Re: trying to define microtonal note names and accidentals

[Hans Åberg]

> On 22 Oct 2020, at 15:46, Dave Seidel <dave.seidel@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm hoping to dip into these waters eventually. I tried using the HEJI fonts 
> with kind assistance from Konstantin Heuer (who has been working on updating 
> microlily), but without much luck so far.
> 
> I have developed one microtonal score so far (mostly I write electronic music 
> for which scores are not needed), and since it's a quite minimal piece with 
> only seven pitches, I opted to annotate the score with offsets in cents on 
> the first appearance of each pitch, and added a performance note section to 
> document the associations between the pitch offsets and the actual ratios I 
> intended.
> 
> I would like to use microtonal accidentals at some point, but the fact that 
> there are competing styles (Helmholtz-Ellis, Johnston, Sagittal, ...) is 
> concerning since it's hard enough to find performers who will even recognize 
> the various notations and interpret them correctly. So using cents offsets, 
> in this particular case, seemed like a more "objective" way to indicate the 
> pitches. But of course this is a matter of taste and preference.

You might start with Helmholtz-Ellis notation with single and double 
arrowheads, which are easy to interpret:

The single arrowheads are syntonic commas 81/80 for Just Intonation, but are 
close enough for the Pythagorean commas used in Turkish music. The double 
arrowheads is an amount suitable for Arabic and Persian music as point of 
departure, it seems.

When using E53, which is a close approximation of Pythagorean tuning, the 
arrows alter one or two E53 tonesteps, also called commas. Then E72 can be used 
instead if one wants the diatonic pitches refer to E12.


> - Dave
> 
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2020 at 9:23 AM Hans Åberg <haberg-1@telia.com> wrote:
> 
> > On 21 Oct 2020, at 12:43, Stefan Thomas <kontrapunktstefan@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > I'm trying to define microtonal note names and accidentals with the HE-font.
> 
> I made such for Helmholtz–Ellis notation in E53 and E72, using the Bravura 
> font.
> 
> 
>