User:Ganaram inukshuk/TAMNAMS

This page is a work-in-progress, proposed rewrite of the following page: TAMNAMS

TAMNAMS (read "tame names"; from Temperament-Agnostic Mos NAMing System), devised by the XA Discord in 2021, is a system of temperament-agnostic names for scales – primarily octave-equivalent moment of symmetry scales – as well as their their intervals, their associated generator ranges, and the ratios describing the proportions of large and small steps.

No other changes to lead section.

Credits

No changes.

Step ratio spectrum

No changes.

Naming mos intervals

Move neutral/interordinal naming to Extensions section.

Naming mos degrees

No changes.

Mos pattern names

TAMNAMS uses the following names for octave-equivalent (or tempered-octave) mosses with step counts between 6 and 10. These names are optional; interval size names and step ratio names can be combined with conventional xL ys names.

In addition to names are prefixes and abbreviations. These are to be used in place of the prefix mos- and its abbreviation of m-, as seen in the terms mosstep and mosdegree, and their abbreviations of ms and md, respectively. For example, discussion of the intervals and scale degrees of oneirotonic uses the terms oneirosteps and oneirodegrees, abbreviated as oneis and oneid, respectively.

This list is maintained by User:Inthar and User:Godtone.

TAMNAMS moss names

6-note mosses
Pattern	Name	Prefix	Abbr.	Etymology
1L 5s	selenite	sel-	sel	references luna temperament (selenite is named after the moon); also called antimachinoid
2L 4s	malic	mal-	mal	name chosen to signify sister mos of 4L 2s; apples have concave ends, whereas lemons/limes have convex ends
3L 3s	triwood	triwd-	tw	blackwood[10] and whitewood[14] generalized to 3 periods
4L 2s	citric	citro-	cit	name chosen to signify parent (or subset) mos of 4L 6s and 6L 4s
5L 1s	machinoid	mech-	mech	from machine temperament
7-note mosses
Pattern	Name	Prefix	Abbr.	Etymology
1L 6s	onyx	on-	on	sounds like "one-six" depending on one's pronunciation; also called anti-archeotonic
2L 5s	antidiatonic	pel-	pel	common name, referring to the sister of 5L 2s; pel- is from pelog
3L 4s	mosh	mosh-	mosh	from "mohajira-ish", a name from Graham Breed's naming scheme
4L 3s	smitonic	smi-	smi	from "sharp minor third"
5L 2s	diatonic	dia-	dia
6L 1s	archaeotonic	arch-	arch	originally a name for 13edo's 6L 1s scale; also called archeotonic
8-note mosses
Pattern	Name	Prefix	Abbr.	Etymology
1L 7s	spinel	spin-	sp	contains the string "pine", referencing its sister mos; also called antipine
2L 6s	subaric	subar-	sb	name chosen to signify parent (or subset) mos of 2L 8s and 8L 2s
3L 5s	checkertonic	check-	chk	from the Kite guitar checkerboard scale
4L 4s	tetrawood	tetrawd-	ttw	blackwood[10] and whitewood[14] generalized to 4 periods; also called diminished
5L 3s	oneirotonic	oneiro-	onei	originally a name for 13edo's 5L 3s scale; also called oneiro
6L 2s	ekic	ek-	ek	from echidna and hedgehog temperaments
7L 1s	pine	pine-	pine	from porcupine temperament
9-note mosses
Pattern	Name	Prefix	Abbr.	Etymology
1L 8s	agate	ag-	ag	rhymes with "eight", depending on one's pronunciation; also called antisubneutralic
2L 7s	balzano	bal-	bal	originally a name for 20edo's 2L 7s (and 2L 11) scales; bal- is pronounced /bæl/
3L 6s	tcherepnin	cher-	ch	common name; refers to the Tcherepnin scale in 12edo
4L 5s	gramitonic	gram-	gram	from "grave minor third"
5L 4s	semiquartal	cthon-	cth	from "half fourth"; cthon- is from "chthonic"
6L 3s	hyrulic	hyru-	hy	references triforce temperament
7L 2s	armotonic	arm-	arm	from Armodue theory; also called superdiatonic
8L 1s	subneutralic	blu-	blu	derived from the generator being between supraminor and neutral quality; blu- is from bleu temperament
10-note mosses
Pattern	Name	Prefix	Abbr.	Etymology
1L 9s	olivnie	oli-	oli	rhymes with "nine", depending on one's pronunciation; also called antisinatonic
2L 8s	jaric	jara-	jar	from pajara, injera, and diaschismic temperaments
3L 7s	sephiroid	seph-	seph	from sephiroth temperament
4L 6s	lime	lime-	lim	name chosen to signify sister mos of 6L 4s; limes are smaller than lemons, as are 4L 6s's step sizes compared to 6L 4s
5L 5s	pentawood	pentawd-	pw	blackwood[10] and whitewood[14] generalized to 5 periods
6L 4s	lemon	lem-	lem	from lemba temperament
7L 3s	dicoid	dico-	dico	from dichotic and dicot (dicoid) exotemperaments; pronounced /'daɪˌkɔɪd/
8L 2s	taric	tara-	tar	name chosen to signify sister mos of 2L 8s; based off of Hindi word for 18 (aṭhārah), from which 18edo contains basic 8L 2s
9L 1s	sinatonic	sina-	si	derived from the generator being within the range of a sinaic

Naming mos modes

No changes.

Generalization to non-mos scales

No changes.

Extensions

Naming neutral and interordinal intervals

For a discussion of semi-moschroma-altered versions of mos intervals, see Neutral and interordinal intervals in MOS scales.

Naming mosses outside the named range

For a discussion of mos names outside the named range, see TAMNAMS extension.

Extending the named range

The following text should be added as subsection of Mos pattern names, to the appendix section TAMNAMS/Appendix#Reasoning for mos pattern names, or as its own appendix section:

Mosses with fewer than 6 steps

Expanding the named range to include mosses fewer than 6 steps entails naming pentatonic and tetratonic mosses, and smaller. These names are provided for completeness and are chosen to be as general as possible and to avoid bias or flavor, under the reasoning that such mosses are common and broad in tuning that their names can be used, and validly reused, in non-octave contexts.

The exception to this are the names monowood and biwood, which must refer to an octave-equivalent mos pattern of 1L 1s or 2L 2s, respectively.

2-note mosses
Pattern	Name	Prefix	Abbr.	Must be octave-equivalent?	Etymology
1L 1s	trivial	triv-	trv	No	the simplest valid mos pattern
	monowood	monowd-	w	Yes	from 1-wood; blackwood[10] & whitewood[14] generalized to 1L 1s
3-note mosses
Pattern	Name	Prefix	Abbr.	Must be octave-equivalent?	Etymology
1L 2s	antrial	atri-	atri	No	broader range than trial so named w.r.t. it (anti-trial; antial; antrial)
2L 1s	trial	tri-	tri	No	from tri- for 3
4-note mosses
Pattern	Name	Prefix	Abbr.	Must be octave-equivalent?	Etymology
1L 3s	antetric	atetra-	att	No	broader range than tetric so named w.r.t. it (anti-tetric; antetric)
2L 2s	biwood	biwd-	bw	Yes	from 2-wood
3L 1s	tetric	tetra-	tt	No	from tetra- for 4
5-note mosses
Pattern	Name	Prefix	Abbr.	Must be octave-equivalent?	Etymology
1L 4s	pedal	ped-	ped	No	one big toe and four small toes
2L 3s	pentic	pent-	pt	No	common pentatonic; from penta- for 5
3L 2s	antipentic	apent-	apt	No	opposite pattern of common pentatonic mos
4L 1s	manual	manu-	manu	No	one thumb and four longer fingers

Reasoning for mos pattern names

The following is a rewrite to a section to the TAMNAMS appendix.

The goal of TAMNAMS mos names is to choose memorable but aesthetically neutral names for the most common octave-equivalent mosses.

General reasonings

Use established names if they do not cause confusion

Mos names already in use are incorporated into TAMNAMS. Examples of such names include mosh, tcherepnin, oneirotonic, balzano, antidiatonic, and diatonic.

Avoid or alter temperament-based names

Mos names are chosen so that these mosses can be discussed more independently of RTT temperaments. A few names – namely pine, hyrulic, jaric, ekic and lemon – are all based on notable temperaments – porcupine, triforce, pajara, echidnoid, and lemba, respectively. However, these names are heavily abstracted from the original temperament names.

Names ending in the prefix -oid – namely machinoid, sephiroid, and dicoid – refer to exotemperaments which, when including extreme tunings, effectively cover the entirety of the corresponding mos. Therefore, edos with simple step ratios for that mos will correspond to valid tunings (if not by patent val, then with a small number of warts).

Name mosses most likely to see use

Names are given to mosses that are the most likely to be used by musicians. As such, TAMNAMS only provides mosses within the range of 6 to 10 steps, as their step counts are close to that of diatonic (7 steps). This range is chosen to avoid naming mosses for the sake of naming.

Mosses with note counts greater than that are likely to be supersets (that is, daughter or granddaughter mosses) of a smaller, TAMNAMS-named mos.

Name-specific reasonings

Names for monolarge mosses

Similarly, the inclusion of mosses of the form 1L ns using the "anti-" prefix (or an- for less-than-six-note mosses) was also for a practical consideration; although the tuning range is very unhelpful for knowing what such a mos will sound, it is nonetheless useful for describing structure in situations where one does not want to use the mathematical name, especially given that in such situations the tuning will likely be specified somewhere already. Jaric and taric specifically were chosen over bipedal and bimanual because of this, and to a lesser extent, lemon and lime were chosen over antibipentic and bipentic respectively (and for consistency with that their parent MOSS, 4L2s, is named citric).

The distinction between using the prefixes "anti-" vs "an-" for reversing the number of large vs. small steps is also not as trivial as it may sound. In the case of mosses with six or more notes, as the period is always an octave, there is a very large tuning range for the 1L ns mosses (hence the original reason for omitting such mosses), but the "anti-" prefix shows that what is significant is that it has the opposite structure to the corresponding nL 1s mos while pointing out the resulting ambiguity of range. In the case of mosses with five or less notes, as the period is not known and therefore could be very small, this is not as much of a concern as fuller specification is likely required anyway, especially in the case of larger periods, so the name should not be tediously long as the name refers to a very simple mos pattern, and for related reasons, the name shouldn't give as much of a sense of one 'orientation' of the structure being more 'primary' than the other, while with mosses with more than five notes, this suggestion of sense is very much intended, because it will almost always make more sense to talk about the (n+1)L 1s child mos of whatever 1L ns mos you want to speak of.

Pedal (1L 4s)

Pedals are operated with feet, which have one large toe and four small toes. Also comes from words like "bipedal", where in TAMNAMS, "bipedal" would literally mean a pedal scale with a period equal to half of some chosen interval, although such a scale would have either two right feet or two left feet depending on orientation chosen. If you think "car"/"vehicle" when you think "pedal" and don't think (or want to think) much about feet then you can think about "beeping" (as beep is the 7-limit 4&5 exotemperament). Because this name relies so heavily and fundamentally on there being 1 large and 4 small steps per period, it is appropriate to generalise for any size of period you would want. In that regard, same goes for manual, pentic and anpentic.

Malic (2L 4s) and citric (4L 2s)

Malic derives from Latin malus 'apple'. An apple has two concave ends, and large steps in a scale with more small steps are hole-like, hence the two large steps in malic. Citric (4L 2s) is named after the child mosses of citric, namely lemon (6L 4s) and lime (4L 6s). Unlike apples, lemons have two convex pointy ends, and small steps in a scale with more large steps are pointy, hence the two small steps. Malic and citric acids are both ubiquitous in food and biology, thus justifying their use for fairly small mos scales.

Machinoid (5L 1s)

Machine is the 5&6 temperament in the 2.9.7.11 subgroup with a comma list of 64/63 and 99/98.

This temperament is supported by 5, 6, 11, 12, 16, 17, 22, 23, 27, 28 and 33 equal divisions, with non-patent val tunings including 5+5=10e, 5+10e+12=21be, 5+5+5+5+6=26qe, which are mentioned here for demonstrating virtual completeness of the tuning range, and the unusually large 33edo tuning being to show 11edo's strength as a tuning.

Onyx (1L 6s)

"1Ln-ic's" and "nL1-ic's (like, the -ic suffix applied to MOSS names, collectivised for 1Lns and nL1s) sounds like "one-el-en-ics" or "en-el-one-ics" which abbreviated sort of sounds like "one-ics" => "onyx". Then "onyx" sounds sort of like "one-six". Furthermore the onyx mineral comes in many colours and types, which seems fitting given this is the parent scale for a wide variety of MOSSes; specifically of interest being 7L 1s (pine), 8L 1s (subneutralic) and 9L 1s (sinatonic). Finally, the name "onyx" is also supposed to be vaguely reminiscent of "anti-archaeotonic" as "chi" (the greek letter) is written like an "x" (this is related to why "christmas" is abbreviated sometimes as "X-mas") and other than that, the letters "o" and "n" and their sounds are also present in "archaeotonic", and "x" is vaguely reminiscent of negation and multiplication. There is also something like a "y" sound in "archaeotonic" in the "aeo" part (depending partially on your pronounciation).

Subaric (2L 6s), jaric (2L 8s), and taric (8L 2s)

The name "subaric" alludes to the fact that 2L 6s is the largest proper subset mos of both jaric (2L 8s) and taric (8L 2s).

The name "jaric" alludes to a few highly notable and generally inaccurate (with the exception of diaschismic) temperaments that exist in the tuning range of this MOSS. Specifically, notice how the letters and sound of "jaric" has (or is intended to have) a lot of overlap with pajara, diaschismic and injera (listed in order of increasingly sharp fourths; note that diatonic fourths and 4-jarasteps are equated in jaric, a notable property).

The name "taric" was named based on it being the only octave-tuned TAMNAMS pattern with a basic tuning of 18edo (because 7L 4s has more than 10 notes so is out of the scope of TAMNAMS, although not necessarily out of the scope of extensions) and it was also named based on rhyming with jaric (as they share the parent mos 2L 6s).

Sephiroid (3L 7s)

Sephiroth is the 3&10 temperament in the 2.5.11.13.17.21 subgroup with commas including 65/64, 85/84, 105/104, 169/168, 170/169, 221/220, 273/272, 275/273.

This temperament is supported by 3, 10, 13, 16, 23 and 26 equal divisions, with non-patent val tunings including 6eg, 7e*, 19eg, 20e, 29g, 32egq, 33ce, 36c.

* Extreme tunings even occasionally go outside of this range like with 7e, but this would never be considered a good tuning.

(Note that q in the above is a placeholder symbol meaning that the generator 21 is warted.)

Note therefore how practically a full range of tunings is covered both in breadth and depth.

Dicoid (7L 3s)

Dichotic is the 7&10 temerament in the 11-limit with commas including 25/24, 45/44, 55/54, 56/55, 64/63 and is an extension of the 5-limit exotemperament dicot which tempers 25/24, equating 5/4 and 6/5 into a neutral third sized interval, which is the generator. To help justify using these temperament for inspiration for the name, note that:

This temperament is supported by 7, 10 and 17 equal divisions, with non-patent val tunings including 14cd(=7+7), 20e(=10+10), 24cd(=17+7), 27ce(=17+10).

Note there are many more warted tunings than this with even more extreme tunings, which makes it reasonable to loosely associate the exotemperament with the range of vaguely saner tunings.

Armotonic (7L 2s)

The name "superdiatonic" has seen some precedent of use on the Xen Wiki to refer to the mos pattern 7L 2s, so is accepted as a possible name, but "armotonic" is preferred due to its clarity as "superdiatonic" could reasonably be confused as describing sharp-fifth diatonic scales. This mos is part of a series of mos patterns (5+2k)L 2s, which starts with diatonic (5L 2s, k=0) and superdiatonic (7L 2s, k=1), hence the reasoning for that name; like 5L 2s, 7L 2s is also a fifth-generated scale and has a structure similar to diatonic in some ways, but with more large steps. Because of the ambiguity, the name "armotonic", in reference to Armodue theory, is TAMNAMS' recommended name, but "superdiatonic" is allowed in contexts where it's truly unambiguous if the writer prefers it.

On the term diatonic

In TAMNAMS, diatonic exclusively refers to 5L 2s. This is because while diatonic has accrued a variety of exact meanings over time, it has a clear choice of referent when talking about MOS scales: 5L 2s with an octave or tempered-octave period.

Former names

Several names have been changed significantly, as naming principles have evolved to what they are currently, or due to the meaning behind these names being called into question. Former names are provided here for reference, as some names still see some use among users. Changes to spelling are not considered significant and are thus not included here.

5-note mosses
Pattern	Current name	Former name(s)	Reasoning
No significant changes.
5-note mosses
Pattern	Current name	Former name(s)	Reasoning
2L 4s	malic	antilemon	New name chosen as the anti- form of citric.
3L 3s	No change.
4L 2s	citric	lemon	New name chosen to signify parenthood of 4L 6s and 6L 4s. Old name now refers to 6L 4s.
5L 1s	No change.
7-note mosses
Pattern	Current name	Former name(s)	Reasoning
No significant changes.
8-note mosses
Pattern	Current name	Former name(s)	Reasoning
2L 6s	subaric	antiechinoid	New name chosen to signify parenthood of 2L 8s and 8L 2s.
3L 5s	checkertonic	sensoid	Referenced temperament was not suitable as an exotemperament.
4L 4s	tetrawood	tetrawood; diminished	The name tetrawood is advised over diminished, but the latter still sees some use.
5L 3s	No change.
6L 2s	ekic	echinoid	Former name altered.
7L 1s	No change.
9-note mosses
Pattern	Current name	Former name(s)	Reasoning
2L 7s	balzano	joanatonic	Referenced temperament was not suitable as an exotemperament.
3L 6s	No change.
4L 5s	gramitonic	orwelloid	Referenced temperament was not suitable as an exotemperament.
5L 4s	No change.
6L 3s	No change.
7L 2s	armotonic	superdiatonic	Referenced temperament was not suitable as an exotemperament.
8L 1s	No change.
10-note mosses
Pattern	Current name	Former name(s)	Reasoning
2L 8s	jaric	antidimanic	New name chosen to be independent of manic.
3L 7s	No change.
4L 6s	lime	dipentic	New name chosen to be independent of pentic.
5L 5s	No change.
6L 4s	lemon	antidipentic	New name chosen to be independent of pentic.
7L 3s	dicoid	dicotonic	Altered to signify exotemperament status.
8L 2s	taric	dimanic	New name chosen to be independent of manic.
9L 1s	No change.
11-note mosses
Pattern	Current name	Former name(s)	Reasoning
4L 7s	Not part of named range	kleistonic	Dropped when 10-note limit was established, but still sees some use.
7L 4s	Not part of named range	suprasmitonic	Dropped when 10-note limit was established, but still sees some use.
12-note mosses
Pattern	Current name	Former name(s)	Reasoning
5L 7s	Not part of named range	p-chromatic	Dropped when 10-note limit was established, but still sees some use.
7L 5s	Not part of named range	m-chromatic	Dropped when 10-note limit was established, but still sees some use.