On Fri, Apr 06, 2007 at 03:35:31AM -0400, Chuckk Hubbard wrote: > >That brings to mind an interesting thought. With most electronic > >keyboards being software-based, it seems it would be a simple matter for > >the software to analyze what notes are being played, and adjust the notes > >for perfect harmony in the same way those singers do. I wonder if that's > >ever been done. Does anyone know? > > I don't know about that one. Wendy Carlos spoke of and might have > created a keyboard that would retune with a pedal. With computers it > would be a snap, and could even be reprogrammed in real time. I like > the idea: when you hold down the foot pedal, the next note you touch > doesn't sound, but rather becomes the new tonal center. I was thinking of something a bit more automatic, where you don't need a pedal or any other control, and the computer doesn't even need to know what key you're in. It would just look at the notes being played and make the necessary adjustments to bring them into tune with one another. Since most chords are constructed by starting with the root and adding major and minor thirds, I think the best way to do this would be to figure out what the root of the chord is, and then adjust the thirds to perfect thirds, flattening major thirds and sharpening minor thirds. Some overly complex chords might need to be left untouched, but overly complex chords probably wouldn't benefit much from just intonation anyway. The computer might also need to figure out if there's a melody going on above the chord, or if some of the notes should be considered passing tones, and treat them separately from the chord, which might complicate things a little, but I think it could be done. > I programmed a Pure Data patch a while back that allows me to compose > using a set of just frequency ratios, and will transpose with one > key-press, so that, for instance, the 7/4 element of one chord can > become the 1/1 of the next, and then the 5/9 of that tonal center can > become the next 1/1, and so on and so on. This way I don't need to > decide how many notes per octave I want, and I don't need to keep > multiplying and dividing when I change keys. > I think the ideal instrument for this would be a computer with a > touchscreen. Real-time scaleless microtonal improvisation together > with live coding. It would be unstoppable. I think this would also be an interesting feature for experimental music, but it should be treated as a separate feature from the automatic retuning I was thinking of. Chuck _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/linux-audio-user
