Built" 1945, at the University of Wisconsin
Size: Six Keyboard Octaves (not acoustic octaves)
Materials: Reeds are inserted for a 43-tone-to-the-octave scale. Thus, an acoustic octave covers that many keys and reeds, successively, and measures some three and half keyboard octaves. The scale is in just intonation, and each tone is a frequency ratio to a fundamental, shown on the keyboard by colors. With the thirteen sub-bass reeds, and the stops for higher and lower tones in the second cell row, the total range of the instruments is from the lowest piano C to the third C# above middle C, slightly more than five acoustic octaves. All the other instruments are tuned to the Chromelodeon.
Chromelodeon II, begun in 1945, and involving an unusal keyboard, remains unfinished, A second Chromelodeon II was used in Oedipus and in Revelation. A previous reed organ, involving a keyboard somewhat like a typewriter, was built in 1935, but never used in music.
A good example of the Chromelodeon I is in the Harry Partch piece called, "U.S. Highball"
