Dougie McGilvray wrote: > might be worth a looking at the base-40 system if you haven't already. > It's a numerical representation of enharmonic pitch which I'm sure > would allow 'easy' diatonic transposition, but I didn't look into it > too deeply. > > http://www.ccarh.org/publications/reprints/base40/ Interesting read (and pleasantly written) indeed - however, quoting from the article:
---- The most successful systems to be proposed thus far have been those which recognize the two-dimensional nature of pitch notation, i.e., that the unambiguous representation of pitch notation requires two independent parameters. (..) From the standpoint of data storage and retrieval, however, the representation of musical pitch by a single numerical parameter would be superior to any system using two parameters. (..) any single-parameter system will have inherent ambiguities. ---- I think for Rosegarden a simple 2-parameter representation is clearer and more elegant, and does not neccessarily have the limitations* imposed by a 1-parameter system. I haven't been able to find out more about the representations by Norbert Boerker-Heil mentioned in the article. The Binomal representation** by Alexander Brinkman mentioned in the article is, however, a lot more like I'd have imagined this (except much more nicely worked out and documented ;) ). Basically, a note or interval is stored as a pair of pitch and step. So C is <0,0>, D <2,1>, E <4,2>, F <5,3>, et cetera. This has nice properties: D3 transposed upwards by a major triad will simply be, for example, <(3*12)+2,(3*7)+1> + <(0*12)+4,(0*7)+2> = <36+2+4,19+2> = <42,24>. Converting that back to conventional notation is simple: the octave is 42div12 or 24div7 = 3, 24%7=3 means 'F', F's pitch-%-12 is normally 5, but 42%12=6, hence one # needs be added, yielding F#3. Computing the interval between 2 notes can be done by substracting them much like how transposing is done by adding. I like it. We could use the proposed single-number representation, but I guess it'd be neater to do it 'the C++ way' and just store it as a class with 3 fields. Nice stuff, thanks for the pointer. Arnout * the base40-system works as long as a note never has more than 2 flats or sharps. The article nicely explains how the system can be scaled up to a base-54 system (3 flats/sharps) and beyond, which could be sufficient, but isn't really elegant. ** A Binomial Representation of Pitch for Computer Processing of Musical Data, http://www.jstor.org/view/01956167/ap020010/02a00030/0 (if that url works) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Rosegarden-devel mailing list [email protected] - use the link below to unsubscribe https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-devel
