Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning proposed color notation

Kite,

I really appreciate the thought of simplification though I feel compelled
to bring up that about 13% of men suffer from some sort of color
deficiency. I happen to be red-green deficient and have synesthesia to a
fair degree. So a system based on color would be extremely confusing for me
and probably anyone else like me.

Sincerely

Chris Vaisvil

On Thursday, January 31, 2013, kiteg wrote:

> **
>
>
> (crossposted from the facebook xenharmonic2 group)
>
> Submitted for your consideration...
>
> http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Kite%27s+color+notation
>
> I'm on a crusade to reform the language we use to describe intervals,
> chords, scales, etc. Just my opinion, but I think terms like "comma of
> Archytas" and "syntonic comma" are incredibly off-putting. And rattling off
> ratios is worse. I think as a community we tend to forget that most people,
> when they think of 27, don't automatically think "three cubed". I love
> numbers, but in my experience most people dislike math and don't want to
> have to factor numbers in their head. So I've developed a color notation, a
> system of naming intervals and chords that I feel is more right-brained and
> musician-friendly. I find it easy to associate certain colors with certain
> types of intervals. It's also very rigorous and mathematically precise. It
> can be written very concisely, and it lends itself well to conventional
> staff notation. And most importantly, it flows when spoken out loud. Human
> language is first and foremost an oral phenomenon!
>
> By the way, the alt-tuner software is coming along nicely and should be
> out in a few months. Alt-tuner uses this color notation, although that can
> be overridden somewhat. This is part of the reason I'm putting this out
> now, so people can give me some feedback on the notation before the program
> is released.
>
>
>

Good point about color blindness. There's two issues here: alt-tuner color displays on the screen, and color names as a useful verbal label.

As far as screen colors go, alt-tuner lets you assign colors to each row of the lattice. The 10/9-5/3-5/4-15/8 row defaults to yellow, the 4/3-1/1-3/2 row is white, the 8/5-6/5-9/5 row is green, etc. BUT you can set the color for each row to anything you want. If you have trouble distinguishing red and green, you can set those rows to something you can distinguish. If you have synesthesia and the whole color thing doesn't sit right with you, you can just set everything to the same color, probably white. Some color system is handy, because there are other views where you see the note but not the lattice, and the color conveys some useful information about the tuning of that note.

I'm also aware that many people don't work in JI and don't think in terms of lattices at all. Don't worry, alt-tuner has some very EDO-centric features. The colors are of course not very useful in these modes, and turning them off would make a lot of sense in this case.

The other issue is using colors or some other set of labels as a verbal descriptor of the prime factor components of a ratio. Here color is used like we say "red flag" or "green energy" - do those terms throw you, Chris? Using labels for each prime above 3, and letting the degree reflect the 3 exponent in the monzo, provides a very compact and non-mathematical way to discuss ratios. The labels I like to use are color labels, but it could be any set of words, really. We've been discussing this over on Facebook. I see that this group has about 9 times as many members as the facebook group, so I'm gonna reprint what I posted over there. The last paragraph is particularly important:

from facebook:

Let me rephrase my opening sentence: "I'm on a crusade to provide an alternative language for describing intervals, chords, scales, etc." When Perl was written, people didn't go "no thanks, we already have C". Both languages co-exist side-by-side, each useful for their own purposes. Lots of programmers use both. There's times when you need to use ratios or monzos or whatever. But I think my approach in general, whether it uses colors or something else is still very useful. A *huge* advantage is talking about chord progressions. In my system, you can write "yAgg - yAgr - Gyb - Cyb". Much shorter than "in C: 1/1-6/5-3/2-9/5 on 5/3, 1/1-6/5-3/2-12/7 on 5/3, 1/1-5/4-3/2-7/4 on 3/2, 1/1-5/4-3/2-7/4 on 1/1", or "in C: 10:12:15:18 on 5/3, 70:84:105:120 on 5/3, 4:5:6:7 on 3/2, 4:5:6:7 on 1/1". Now to really prove my point, say it out loud. After all, musicians need to be able to talk to each other. So actually open you mouth right now, in whatever room you happen to be in, and read these sentences out loud. (You can pretend your talking on your cell phone if you're at work.) "Yellow A green green to yellow A green red to G yellow blue to C yellow blue." OK, DEEP breath, now this one: "In C: one over one, six over five, three over two and nine over five on five over three, to one over one, six over five, three over two and twelve over seven on five over three, to one over one, five over four, three over two and seven over four on three over two, to one over one, five over four, three over two and seven over four on one over one." One more: "In C: ten colon twelve colon fifteen colon eighteen on five over three, to seventy colon eighty-four colon one-oh-five colon one-twenty on five over three, to four colon five colon six colon seven on three over two, to four colon five colon six colon seven on one over one."

Another big advantage: replacing dozens and dozens of arbitrary hard-to-memorize names for temperaments and commas with logical names requiring only a few arbitrary color labels. Syntonic comma becomes green comma. Comma of archytas becomes red comma. Porcupine becomes triple yellow, 225/224 becomes reddish-yellow comma, etc. I haven't quite doped out naming temperaments yet, but we can start with naming temperaments after the commas they temper out. Porcupine temperament becomes triple yellow temperament, etc.

Advantages of colors: it's fun to say. If you want to label keys or frets, you know exactly what to do, and assuming this catches on somewhat, others can "read" your keyboard/fretboard easily. Disadvantages: the synesthesia angle, the actual color mixing angle. Alternatives? Well we could use any label, really. All language is arbitrary. We just need a word for something central, and two word pairs that cancel out, and some more pairs later on for the higher primes. Every word has to start with a different letter to make the shorthand work. Here's a silly one off the top of my head: rice for white, chicken for yellow, pork for green, beer for blue and wine for red. The meats go together, and the drinks do too. Now we have "chicken A pork pork to chicken A pork wine to G chicken beer to C chicken beer", or "cApp - cApw - Gcb Ccb". And the pythagorean comma is the rice comma, and the porcupine comma is the triple chicken comma!

So alt-tuner lets you label each generator (I think that's the right term) of the lattice with two one-letter descriptors, one for otonal and one for utonal. When you play an interval, a little display pops up and says "M3 - 14¢ = 386¢ = y3 = 5/4" or "P5 + 2¢ = 702¢ = w5 = 3/2", or if you're in a temperament or EDO, "P5 + 9¢ = 709¢ = Tw5 = 3/2 + 7¢". T stands for tempered. The w stands for white in my mind, but it can stand for anything you want in your mind. You also get to paint each row of the lattice your own color. It's possible but sort of a hassle to color each ratio individually, but there's definitely no way to color each specific note. If you're an AP type, you can set everything to white.

So the way I see it, we have the standard terminology using ratios and monzos, and we have what I'll call, I don't know, maybe "prime-labeling" terminology, of which the color notation is an example. In PLT, an interval is one or two label words and a degree, and a chord is the same plus a few more label words. You have two words for each prime above 3 that you use, and one word indicating the absence of any primes above 3, and optionally another word indicating the absence of any primes above two. The monzo exponents are mostly indicated by the prime labels. The exponent for the 3-factor can be deduced by the degree of the note. The exponent of the 2-factor can be deduced from which octave it's in. So you can get the monzo from the PLT term, and the PLT term from the monzo. The two terminologies complement each other well, with one being more mathematician-friendly, and the other being more musician-friendly.

I think my reading-progressions-out-loud example makes clear the advantage of having some kind of PLT. Now comes the question, just which words do we use as labels? I don't think I made this clear earlier, but alt-tuner will let you choose whatever letter you want for each prime. It defaults to "c, w, y/g, b/r, j/a, e/o", etc. but you can put any letters in there. Why not just use letter-labels and skip the word part? Because we use letters for note names. And we want the option to go beyond A-G. True, when written, label letters are lower-case and note letters are upper-case. Ah, but when spoken... How do you tell someone in your band to play a "bAgg chord" when he hears "B - A - G - G"? So we need actual words. Also well-chosen words provide useful mnemonics. Now I love the color notation, but I hear that people want alternatives. One outcome might be for every one who uses alt-tuner to invent their own labels. You could use colors, but in a different order. Or you could use "cat dog horse/bull frog/toad seal/whale goose/owl" and 7/5 would be the "bullfrog fifth" :^). Or "orange, lime, apple/pear, fig/date, grape/berry" or whatever.

Or you could just ignore the letters, but that would really be a shame. Because what would be super super awesome is if we could all agree on one set of labels, because then we could use them to talk music to each other. What labels do people suggest? Remember the words all have to start with different letters, and it's nice if "b" isn't one of those letters, so it can be used as a flat.

Now you might think all this stuff with animals and food is kinda silly. You might want some musical terms, like perfect, minor, etc. Here goes: octal is 2-limit, perfect is 3-limit, major/minor is for five, subminor/supermajor is for seven. We must allow the use of capital letters and accept the limit to our choice of note letters. We get "o, p, M/m, s/S". So 5/4 is a M3 and 6/5 is a m3. 3/2 is P5. So far so good. It's nice how the labels indicate relative size: 8/7, 10/9, 16/15, 28/27 are supermajor, major, minor and subminor. But wait: 10/9 is a major 2nd and 9/8 is a perfect 2nd? 16/9 is a perfect 7th? And 27/20 is a minor 4th which is sharper than a perfect 4th? Perfect, major and minor carry "linguistic baggage" that keeps them from being used flexibly. -------------------
On to 7-limit. 7/4 is a subminor 7th, written s7, and 9/7 is a supermajor 3d, S3. 7/5 is sm5, a subminor-minor fifth. 15/7 is a SM8, a supermajor-major octave. This is getting pretty damn wordy. It's actually easier to say "fifteen over seven" than to say "supermajor-major octave". Personally, I think I'll stick with "redddish octave"!
Now we go on to higher primes, and call eleven aug/dim. 11/8 = aug 4th, that's good, but 11/9 = aug 3rd? 11/10 = aug minor 2nd??? No way!!!

alt-tuner is coming. And it's gonna have some kind of PLT built-in. If you want something other than color notation, now's the time to propose something.

proposed color notation

🔗kiteg <kiteg@...>

🔗kiteg <kiteg@...>

🔗kraiggrady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗kiteg <kiteg@...>