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Music Software projects

Music Software projects. New york university Adjunct Instructor Scott Burton. Pitch Combinations. Intervals are two note combinations The interval of the octave is special The Harmonic Series exists in nature

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Music Software projects

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  1. Music Software projects New york university Adjunct Instructor Scott Burton

  2. Pitch Combinations • Intervals are two note combinations • The interval of the octave is special • The Harmonic Series exists in nature • The human ear perceives pitches that are close to the Harmonic series as “consonant” and those that aren’t as “dissonant” • There are other ways to quantify consonance • In the end it’s still somewhat subjective...

  3. What a vibrating string looks like

  4. Amplitude of upper harmonics decreases

  5. Harmonics “envelope” changes over time

  6. The Harmonic Series

  7. Programming Phase • Implement “Harmonic Series” class • Parameterize by “base” frequency • Functions: • Double Hz = interval(int harmonic) • Char* harmonic = ratio(int harmonic degree) • Example: “"4/4”” given param: 4 • Example: “"9/8” given param: 9 • Show() – this should print out the data in the sheet so it can be compared visually with the sheet • Build regression harness using spreadsheet results as test cases.(See harmonic_series.xls) • Submit a program that when run derives all the cells in the sheet using base frequency of 528hz and compares it’s results with expected outputs (saved as a .csvfile)

  8. Next up...The Pythagorean scale • Built on “fifths”: • “This interval, the Fifth, will be found competent to furnish us with the entire scale that the musical feeling and intuition of men have caused them, through-out the western world, at least, to accept as the basis of music an d musical instruments; that is to say, the diatonic scale.” • A “strange twist of human fate” that Pythagoras built a scale on consecutive fifths vs. other intervals in the harmonic series… p. 36 “Tuning in”.

  9. The Pythagorean scale • This scale had a few problems... • A dissonant 3rd degree • Pythagoras expected the following: • But this was not to be– as math-based as he was, this troubled him and supposedly was kept secret in his clan... • This “impurity” in his mathematically driven “invention” was the seed that spawned centuries of music engineering by some of the great physicists, astronomers and mathematicians of their time... • The amount the two terms differ is known as the “Pythagorean Comma” (see pythag_sheet_phase2)...

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