Every now and then, I play around with tuning systems other than 12-tone equal temperament (the method used nowadays to tune most instruments). A different kind of #alternatetuning, if you will.

Sometimes, I just sling around interval ratios relative to a fundamental tone. In this experiment, I used a somewhat more systematic approach: a grid based on a Tonnetz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonnetz), a concept proposed by 18th-century mathematician Leonhard Euler. Then I mapped that to a custom control surface made with TouchOSC (https://hexler.net/touchosc, although I'm using an older version that still runs on my ancient tablet), which triggers sounds in SuperCollider. For good measure, I then threw in a field recording of a nearby creek as a background.

This whole thing is a proof of concept; it has some limitations, and I might not be able to make it into a fully playable "instrument". But it was a fun rabbithole to go down.

To make it more informative, I recorded this as a video (and then spent about an hour sweating over the new-to-me art of video editing) – you can watch it here: https://davbot.media/w/pBuGKEYzpC1MLZDZ2anvJS I will add a link to the source code as soon as I have cleaned everything up.

#justintonation #experimental #supercollider #xenharmonic #microtonality