DESCRIPTION:
performed by Janet Packer, violin

info from liner notes (Northeastern Records NR 224):

"[Sims] constructed a scale in which the octave is divided into eighteen intervals, which takes care of the Pythagorean comma and other tonal impurities, such as the septimal chroma. He also devised a semiotic notation in which fractional intervals are designated by arrows, hooks, and crooks, remarkably similar to the medieval neumes, which indicated the rise or fall of a given tone. [His] scale of eighteen degrees [is] drawn from a seventy-two note division of the octave.
All Done From Memory was written for Janet Packer at her request, [with] intonation of quarter-, sixth-, and twelfth- tones. The tempo indication is "Innocently," but the score is anything but. Janet Packer performed it for the first time in Switzerland in July 1980 and for the first time in the United States on the Dinosaur Annex concert of 18 January 1981. It is "a series of variations and quasi-cubistic re-assortments of the elements of an old gospel hymn, 'Lily of the Valley,'" Sims says. "Growing up with it I used to scorn the hymn, until one day I realized it was something very important to me. So when Janet asked for a piece that would show her off in microtones, or be a piece of Americana, or provide her with a light little encore piece, I was able to use it to satisfy at least the first two requests in the same piece."" - Nicholas Slonimsky