Heinz Bohlen

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Heinz P. Bohlen (26 June 1935 – 2 February 2016) was a German engineer who worked in microwave electronics and communications. He designed several non-octave musical scales, often based on combination tones. His best known scales are the Bohlen–Pierce scale (introduced in 1972), the A12 scale, and the 833 cents scale. In the early 1970s, Bohlen began exploring alternate tunings after a friend asked him to record concerts at the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater. He questioned why most music used twelve‑tone equal temperament with the octave and started investigating other tunings.