- I later learned that I had constructed the "lamboid diagram" or
- Lambdoma, named for its resemblance to the Greek letter Lambda Λ. The
- synergy of color and tone, linking the octave to the color wheel,
- seemed intuitive, and revealed a beautiful pattern, both visual and
- musical. This pattern had previously been uncovered by artist and
- sound practitioner
+ I later learned that I had constructed the "lambdoid diagram" or
+ Lambdoma, named for its resemblance to the Greek letter
+ Lambda Λ. The synergy of color and tone, linking the octave to
+ the color wheel, seemed intuitive, and revealed a beautiful pattern,
+ both visual and musical. This pattern had previously been uncovered by
+ artist and sound practitioner
Barbara Hero, who built an 8x8
electronic Lambdoma instrument for sound healing purposes, using the
same pattern of colors.
@@ -593,46 +632,41 @@
- The musical Circle of Fifths, derived from repeatedly stacking the 3:2
- proportion, can be studied in more detail in this program's
- Pythagorean scale mode, where
- each ratio is a power of 2 or 3. Similar notes can be found by color
- and compared. One can easily hear how stacked fifths overshoot the
- octave by finding two far-apart red notes and playing both at once,
- which makes them beat against each other. This interval is the
- "syntonic comma" which is averaged out in various keyboard tuning
- systems.
+ The musical Circle of Fifths, created by repeatedly multiplying a
+ frequency by 3:2, can be studied in more detail in this program's
+ Pythagorean mode, where each
+ ratio is a power of 2 or 3. Similar notes can be found by color and
+ compared. One can easily hear how stacking fifths does not bring you
+ back to the starting note. Find two far-apart red notes and play both
+ at once. These two frequencies are not quite the same, and they will
+ audibly vibrate or "beat" against each other. The interval between
+ these notes is known as the "syntonic comma", and tuning systems try
+ to correct for it in various ways.
- Tuning systems must weigh the purity of thirds and fifths. A just
- tuning system made from pure fractions might use as its basis the
- difference between 3:2 and 4:3, which constitutes a semitone. Such a
- scale implies different ratios between "fifths" and "thirds" at
- different points in the scale. Each mode can sound highly distinctive,
- and some intervals may be considered dissonant or harsh.
-
-
-
- In a sense, 12-tone equal temperament "bends" all of the notes such
- that the fifths are more consisent, making it easier to modulate
- between keys, though other intervals (like thirds) are quite different
- from a interval. This process invokes irrational numbers, and creates
- in-between intervals which do not exist anywhere on the Lambdoma, no
- matter how far out you go. Equal-tempered semitones are separated by a
- ratio of the 12th root of 2 (1:12√2). Irrationals are
- real numbers, and these can only be approximated by fractions made up
- of natural numbers.
+ Within a Pythagorean tuning system, each scale can sound highly
+ distinctive, since the notes will not be distributed evenly within the
+ octave. In a sense, 12-tone equal temperament "bends" all of the notes
+ so they are evenly spaced. Fifths in equal temperament are not quite
+ pure but close enough, making it easy to modulate between keys. By
+ comparison, thirds are quite out of tune compared to a pure ratio
+ (5:4). Equal temperament invokes irrational numbers, creating
+ in-between intervals which do not exist on the Lambdoma. (Notes in
+ equal temperament are separated by an irrational ratio of 1 to the
+ 12th root of 2 (1:12√2), which can only be approximated
+ by pure fractions.)
In the Lambdoma, Barbara Hero also sees the image of Georg Cantor's
- transfinite set of rational numbers ℚ, which Cantor proved countably
- infinite by arranging fractions along two axes by numerator and
- denominator, similar to the Lambdoma. One may easily grasp this
- countable infinity of rationals by considering that, though there are
- infinitely many rational numbers, in between any two there lies an
- uncountable continuity of real numbers in ℝ.
+ transfinite set of rational numbers ℚ, which Cantor proved
+ countably
+ infinite by arranging fractions into a grid by numerator and
+ denominator. One may easily grasp this countable infinity of
+ rationals by considering that, though there are infinitely many
+ rational numbers, in between any two there lies an
+ uncountable continuity of real numbers in ℝ.