Wheat had long been an advocate of George Russell's "Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization for Improvisation", the art of tonal gravity. In 1948 Harry Partch, an American composer, developed a microtonal system of music that depended on custom-built, specialized instruments of various and exotic designs, which could play non-tempered scales, for its performance. Buckwheat (the name Wheat used in later life) and his Sausalito, California roommate Bill Loughborough, a musician and electronic engineer, built instruments for Partch, such as a marimba played with a large soft mallet over the resonator, delivering barely audible, low-Hertz tones. Loughborough borrowed diagnostic and metric instruments from the Mare Island Navy Yard; using an oscilloscope and audio oscillator, they were able to work at a technical level not previously possible.