r/microtonal

I’m interested in tuning one of my acoustic pianos to a microtonal scale.

I was wondering if any of you have experience with this, and if so, what scale you chose.

22 edo (since there are 88 keys) and 24 edo (for the 12 note chromatic scale) seem to make sense with the layout, but I was hoping to get some advice before going down this rabbit hole.

Thanks!

I've just tagged the first stable version of my software Justly for composing in Just intonation. Docs here and binaries here. Features:

- Support for Windows, Linux, and MacOS (both on Intel and Silicon)

- Importing and exporting songs in musicxml

- Live playback with all the instruments included in the musescore soundfont

Please try it out and let me know what you think!

I thought some here might find the process of this piece interesting. While I acknowledge there's a touch of self-promotion here, I genuinely seek feedback and insight on the result of a process like this- or maybe other creative ideas where this technique can be applied.

For the past few months I've been experimenting with composing directly in frequency (Hz) rather than thinking in terms of notes in a defined tuning system. Instead of writing within those sorts of frameworks, I build harmonies from numerical frequency relationships and just intonation, which lets the tuning stay flexible as the music develops. 

In my previous attempts this has resulted in some pretty “weird” music, so I wanted to try to keep it accessible while still exploring the idea of “what can I do with this?” 

To do so, I took a more spectral approach and analyzed recordings of several different Mourning Dove calls and used the strongest frequency near the ends of their coos as the harmonic foundations of the piece. A given coo, among several sampled in the piece, may function as the root of one chord, as a fifth within another, a microtonal harmonic, or appear as any other chord extension elsewhere, allowing the same dove material to assume different identities as the harmony remains just and “wraps” itself around the given call- no iteration of the harmony surrounding the call is the same throughout the piece.  

But of course, every dove is different. I noticed that while the overall shape of their calls is very consistent, the pitch of some calls is higher or lower than others. For instance, one dove's ending coos may land at 480 Hz, while another may land at 525 Hz. This typically would be quite problematic when trying to harmonize to the coos themselves because, while 525 Hz is very close to the note C5, 480 Hz falls somewhere between B♭4 and B4. To boot, the interval between those frequencies doesn't correspond to any standard musical interval-it falls somewhere between a minor second and a major second.

In a system where everything is defined and harmonized as numbers, however, this is no problem (Such as the modulation heard at 4:48) . The frequencies can simply adhere to and harmonize with any value. That is where the ability to truly harmonize with any dove call lies- the harmony can fit the doves, rather than the doves trying to fit “standard harmony.” This is of course just one “cool” thing you can do writing this way- you can also, say, have all voices in a given piece converge into a perfect harmonic series, which I do somewhere around 7:00 in the piece.

Rhythmically, I just used the cadence of the Mourning Dove's call. That pattern ended up becoming the main rhythmic idea while the harmony is constantly changing underneath it.

Despite all the technical harmonic thinking behind the piece, I still find overall it came out pretty “normal” sounding at most points, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people find it emotional while others find this especially boring- I think either reaction is completely fair!

Title says it all. I am interested in finding whole number tones that have been built from the ground up. Like built up from whole number sine waves. I am willing to construct additions to the library. I am interested in the possibility of composing with pure math rather than with the old system of keys and accidentals. Gemini recommended r/microtonal and the rest is history!

I am familiar with the math and just produced my first tone recently. I am using an inverted multiplication table as a grand staff for now but I have a long way to go to produce a whole number composition.

A note about the table: The numbers all represent tones in hertz. I flipped the table so the bass is on the bottom. Obviously the table will have to extend up to 20k. Right now I would be happy to work in regions of tonic 20hz or tonic 100hz. My first constructed tone is 100hz so that can be used in both the "keys" of 100 or 20, it's function varying with the context.

I built this tone from whole number sine wave using audacity. I have a package of 20k whole number sine waves. I got these by having Gemini code and then i just ran the code in my Linux terminal and it put the 20k files on my desktop.

I referred to the first row of the simplest digits in constructing the 100hz tone. I may have only achieved the 8th or 9th harmonic and stopped to balance them. I suppose I should finish up to the 16th harmonic? If someone has a 200hz tone, that will give me the 8ve. If there is no library, let's build one.

In order to compose in 100hz, just transpose this table up 100x.

https://preview.redd.it/jx01fhevc3dh1.png?width=4987&format=png&auto=webp&s=c98491441b385169570c3514885dc39acb729a73

I was looking for insight into how people compose with such scales, from 8-10 notes scales, and what framework u use; do u hear all notes as distinct or some of them are like a different flavor of a couple notes within the scale, similar to how minor scale can take use of 9 notes. What harmonic languages do u employ?

What happened to it and is there any alternatives?

https://terpstrakeyboard.com/play-it-now/

I recently wrote two pieces in the Bohlen Pierce scale.

The first is chiptune-inspired, while the second is more elaborate

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