31et.com is a project of Alex Zorach.
This website is intended to promote and provide information and tools surrounding the 31-tone equally tempered tuning system.
I have been active in both music and mathematics for a very long time. In high school, I was writing music, and I became aware of the arbitrariness of the 12 tone system, which seems to be taken for granted in most Western music. I fidgeted with the mathematics, and it was then that I discovered that there were other tunings that matched different intervals of the harmonic series. I initially thought 31 ET was out of grasp--too complex and too fine intervals, and I played around with both 19 and 22 ET.
At Oberlin college, where I majored in mathematics, I continued actively composing music as a hobby, and I also interfaced with the conservatory, taking private lessons in French Horn, playing in ensembles, and taking classes in music education and conducting. The music I wrote was often performed by conservatory students; most of my music was composed in the 12 tone system. I composed an electronic piece written in 19-TET, and this piece was performed in association with a winter term project. I graduated Oberlin in 2002, and to this date I have only completed and performed a single microtonal work.
After working with 19 ET and 22 ET for some time, and attempting to compose pieces in them, I became frustrated with the limitations of these systems, and began to seriously consider writing in 31 ET. This site was born out of my research into this system.
I am currently not actively composing music, as I have many other projects on the table, but I hope to return to composing microtonal music in 31 ET and I am hoping this website can both facilitate my own doing so, and encourage other composers and musicians to get involved with this system as well.
You can reach me by email through the contact form on Cazort.net; that is my main website.