Letterals for notes and chords

[Rob Speer <rob@twcny.rr.com>]

On Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 07:37:05AM -0400, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, John Cowan wrote:
> >Pierre Abbat scripsit:
> >
> >> The proper way to name notes, I think, is with letterals.
> >
> >The proper way to name things is with names.  Invent a convention which
> >involves the appropriate vowels and ends with a consonant.  Of course,
> >you can't prevent people from using these names for something else.
> 
> But a melody is spelled as a sequence of notes, so letterals are more
> appropriate. If we need to talk about a single note, we can use "me'o".
> 
> We can also have cmene for them - "do re mi" and "C D E" exist side by side.

For different purposes, in fact. In general, "C D E" describes the note
absolutely (leave such instruments as Bb clarinets out of this, please), while
"do re mi" describes the note within whatever the current key is.

The system with the vowels is equivalent to the "do re mi" system. Or it would
be, if it had two more notes. (The full chromatic scale is "do di re ri mi fa
fi so si la li ti".) So I suppose I'll take back what I said about syllabic
consonants, at least partially - let 'r' as a syllable be 'fi' (F# in the key
of C) and let 'l' be 'di' (C#). So then we have a full chromatic scale of:
u l e ei a ai r i au o oi y

These could be expressed as letterals (most likely within a shift such as {zai
zgike bu}) by adding a bu to each. l and r are kind of odd. Should they be made
into more reasonable letterals by making them {lybu} and {rybu}? Keep in mind
that {l.bu} and {r.bu} are valid, unless there's some rule against one-letter
cmene I don't know about.

(Side topic: are one-letter cmene usable? How do you pronounce {la d.}?)

An interesting side effect of this is that if you sing the name of a note
including the 'bu', you sing the interval corresponding to that note
(downward). Example: "aibu" is a downward fourth when sung, and .aibu is the
fourth note of the major or minor scale.

Now, we need a different system to describe a pitch absolutely. I'm reluctant
to use the plain letterals from .abu to gy., because that leaves no room for
sharps or flats and makes certain notes two syllables.

Cmene would work, though. The C major scale could be {cyn dyn zen fyn gyn zan
byn}, or if you prefer to see them in alphabetical order, the A minor scale is
{zan byn cyn dyn zen fyn gyn}.

But then we need sharps and flats, and also double-sharps and double-flats
(Music theory says that F# and Gb should be considered different notes even
though they aren't, and E## is different still. But nothing ever needs to go
beyond double-sharp or double-flat.) So, let's replace the "n" at the end of
the note name with "r" for a sharp or "l" for a flat, "z" for a double-sharp
and "j" for a double-flat. (The letters are chosen fairly arbitrarily, although
the English words 'natural', 'raise', and 'lower' came to mind.)

Thus we have a scale which can describe any note in any key. The G# harmonic
minor scale is {gyr zar byn cyr dyr zen fyz}, for example.

And these notes can be run together to describe a chord! A C major chord would
be {cynzengyn}. An F7 chord would be {fynzancynzel}. An F# augmented seventh
chord (involving a C double-sharp and an E sharp) would be {fyrzarcyzyzer}.
(Though I have tried to avoid the 'y' buffer, it is neccesary sometimes).

Chords could also be named according to the relative note system. This is done
in English with... names! In fact, the names for the relative chords follow no
straightforward pattern: "tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant,
submediant, leading..." So here we can use the idea of a cmene with the same
vowels. The cmene can be anything that would provide a good mnemonic. The
dominant chord, <so ti re> = <i y e>, could very well be called "tigypres".
-- 
Rob Speer