventeen minutes, are available only online. Samples from all the tracks and complete liner notes are also available on the MF website.
The compositions on The First Fifty Years span the fifty years of my career(?) as a composer, from the early 1970s to the present. Absent is work from the period 1984–95, which is amply represented in my previous solo release, Uncommon Practice (1998). All compositions are in some form of just intonation. This collection contains both my compositions for acoustic instruments and those for virtual (software) instruments recorded in a digital audio workstation. The latter category typically involve intonational requirements beyond the means of current acoustic instruments and performers. As always, my goal was to create emotionally and intellectually satisfying music as I perceive it. The works are presented in chronological order.
Review by Kraig Grady in Xenharmonikon
The First Fifty Years
David B. Doty
Microfest Records
David B. Doty is an important artist and influence belonging to the first generation of composers that rose up after Harry Partch. To this day, his Just intonation Primer is considered a classic manual in the field of tuning and is highly recommended to beginners. He was the editor of 1/1 magazine and those in the San Francisco area were treated to his compositions, tuning, instruments and performances by his group Other Music, of which many of us could only enjoy via their two recordings. His latest CD focuses on his recent recording of compositions spanning what he optimistically presents in the title as The First Fifty Years.
For those who only know a small amount of Doty’s music, there is much variety that might surprise the listener. One finds melody in the driver’s seat and quite often counterpoint is used to strengthen the musical intent as opposed to being a device to impress. The texture is clear and transparent with an overall sense of being celebratory in the beauty that he can invoke with these elements.