The research subject of my dissertation is the Bohlen-Pierce clarinet and the Bohlen-Pierce scale in its many facets. Working on a PhD not only in musicology, but in an art-research PhD project, it is my concern to have both outcomes from the musicology as well as the performing point of view and to implement my theoretical results in stage projects.

It proves that the structure of the Bohlen-Pierce scale is not totally new; there are traditional music styles of many peoples in which scale and interval structures similar to those of the Bohlen-Pierce scale are used. The octave division, however, is common to all these systems, and this is an important fundamental difference to the Bohlen-Pierce scale which divides not the octave but the tritave. This is probably the most important point in the Bohlen-Pierce concept, the one that makes Bohlen-Pierce a new and particular system. All the traditional styles I researched are octave-based and thus not fully compatible to Bohlen-Pierce; but still it is particularly rewarding to research characteristics that other systems have in common with Bohlen-Pierce.

The most promising systems in this context are the raga and dastgah concepts in Indian and Persian music: Deriving a non-equal pool of 22 tones within the octave, interval steps of varied sizes are generated, some of which show similarities with Bohlen-Pierce intervals. Thus I recognised it as an interesting research project of a high aesthetic value to a) find ways of displaying the tone material of ragas and dastgahs on the Bohlen-Pierce clarinet; b) do theoretical research on possibilities of developing an overlapping concept which is based on those of ragas and dastgahs and which creates a new, lively system with matching characteristics with the present Bohlen-Pierce material; c) create and perform a concert project from my research outcomes which at present I envisage to be an appealing emulsion of traditional and contemporary eastern and contemporary western music.