Meanings
- not comparableentertainmentNot conforming to the common 12-tone equal temperament.
Dissonance scores can also be applied in situations where no musical score exists, and two examples are given: a xenharmonic piece by Carlos, and a Balinese gamelan performance.
2013, William A. Sethares, Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale, page 1892 more examples
The back cover lists "Materials and Services", including Xenharmonikon (cooperation prevails in the xenharmonic world), and persons cooperating in a tape exchange--meaning that if you send a tape of your music, to someone on the list, you get back a tape of their music.
1978 September 28, Ivor Darreg, “A Xenharmonist's Message to the Computer Musicians”, in Computer Music Journal, volume 2, number 2, The MIT PressMicrotonal music is sometimes referred to as xenharmonic music, the term deriving from the Greek xenia (hospitable) and xenos (foreign or strange) (Chalmers 1974; Darreg 1977; Wilson 2014).
2015, Curtis Roads, Composing Electronic Music: A New Aesthetic, page 219Synonyms: microtonal
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveNot conforming to the common 12-tone equal temperament.
Origin
Coined by Ivor Darreg, from xen- + harmonic
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
xenharmonic. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xenharmonic
“xenharmonic.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xenharmonic. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “xenharmonic,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xenharmonic.
Source: xenharmonic on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.