Magic Temperament Dynamic Tonality

An improvised piece using a dynamic tonality synthesizer the TransFormSynth (or TFS for short) which remaps your QWERTY keyboard to an isomorphic keyboard, remaps the pitches of each note depending on the tuning, and at the same time maps the partials of the samples to that tuning's corresponding timbres allowing for sensory consonance. It was my first recording in what's called the Magic Temperament, which creates scales by stacking major thirds on top of each other. It starts it 13-edo (thirteen equal divisions of the octave), and then when you hear that weird bending sound (called a "polyphonic tuning bend"), that's me bending the tuning back and forth from 13-edo to 19-edo, then finally passing 19-edo and ending at 3-edo. After that arpeggiated passage I do some more tuning bending and slide all the way down to 10-edo where I finish out the improvisation.

Curious about the diagram? Check out this document:
http://www.thummer.com/ThumTone/Tuning_Invariant_Layouts_Last_Draft.pdf

Category:

Music

Tags:

• isomorphic
• keyboard
• instrumental
• micro
• tonal
• microtonal
• xen
• xentonal
• xenotonal
• thummer
• dynamic
• tonality
• 13-edo
• 10-edo
• 3-edo
• 19-edo
• 16-edo
• just
• intonation
• generalized
• partial
• timbre
• john
• lank
• Moriarty
• Thumtronics
• MIDI

[kratanuva725]

Oh hey, by the way, the Magic Temperament article was in line for deletion awhile ago, some better sources were cited, but I think it is important to put who discovered the Magic temperament and why it is named '"magic" on the article. So, do you know?

[JLMoriart]

@kratanuva725 I'm guessing some mass searching of the Yahoo Alternative Tuning Mailing List would yield some answers as to the history of the name, but unfortunately most temperament names are arbitrary. There are less arbitrary, more mathematical ways to classify them, my favorite being the comma they temper out, but there's something less poetic about it =P So the magic temperament could really just be the 3125/3072 temperament, with the other higher limit commas defining it further.

[kratanuva725]

What does the diagram in the video mean? And where can I find a readable, full sized version? I can't find any info on this diagram.

The diagram that represents the syntonic temperament is a lot simplier.

[JLMoriart]

@kratanuva725 This diagram actually shows completely different info from the syntonic temperament diagram. It shows the compatibility of different isomorphic keyboard layouts with different sections of the entire two dimensional tuning continuum (from 0 to 1200 cents). Look at page 11 in the document I've now linked to in the info and you'll see that the line representing the Wicki layout covers pretty much the entire continuum consistently whereas others are only efficient in smaller sections.

[RoboticusMusic]

Why does everyone hate this so much ahahahaha.

[dwnwd]

This sounds good. For some reason Magic is just now entering my understanding, and I think this little improvisation helped, especially as it travelled through the edos on the fly. I wonder what it would have sounded like without the timbre adjustments.

[CoolIizard]

Definitely a different sound from the standard 12-tet. This is really interesting stuff; keep up the great work!

[JLMoriart]

@parasite34 Cool, thanks man.

[parasite34]

@JLMoriart Ah cool that makes sense now. Some heavy musical exploration best of luck with finding the breakthrough. I'll be watching. Subscribed.

[JLMoriart]

@parasite34 The point is exploration. There haven't been new tonal possibilities for a long time and, given recent advances in both theory and technology, there is now the opportunity to explore brand new musical ground. My desire to explore is comparable to someone's decision to use the Lydian diatonic mode instead of just the major or minor scale. It can be dissonant and weird to hear at first, but when used tastefully it can be beautiful to any ears willing to become acquainted.