User:Ganaram inukshuk/Notes/TAMNAMS: Difference between revisions

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Proposal: Naming mosses with more than 10 steps (work-in-progress): Simplified mos descendant names a lot more; remove "other notes" section to better simulate/sandbox a finalized section
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This is a system for describing scales beyond the set of named TAMNAMS scales. Both [[User:Frostburn]] ([[User:Frostburn/TAMNAMS Extension]]) and I have similar systems, with the main difference here being how mosses can be named any number of generations away from a named mos.
This is a system for describing scales beyond the set of named TAMNAMS scales. Both [[User:Frostburn]] ([[User:Frostburn/TAMNAMS Extension]]) and I have similar systems, with the main difference here being how mosses can be named any number of generations away from a named mos.


To name mosses that have more than 10 notes, names are based on existing mosses and how they're related to one another, rather than giving each mos a unique name. The easiest and most general way to do this is to refer to such mosses as a ''mosdescendant''. The number of generations a mos is from a named mos can also be specified, so the child mos is a ''1st-mosdescendant'', its grandchild a ''2nd-mosdescendant'', its great-grandchild a ''3rd-mosdescaendnt'', and so on. The algorithm below explains how to find the number of generations two related mosses are, given the mos descends from a named mos whose child mosses already exceed 10 notes.
To name mosses that have more than 10 notes, rather than giving mosses unique names, names are based on how they're related to another (named) mos. The following names are used for specific generations - namely child, grandchild, and great-grandchild mosses:
# Let z and w be the number of large and small steps of the parent mos to be found. Assign to z and w the values x and y respectively. Let g = 0, where g is the number of generations away from zL ws.
* A child mos is a ''chromatic (mos name)'', or generally, ''chromatic mos''. For single-period mosses, this can be written as ''(mos-prefix)chromatic''.
* A grandchild mos is an ''enharmonic (mos name)'', or generally, ''enharmonic mos''. For single-period mosses, this can be written as ''(mos-prefix)enharmonic''.
* A great-grandchild mos is a ''subchromatic (mos name)'', or generally, ''subchromatic mos''. (Tentative name; open to better suggestions.) For single-period mosses, this can be written as ''(mos-prefix)subchromatic''.
Any mos more than 3 generations away from a named mos is broadly referred to as a ''(mos name) descendant'', ''(mos-prefix)descendant'' (for single-period mosses), or broadly, ''mos descendant''. These terms can also be used collectively for multiple mos descendants or to broadly describe any one mos descendant. Optionally, the number of generations can be specified, producing ''nth (mos name) descendant'', using the algorithm below:
# Let z and w be the number of large and small steps of the parent mos to be found. Assign to z and w the values x and y respectively. Let n = 0, where n is the number of generations away from zL ws.
# Let m1 be equal to max(z, w) and m2 be equal to min(z, w).
# Let m1 be equal to max(z, w) and m2 be equal to min(z, w).
# Assign to z the value m2 and w the value m1-m2. Increment g by 1.
# Assign to z the value m2 and w the value m1-m2. Increment n by 1.
# If the sum of z and w is no more than 10, then the parent mos is zL ws and has a TAMNAMS name. If not, repeat the process starting at step 2.
# If the sum of z and w is no more than 10, then the parent mos is zL ws and is n generations from the mos descendant xL ys. If not, repeat the process starting at step 2.
The prefix of mos- can be replaced with the prefix of the mos the descendant is related to. As diatonic (5L 2s) doesn't have a prefix, its mosdescendants are called ''diatonic descendants'' instead, and mosses that are ''n'' generations away from 5L 2s are called ''nth diatonic descendants''.


For consistency, mosdescendant names apply to mosses whose child scales exceed 10 notes. Since all mosses ultimately descend from some nL ns mos, every possible mosdescendant up to 5 periods will be related to a mos that has a TAMNAMS name. These mosses are shown in the table below in '''bold'''.
As diatonic (5L 2s) doesn't have a prefix, the terms ''chromatic'', ''enharmonic'', and ''subchromatic'' by themselves (and with no other context suggesting a non-diatonic mos) refer to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd diatonic descendants. For consistency, mos descendant names apply to mosses whose child scales exceed 10 notes. Since all mosses ultimately descend from some nL ns mos, every possible descendant up to 5 periods will be related to a named mos.
{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable center-all"
|+Mosses for which mosdescendant names apply
|+Mosses whose children have more than 10 notes (1st and 2nd descendants only)
!Mos
|-
!Name
! colspan="2" |6-note mosses
!Mos
! colspan="2" |Chromatic mosses
!Name
! colspan="2" |Enharmonic mosses
!Mos
|-
!Name
!Pattern!!Name
!Mos
!Patterns
!Name
!Names
!Mos
!Patterns
!Name
!Names
!Mos
|-
!Name
|[[1L 5s]]
!Mos
|antimachinoid
!Name
|1L 6s, 6L 1s
!Mos
|n/a
!Name
|1A 7B, 6A 7B
!Mos
|n/a
!Name
|-
|[[2L 4s]]
|malic
|2L 6s, 6L 2s
|n/a
|2A 8B, 6A 2B
|n/a
|-
|[[3L 3s]]
|triwood
|3L 6s, 6L 3s
|n/a
|3A 9B, 6A 9B
|n/a
|-
|[[4L 2s]]
|citric
|4L 6s, 6L 4s
|n/a
|4A 10B, 6A 10B
|n/a
|-
|[[5L 1s]]||machinoid
|5L 6s, 6L 5s
|mechchromatic
|5A 11B, 6A 11B
|mechenharmonic
|-
! colspan="2" |7-note mosses
! colspan="2" |Chromatic mosses
! colspan="2" |Enharmonic mosses
|-
!Pattern!!Name
!Patterns
!Names
!Patterns
!Names
|-
|[[1L 6s]]
|onyx
|1L 7s, 7L 1s
|n/a
|1A 8B, 8A 1B
|n/a
|-
|[[2L 5s]]
|antidiatonic
|2L 7s, 7L 2s
|n/a
|2A 9B, 9A 2B
|n/a
|-
|[[3L 4s]]
|mosh
|3L 7s, 7L 3s
|n/a
|3A 10B, 10A 3B
|n/a
|-
|-
| rowspan="16" |1L 1s
|[[4L 3s]]|| smitonic
| rowspan="16" |trivial and monowood
|4L 7s, 7L 4s
| rowspan="11" |1L 2s
|smichromatic
| rowspan="11" |antrial
|4A 11B, 7A 11B
| rowspan="8" |1L 3s
|smienharmonic
| rowspan="8" |antetric
| rowspan="6" |1L 4s
| rowspan="6" |pedal
| rowspan="5" |1L 5s
| rowspan="5" |antimachinoid
| rowspan="4" |1L 6s
| rowspan="4" |onyx
| rowspan="3" |1L 7s
| rowspan="3" |antipine
| rowspan="2" |1L 8s
| rowspan="2" |antisubneutralic
|1L 9s
|'''antisinatonic (asina-)'''
|-
|-
|9L 1s
|[[5L 2s]]||diatonic
|'''sinatonic (sina-)'''
|5L 7s, 7L 5s
|chromatic
|5A 12B, 7A 12B
|enharmonic
|-
|-
|8L 1s
|[[6L 1s]]||arch(a)eotonic
|'''subneutralic (blu-)'''
|6L 7s, 7L 6s
| colspan="2" rowspan="14" |
|archeochromatic
|6A 13B, 7A 13B
|archeoenharmonic
|-
|-
|7L 1s
! colspan="2" |8-note mosses
|'''pine (pine-)'''
! colspan="2" |Chromatic mosses
| colspan="2" rowspan="13" |
! colspan="2" |Enharmonic mosses
|-
|-
|6L 1s
!Pattern!!Name
|'''arch(a)eotonic (arch-)'''
!Patterns
| colspan="2" rowspan="12" |
!Names
!Patterns
!Names
|-
|-
|5L 1s
|[[1L 7s]]
|'''machinoid (mech-)'''
|antipine
| colspan="2" rowspan="11" |
|1L 8s, 8L 1s
|n/a
|1A 9B, 8A 9B
|n/a
|-
|-
| rowspan="2" |4L 1s
|[[2L 6s]]
| rowspan="2" |manual
|subaric
|5L 4s
|2L 8s, 8L 2s
|'''semiquartal (chton-)'''
|n/a
|2A 10B, 8A 10B
|n/a
|-
|-
|4L 5s
|[[3L 5s]]||checkertonic
|'''gramitonic (gram-)'''
|3L 8s, 8L 3s
|checkchromatic
|3A 11B, 8A 11B
|checkenharmonic
|-
|-
| rowspan="3" |3L 1s
|[[4L 4s]]||tetrawood; diminished
| rowspan="3" |tetric
|4L 8s, 8L 4s
|4L 3s
|chromatic tetrawood
|'''smitonic (smi-)'''
|4A 12B, 8A 12B
| colspan="2" |
|enharmonic tetrawood
|-
|-
| rowspan="2" |3L 4s
|[[5L 3s]]||oneirotonic
| rowspan="2" |mosh
|5L 8s, 8L 5s
|7L 3s
|oneirochromatic
|'''dicoid/zaltertic (dico-/zal-)'''
|5A 13B, 8A 13B
|oneiroenharmonic
|-
|-
|3L 7s
|[[6L 2s]]||ekic
|'''sephiroid (seph-)'''
|6L 8s, 8L 6s
|chromatic ekic
|6A 14B, 8A 14B
|enharmonic ekic
|-
|-
| rowspan="5" |2L 1s
|[[7L 1s]]||pine
| rowspan="5" |trial
|7L 8s, 8L 7s
| rowspan="2" |3L 2s
|pinechromatic
| rowspan="2" |antipentic
|7A 15B, 8A 15B
|3L 5s
|pinenharmonic
|'''checkertonic (check-)'''
| colspan="2" rowspan="3" |
|-
|-
|5L 3s
! colspan="2" |9-note mosses
|'''oneirotonic (oneiro-)'''
! colspan="2" |Chromatic mosses
! colspan="2" |Enharmonic mosses
|-
|-
| rowspan="3" |2L 3s
!Pattern!! Name
| rowspan="3" |pentic
!Patterns
|5L 2s
!Names
|'''diatonic ''(no prefix)'''''
!Patterns
!Names
|-
|-
| rowspan="2" |2L 5s
|1L 8s
| rowspan="2" |antidiatonic
|antisubneutralic
|7L 2s
|1L 9s, 9L 1s
|'''superdiatonic (arm-)'''
|n/a
|1A 10B, 9A 10B
|n/a
|-
|-
|2L 7s
|2L 7s
|'''balzano (bal-)'''
|balzano
|2L 9s, 9L 2s
|balchromatic
|2A 11B, 9A 11B
|balenharmonic
|-
|-
! colspan="18" |2-period mosses
|[[3L 6s]]||tcherepnin
|3L 9s, 9L 3s
|chromatic tcherepnin
|3A 12B, 9A 12B
|enharmonic tcherepnin
|-
|-
!Mos
|[[4L 5s]]||gramitonic
!Name
|4L 9s, 9L 4s
!Mos
|gramchromatic
!Name
|4A 13B, 9A 13B
!Mos
|gramenharmonic
!Name
!Mos
!Name
| colspan="10" rowspan="6" |
|-
|-
| rowspan="5" |2L 2s
|[[5L 4s]]|| semiquartal
| rowspan="5" |biwood
|5L 9s, 9L 5s
| rowspan="3" |2L 4s
|chtonchromatic
| rowspan="3" |malic
|5A 14B, 9A 14B
| rowspan="2" |2L 6s
|chtonenharmonic
| rowspan="2" |subaric
|2L 8s
|'''jaric (jara-)'''
|-
|-
|8L 2s
|[[6L 3s]]|| hyrulic
|'''taric (tara-)'''
|6L 9s, 9L 6s
|chromatic hyrulic
|6A 15B, 9A 15B
|enharmonic hyrulic
|-
|-
|6L 2s
|[[7L 2s]]||superdiatonic
|'''ekic (ek-)'''
|7L 9s, 9L 7s
| colspan="2" rowspan="3" |
|armchromatic
|7A 16B, 9A 16B
|armenharmonic
|-
|-
| rowspan="2" |4L 2s
|[[8L 1s]]||subneutralic
| rowspan="2" |citric
|8L 9s, 9L 8s
|6L 4s
|bluchromatic
|'''lemon (lem-)'''
|8A 17B, 9A 17B
|bluenharmonic
|-
|-
|4L 6s
! colspan="2" |10-note mosses
|'''lime (lime-)'''
! colspan="2" |Chromatic mosses
! colspan="2" |Enharmonic mosses
|-
|-
! colspan="18" |3-period mosses
!Pattern!!Name
!Patterns
!Names
!Patterns
!Names
|-
|-
!Mos
|[[1L 9s]]||antisinatonic
!Name
|1L 10s, 10L 1s
!Mos
|asinachromatic
!Name
|1A 11B, 10A 11B
| colspan="14" rowspan="3" |
|asinenharmonic
|-
|-
| rowspan="2" |3L 3s
|[[2L 8s]]||jaric
| rowspan="2" |triwood
|2L 10s, 10L 2s
|3L 6s
|chromatic jaric
|'''tcherepnin (cher-)'''
|2A 12B, 10A 12B
|enharmonic jaric
|-
|-
|6L 3s
|[[3L 7s]]|| sephiroid
|'''hyrulic (hyru-)'''
|3L 10s, 10L 3s
|sephchromatic
|3A 13B, 10A 13B
|sephenharmonic
|-
|-
! colspan="18" |4-period mosses
|[[4L 6s]]||lime
|4L 10s, 10L 4s
|chromatic lime
|4A 14B, 10A 14B
|enharmonic lime
|-
|-
!Mos
|[[5L 5s]]||pentawood
!Name
|5L 10s, 10L 5s
| colspan="16" rowspan="2" |
|chromatic pentawood
|5A 15B, 10A 15B
|enharmonic pentawood
|-
|-
|4L 4s
|[[6L 4s]]||lemon
|'''tetrawood (tetwud-)'''
|6L 10s, 10L 6s
|chromatic lemon
|6A 16B, 10A 16B
|enharmonic lemon
|-
|-
! colspan="18" |5-period mosses
|[[7L 3s]]||dicoid, zaltertic
|7L 10s, 10L 7s
|dicochromatic, zalchromatic
|7A 17B, 10A 17B
|dicoenharmonic, zalenharmonic
|-
|-
!Mos
|[[8L 2s]]||taric
!Name
|8L 10s, 10L 8s
| colspan="16" rowspan="2" |
|chromatic taric
|8A 18B, 10A 18B
|enharmonic taric
|-
|-
|5L 5s
|[[9L 1s]]||sinatonic
|'''pentawood (penwud-)'''
|9L 10s, 10L 9s
|sinachromatic
|9A 19B, 10A 19B
|sinenharmonic
|}
|}
=== Names for specific mosdescendants ===
=== Names for mos descendants by step ratio ===
Child, grandchild, and great-grandchild names can also be referred to as the following:
The designations of chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic refer to one of 2, 4, and 8 possible mosses respectively. To describe a specific mos descendant, the name of a step ratio range can be prefixed to the terms ''chromatic'', ''enharmonic'', and ''subchromatic'' (or ''(mos-prefix)chromatic'', ''(mos-prefix)enharmonic'', and ''(mos-prefix)subchromatic''). Specifying the step ratio is optional, and the names for step ratios can be abbreviated into a one or two-letter prefix. (Frostburn's abbreviations can be used here, too.) These prefixes are used for specific descendants, with the notable exception of ''soft'' and ''hard'', which may be used for subchromatic mosses to produce terminology that is more precise than just ''subchromatic'' but not as specific as their step ratio ranges. These prefixes must include a hyphen.
 
* A 1st-mosdescendant, or child mos, can be called a ''moschromatic'' scale.
* A 2nd-mosdescendant, or grandchild mos, can be called a ''mosenharmonic'' scale.
* A 3rd-mosdescendant, or great-grandchild mos, can be called a ''mossubchromatic'' scale. (tentative name; open to better suggestions)
 
As with mosdescendants, the prefix of mos- can be replaced with the prefix of the related mos, and the absence of a prefix refers to the descendants of diatonic (5L 2s).
 
The designations of moschromatic, mosenharmonic, and mossubchromatic refer to one of 2, 4, and 8 possible mosses respectively. To describe a specific mosdescendant, the name of a step ratio range can be prefixed to the name of the mosdescendant. Specifying the step ratio of these mosdescendants is optional, and the names for step ratios can be abbreviated into a one or two-letter prefix. (Frostburn's abbreviations can be used here, too.) These prefixes are used for specific mosdescendants, with the notable exception of ''soft'' and ''hard'', which may be used for mosenharmonic and mossubchromatic mosses to produce terminology that is more precise than just ''mosenharmonic'' or ''mossubchromatic'' but not as specific as their step ratio ranges.
{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable"
|+Mosdescendant scales sorted by step ratio
|+Descendant mosses sorted by generation and step ratio
! colspan="2" |Parent scale
! colspan="2" |Parent mos
! colspan="4" |Moschromatic (child) scales
! colspan="4" |Chromatic mosses
! colspan="6" |Mosenharmonic (grandchild) scales
! colspan="4" |Enharmonic mosses
! colspan="6" |Mossubchromatic (great-grandchild) scales
! colspan="6" |Subchromatic mosses
|-
|-
! rowspan="2" |Steps
! rowspan="2" |Steps
Line 1,168: Line 1,262:
! rowspan="2" |L:s range
! rowspan="2" |L:s range
! rowspan="2" |Steps
! rowspan="2" |Steps
! colspan="2" |Broad prefixes
! rowspan="2" |Prefix
! colspan="2" |Specific prefixes
! rowspan="2" |Abbrev.
! rowspan="2" |L:s range
! rowspan="2" |L:s range
! rowspan="2" |Steps
! rowspan="2" |Steps
Line 1,176: Line 1,270:
! rowspan="2" |L:s range
! rowspan="2" |L:s range
|-
|-
!Prefix
!Abbrev.
!Prefix
!Abbrev.
!Prefix
!Prefix
!Abbrev.
!Abbrev.
Line 1,192: Line 1,282:
| rowspan="4" |1:1 to 2:1
| rowspan="4" |1:1 to 2:1
| rowspan="2" |(x+y)L (2x+y)s
| rowspan="2" |(x+y)L (2x+y)s
| rowspan="4" |soft-
| rowspan="2" |soft-
| rowspan="4" |s-
| rowspan="2" |s-
| rowspan="2" |amphisoft-
| rowspan="2" |as-
| rowspan="2" |1:1 to 3:2
| rowspan="2" |1:1 to 3:2
|(x+y)L (3x+2y)s
|(x+y)L (3x+2y)s
| rowspan="4" |soft
| rowspan="4" |soft-
| rowspan="4" |s-
| rowspan="4" |s-
|ultrasoft-
|ultrasoft-
Line 1,228: Line 1,316:
| rowspan="4" |2:1 to 1:0
| rowspan="4" |2:1 to 1:0
| rowspan="2" |(2x+y)L xs
| rowspan="2" |(2x+y)L xs
| rowspan="4" |hard
| rowspan="4" |h-
| rowspan="2" |hypohard-
| rowspan="2" |hypohard-
| rowspan="2" |oh-
| rowspan="2" |oh-
| rowspan="2" |2:1 to 3:1
| rowspan="2" |2:1 to 3:1
|(2x+y)L (3x+y)s
|(2x+y)L (3x+y)s
| rowspan="4" |hard
| rowspan="4" |hard-
| rowspan="4" |h-
| rowspan="4" |h-
|minihard-
|minihard-
Line 1,246: Line 1,332:
|-
|-
| rowspan="2" |xL (2x+y)s
| rowspan="2" |xL (2x+y)s
| rowspan="2" |amphihard-
| rowspan="2" |hard-
| rowspan="2" |ah-
| rowspan="2" |h-
| rowspan="2" |3:1 to 1:0
| rowspan="2" |3:1 to 1:0
|(3x+y)L xs
|(3x+y)L xs
Line 1,259: Line 1,345:
|4:1 to 1:0
|4:1 to 1:0
|}
|}
Note: since soft and hard can be used for all three generations, the terms amphisoft and amphihard had to be made since there are no step ratio range names for the ranges outside of hyposoft and hypohard.
=== Names for mos descendants with more than 5 periods ===
 
To name mos descendants with more than 5 periods, the names for wood mosses are extended to hexawood, heptawood (or septawood), octawood, nonawood (or enneawood), and decawood. Beyond that, the naming scheme becomes 11-wood, 12-wood, and so on, and mosses are referred to ''(number)-wood descendants'', or specifically, ''chromatic (number)-wood'', ''enharmonic (number)-wood'', and ''subchromatic (number)-wood.''
=== Names for mosdescendants with more than 5 ===
To name mosdescendants with more than 5 periods, the names for wood mosses are extended to hexawood, heptawood (or septawood), octawood, nonawood (or enneawood), and decawood. Beyond that, the naming scheme becomes 11-wood, 12-wood, and so on, and mosses are referred to ''(number)-wood descendants''.
{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable"
|+Names for wood scales up to 10 periods
|+Names for wood scales up to 10 periods
Line 1,296: Line 1,380:
|}
|}
=== Reasoning for names ===
=== Reasoning for names ===
The names for moschromatic scales are based on former names for the child scales for diatonic (5L 2s) - p-chromatic for 5L 7s and m-chromatic for 7L 5s - and was generalized to "moschromatic". The term enharmonic is a term already in use to describe the grandchild mosses of diatonic, and so was generalized to mosenharmonic. The term subchromatic is a term coined by Mike Battaglia to describe a scale that is more chromatic than either chromatic or enharmonic, and is generalized to mossubchromatic.
The names for chromatic scales are based on former names for the child mosses of diatonic (5L 2s) - p-chromatic for 5L 7s and m-chromatic for 7L 5s - and was generalized to ''chromatic mos''. The term enharmonic is already in use to describe the grandchild mosses of diatonic, and so was generalized to ''enharmonic mos''. The term subchromatic is a term coined by Mike Battaglia to describe a scale that is more chromatic than either chromatic or enharmonic, and is generalized to ''subchromatic mos''.
 
The format of adding a mos's prefix to the terms descendant, chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic is best applied to single-period mosses. With mosses that directly descend from nL ns mosses especially, this is to keep names from becoming too cumbersome.


Various people have suggested the use of p- and m- as prefixes to refer to specific moschromatic scales, as well as the use of f- and s- for mosenharmonic scales. Generalizing the pattern to 3rd-mosdescendants reveals an issue where the letters started to diverge from one another, notably where m- is no longer next to p- and f- and s- are no longer along the extremes. Rather than to use these letters and to maintain temperament agnosticism, prefixes based on step ratios are used instead.
Various people have suggested the use of p- and m- as prefixes to refer to specific chromatic mosses, as well as the use of f- and s- for enharmonic mosses. Generalizing the pattern to 3rd mos descendants reveals an issue where the letters started to diverge from one another, notably where m- is no longer next to p- and f- and s- are no longer along the extremes. Rather than to use these letters and to maintain temperament agnosticism, prefixes based on step ratios are used instead.
{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable"
|+Temperament-based mosdescendant prefixes
|+Temperament-based mosdescendant prefixes
! rowspan="2" |Diatonic scale
! rowspan="2" |Diatonic scale
! colspan="3" |Child scales
! colspan="3" |Chromatic mosses
! colspan="3" |Grandchild scales
! colspan="3" |Enharmonic mosses
! colspan="3" |Great-grandchild scales
! colspan="3" |Subchromatic mosses
|-
|-
!Steps
!Steps
Line 1,368: Line 1,454:
|}
|}
The temperament-based prefixes may be used specifically for diatonic descendants as alternatives to the prefixes based on step ratios, effectively bringing back the names of p-chromatic and m-chromatic.
The temperament-based prefixes may be used specifically for diatonic descendants as alternatives to the prefixes based on step ratios, effectively bringing back the names of p-chromatic and m-chromatic.
=== Other notes ===
This section was rewritten to heavily simplify mosdescendant naming, and this section contains scattered notes that ultimately justified the rewrite.
* Interestingly, there is evidence that another Xen Discord user ([[user:Flirora]]) suggested the same naming system described here up to 3 generations, with only slight differences with 3rd-generation names. As I was part of a discussion on limiting TAMNAMS names to 10-note mosses, which facilitated naming mosdescendants up to two generations (mosenharmonic scales), rather than this earlier suggestion, it's possible that the same proposal for mosenharmonic scales may have been independently developed twice.
* Some names with this system are not finalized, particularly the term "mosschismic" and some of the single-letter prefixes.
** Better names than "mosschismic" include "mossubharmonic" (adapted from the above suggestion which had "prefix-sub-prefix-enharmonic") and "mossubchromatic", possibly shortened to "mossubchromic" (adapted from "subchromatic", as seen in [[Diatonic, Chromatic, Enharmonic, Subchromatic|this page]]).
** An issue with using letter-based prefixes is that many of them are based on temperaments. A temperament-agnostic interpretation will be needed if these letters are to be generalized outside of the diatonic family.
** Yet another issue is that the pattern of f-, m-, p-, and s-, all based on temperaments, does not continue with 3rd-generation mosses in that f- and s- are no longer at the extremes and p- is no longer at the midpoint (see table below). Either 3rd-generation mosses need a different set of prefixes, or a different set of prefixes are needed throughout.
** In the spirit of TAMNAMS being temperament-agnostic, a proper solution may be to not use and shoehorn temperament-suggestive prefixes, but rather use the names for step ratios. This lines up with Frostburn's proposal, but applies to the first three generations, not just the third. (Frostburn's proposed abbreviations may also work.) Under this system, all prefixes can work for all three generations, so soft-chromatic, hyposoft-chromatic, and minisoft-chromatic is allowed, just as soft-subchromatic, hyposoft-subchromatic, and minisoft-subchromatic. The absence of prefixes is also allowed.
*** Hard and soft are preferred over sharp and flat, as those describe accidentals specific to diatonic notation. TAMNAMS generalizes sharps and flats using chromas, realized as amps/ams and ats in diamond-mos notation.
== Suggested changes for mos pattern names (work-in-progress) ==
== Suggested changes for mos pattern names (work-in-progress) ==
This section describes changes to existing [[TAMNAMS]] names that I would make. Reasons:
This section describes changes to existing [[TAMNAMS]] names that I would make. Reasons:

Revision as of 10:44, 10 December 2022

This is a subpage for TAMNAMS-related notes, containing various proposals of varying degrees of usefulness and other useful things. This also contains rewrites of sections of the main TAMNAMS page that aren't quite ready to be deployed.

Sandboxed section: Naming mos modes

The easiest way to name the modes of a mos, without having to memorize any names, is to refer to them by their UDP, which refers to how many generators are stacked above and below the tonic to produce a mode of the mos.

This section's running example is 5L 3s, whose brightest mode is LLsLLsLs.

Simplified UDP notation

Normal UDP notation is summarized below:

  • For single-period mosses, the UDP is notated as u|d, where u is the number of bright generators stacked above the tonic, d is the number of bright generators stacked below the tonic, and "|" is pronounced as "pipe". The full name of a mos's mode is xL ys u|d.
  • For multi-period mosses with p periods, the UDP of is notated as up|dp(p). Since there are generators being stacked above and below every mosperiod - not just the tonic - there are in total u times p and d times p generators being stacked above and below their respective starting pitches. The full name in this case is xL ys up|dp(p).

To make notation easier, TAMNAMS makes the following modifications to UDP notation:

  • The UDP for multi-period mosses may be written as u|d(p) rather than up|dp(p). This is because the period already appears in both the quantity of bright (u times p) and dark (d times p) generators, so omitting the p term makes the notation less redundant. In contexts where it doesn't cause confusion, the notation can be simplified further to u|d.
  • The UDP for a mode may be shortened to "u|" under the reasoning that omitting the d term, which can be inferred by the u term, makes the notation less redundant. For example, "5L 3s 5|", which refers to LsLLsLLs, is read as "5 ell 3 ess 5 pipe".
    • The shortened notation of "u|" is sufficient in most cases, but in situations where it makes more sense to think in terms of the dark generator, such as with a mos whose dark generator is the bright generator of a related mos, the notation is instead "|d".

This simplified notation will be used throughout this section, unless otherwise specified. In any case, the name of a mos can be substituted for its xL ys form.

Finding mos modes

Rotating the sequence of steps - that is, moving the step at the beginning to the end - produces a different mode. This can be repeated until the initial mode that was started with is produced.

This rotation process usually returns the modes in rotational order, not by brightness. To get the modes in order by brightness, produce every interval for each mode - starting at the mosunison and ending at the mosoctave - producing an interval matrix. The brightest mode will be the mode that has all of its intervals - excluding the mosunison, mosoctave, and mosperiods if multi-period - in its large size. The 2nd-brightest mode will have one interval in its small size - for multi-period mosses, one interval is in its small size for every instance of the mosperiod - and so on. The darkest mode will have all of its intervals in its small size. A much faster way to do this process is to skip making an interval matrix and sort the modes produced by rotation in alphabetical order, effectively sorting all modes by decreasing brightness. In either case, the UDP for the modes sorted by brightness are (n-1)|0, (n-2)|1, and so on to 0|(n-1), or (n-1)|, (n-2)| to 0|. The table below shows the modes produced rotationally, and can be sorted by UDP.

Modes of 5L 3s, with interval sizes
Mode Rotational order UDP mosunison 1-mosstep 2-mosstep 3-mosstep 4-mosstep 5-mosstep 6-mosstep 7-mosstep mosoctave
LLsLLsLs 0 7|0 0 (perfect) L (major) 2L (major) 2L+s (perfect) 3L+s (major) 4L+s (augmented) 4L+2s (major) 5L+2s (major) 5L+3s (perfect)
LsLLsLsL 1 4|3 0 (perfect) L (major) L+s (minor) 2L+s (perfect) 3L+s (major) 3L+2s (perfect) 4L+2s (major) 4L+3s (minor) 5L+3s (perfect)
sLLsLsLL 2 1|6 0 (perfect) s (minor) L+s (minor) 2L+s (perfect) 2L+2s (minor) 3L+2s (perfect) 3L+3s (minor) 4L+3s (minor) 5L+3s (perfect)
LLsLsLLs 3 6|1 0 (perfect) L (major) 2L (major) 2L+s (perfect) 3L+s (major) 3L+2s (perfect) 4L+2s (major) 5L+2s (major) 5L+3s (perfect)
LsLsLLsL 4 3|4 0 (perfect) L (major) L+s (minor) 2L+s (perfect) 2L+2s (minor) 3L+2s (perfect) 4L+2s (major) 4L+3s (minor) 5L+3s (perfect)
sLsLLsLL 5 0|7 0 (perfect) s (minor) L+s (minor) L+2s (diminished) 2L+2s (minor) 3L+2s (perfect) 3L+3s (minor) 4L+3s (minor) 5L+3s (perfect)
LsLLsLLs 6 5|2 0 (perfect) L (major) L+s (minor) 2L+s (perfect) 3L+s (major) 3L+2s (perfect) 4L+2s (major) 5L+2s (major) 5L+3s (perfect)
sLLsLLsL 7 2|5 0 (perfect) s (minor) L+s (minor) 2L+s (perfect) 2L+2s (minor) 3L+2s (perfect) 4L+2s (major) 4L+3s (minor) 5L+3s (perfect)

Since multi-period mosses repeats every period rather than at every octave, the number of modes corresponds to the number of pitches in the period. As a result, multi-period mosses always have fewer modes. An example is shown for 3L 6s, with modified UDPs as described in the previous section.

Modes of 3L 6s, with interval sizes
Mode Mode name Simplified UDP Rotational order mosunison 1-mosstep 2-mosstep 3-mosstep 4-mosstep 5-mosstep 6-mosstep 7-mosstep 8-mosstep mosoctave
LssLssLss 3L 6s 2| 2|0 0 0 (perfect) L (augmented) L+s (perfect) L+2s (perfect) 2L+2s (augmented) 2L+3s (perfect) 2L+4s (perfect) 3L+4s (augmented) 3L+5s (perfect) 3L+6s (perfect)
sLssLssLs 3L 6s 1| 1|1 2 0 (perfect) s (perfect) L+s (perfect) L+2s (perfect) L+3s (perfect) 2L+3s (perfect) 2L+4s (perfect) 2L+5s (perfect) 3L+5s (perfect) 3L+6s (perfect)
ssLssLssL 3L 6s 0| 0|2 1 0 (perfect) s (perfect) 2s (diminished) L+2s (perfect) L+3s (perfect) L+4s (diminished) 2L+4s (perfect) 2L+5s (perfect) 2L+6s (diminished) 3L+6s (perfect)

Alterations to a mode

Alterations to a mode are denoted by listing what 0-indexed mosdegrees are altered by one or more moschromas, using accidentals whose meaning and notation is made clear. As a diatonic example, mixolydian b6 can be written as 5L 2s 5| b6 (where the 6th degree is is a ordinal-indexed 6th, not a 0-indexed mosdegree), but for a non-diatonic example, mode 5| of 5L 3s with a 4-mosdegree lowered by a chroma is written as "5L 3s 5| @4d" (read as "5L 3s 5 pipe at-4-degree", where the "at/@" accidental is from diamond-mos notation).

Named mos modes

Many people, or groups of people, who have described individual mosses have independently came up with names for the mos's modes. The mosses listed below have named mos modes on their respective pages. (todo: add links)

  • 5-note mosses: 4L 1s
  • 7-note mosses: 1L 6s, 2L 5s, 3L 4s, 4L 3s, 5L 2s, and 6L 1s
  • 8-note mosses: 3L 5s, 5L 3s, and 7L 1s
  • 9-note mosses: 5L 4s and 7L 2s
  • 10-note mosses: 3L 7s

For mossess that no such mode names but a less mathematical name is desired, genchain mode numbering may be used, producing 1st xL ys, 2nd xL ys, and so on.

Sandboxed rewrite: Naming mos intervals and mos degrees

Already deployed on main TAMNAMS page: TAMNAMS#Naming mos intervals

Complements of intervals

The octave complement (or moscomplement, or complement) of a mos interval follows the same logic as the octave complement in regular music theory: in general, for a mos with n pitches, a k-mosstep in its large form has a complement of an (n-k)-mosstep in its small form, and the two intervals are complements of one another. If a mos interval is altered by raising it by some number of chromas, its complement will be lowered by the same number of chromas.

Alternatively, if a specific mos interval is thought of as a quantity of large and small steps, then its complement is the number of steps needed to produce the mos pattern of xL ys itself.

Moscomplements of 3L 4s
Interval Complement
Name Size Name Size
Perfect 0-mosstep (mosunison) 0 Perfect 7-mosstep (mosoctave) 3L+4s
Major 1-mosstep L Minor 6-mosstep 2L+4s
Perfect 2-mosstep L+s Diminished 5-mosstep 2L+3s
Major 3-mosstep 2L+s Minor 4-mosstep 1L+3s
Major 4-mosstep 2L+2s Minor 3-mosstep 1L+2s
Augmented 5-mosstep 3L+2s Perfect 2-mosstep 2s
Major 6-mosstep 3L+3s Minor 1-mosstep s
Perfect 7-mosstep (mosoctave) 3L+4s Perfect 0-mosstep (mosunison) 0

Other sandboxed rewrites

Reasoning for names

See: TAMNAMS#Reasoning for the names

The goal of TAMNAMS mos names is to choose memorable but aesthetically neutral names.

Names for small mosses

All names for single-period mosses (mosses of the form xL ys where x and y are coprime) with no more than 5 notes require that some small integer multiple of the period is equal to an octave or a tempered octave, under the reasoning that these mosses are common and broad enough that they may be of interest in non-octave contexts. As such, the names for these mosses are chosen to be extremely general to avoid bias and to avoid being too flavorful, and to allow these names to be reused for such non-octave contexts.

The names of monowood and biwood, for 1L 1s and 2L 2s respectively, requires that an equivalence interval be an octave, whereas the name trivial, also referring to 1L 1s, is equave-agnostic and may be used for non-octave contexts.

Names for multi-period mosses

Multi-period mosses (mosses of the form xL ys where x and y have a greatest common factor of 2 or greater) are given unique names that do not depend on the name of a smaller, octave-specific mos. The inclusion of such mos names was for completeness, which prompted reconsiderations on how these mosses were named. These mosses were formerly named using names that were octave-specific, producing former names such as "antidimanic" and "dipentic".

Names based on a temperament

All names ending in -oid refer to an exotemperament which, when including extreme tunings, covers the entire range of the corresponding octave-period mos, such that many 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.

Former names like "orwelloid" and "sensoid" were abandoned because the names were too temperament-specific in the sense that even considering extreme tunings didn't cover the whole range of the mos. The remaining temperament-based names have been abstracted or altered heavily, namely "pine", "hyrulic", "jaric", "ekic" and "lemon".

Names for 1L ns mosses

Mosses of the form 1L ns were originally left unnamed as the range for their generator was too broad and such mosses were considered better analyzed as subsets of its (n+1)L 1s mos. An example of this is 1L 6s and 7L 1s, a pair of mosses that are commonly associated with porcupine temperament.

Although the tuning range is very unhelpful for knowing what such mosses will sound like, it is nonetheless useful for describing structure in situations where one does not want to use the mathematical name of 1L ns, especially given that in such situations the tuning will likely be specified somewhere already, hence the inclusion of these mos names.

This inclusion also affected the names of multi-period mosses. 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 (with their parent mos of 4L 2s named citric for consistency).

The anti- prefix vs the an- prefix for naming 1L ns mosses

The distinction between using the prefixes "anti-" vs "an-" for reversing the number of large vs. small steps is 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 their original omission), 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 fewer 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.

Names for mosses with more than 10 notes

The scope of TAMNAMS name is to give mosses with small note count a notable name. To keep the number of names controlled, only mosses with no more than 10 notes are named. As a result, the names of mosses with 11 and 12 notes were abandoned, notably the names kleistonic, suprasmitonic, m-chromatic, and p-chromatic.

Step ratio spectrum visualization

I wanted to make a table that better visualizes the step ratio ranges as described by TAMNAMS.

Central spectrum

Central spectrum of step ratios
Intermediate ranges Specific step ratios Notes
1:1 (equalized) Trivial/pathological
1:1 to 1:0 1:1 to 2:1 (pansoft or soft) 1:1 to 3:2 (amphisoft) 1:1 to 4:3 (ultrasoft) Step ratios especially close to 1:1 may be called pseudoequalized
4:3 (supersoft)
4:3 to 3:2 (parasoft)
3:2 (soft) Also called monosoft
3:2 to 2:1 (hyposoft) 3:2 to 5:3 (quasisoft)
5:3 (semisoft)
5:3 to 2:1 (minisoft)
2:1 (basic) Also called quintessential
2:1 to 1:0 (panhard or hard) 2:1 to 3:1 (hypohard) 2:1 to 5:2 (minihard)
5:2 (semihard)
5:2 to 3:1 (quasihard)
3:1 (hard) Also called monohard
3:1 to 1:0 (amphihard) 3:1 to 4:1 (parahard)
4:1 (superhard)
4:1 to 1:0 (ultrahard) Step ratios especially close to 1:0 may be called pseudocollapsed
1:0 (collapsed) Trivial/pathological

New names for the ranges excluded by hyposoft and hypohard are included: amphisoft and amphihard, named such as they surround the region that hyposoft and hypohard span. The broadest ranges for soft and hard step ratios are called pansoft and panhard, or simply soft and hard.

Extended spectrum

Extended spectrum of step ratios
Central ranges Extended ranges Specific step ratios Notes
1:1 (equalized) Trivial/pathological
1:1 to 1:0 1:1 to 2:1 (soft) 1:1 to 3:2 (amphisoft) 1:1 to 4:3 (ultrasoft) 1:1 to 6:5 (pseudoequalized)
6:5 (semiequalized)
6:5 to 4:3 (ultrasoft)
4:3 (supersoft) Nonextreme range, as detailed by central spectrum
4:3 to 3:2 (parasoft) 4:3 to 3:2 (parasoft)
3:2 (soft)
3:2 to 2:1 (hyposoft) 3:2 to 5:3 (quasisoft) 3:2 to 5:3 (quasisoft)
5:3 (semisoft)
5:3 to 2:1 (minisoft) 5:3 to 2:1 (minisoft)
2:1 (basic)
2:1 to 1:0 (hard) 2:1 to 3:1 (hypohard) 2:1 to 5:2 (minihard) 2:1 to 5:2 (minihard)
5:2 (semihard)
5:2 to 3:1 (quasihard) 5:2 to 3:1 (quasihard)
3:1 (hard)
3:1 to 1:0 (amphihard) 3:1 to 4:1 (parahard) 3:1 to 4:1 (parahard)
4:1 (superhard)
4:1 to 1:0 (ultrahard) 4:1 to 10:1 (ultrahard) 4:1 to 6:1 (hyperhard)
6:1 (extrahard)
6:1 to 10:1 (clustered)
10:1 (semicollapsed)
10:1 to 1:0 (pseudocollapsed)
1:0 (collapsed) Trivial/pathological

Original table of extended TAMNAMS names (archived)

This is an attempt to describe various mosses that I feel are worth describing, based on experimenting with these scales or for completion. This contains unofficial scale names that try to be as close to existing names as possible and are not meant to be official or standard. The following table shows single-period mosses sorted by generation rather than note count. As of August 2022, much of this section is rendered unnecessary due to TAMNAMS names being reorganized and many scales being renamed, hence this section is kept for archival purposes.

Extended names are denoted with an asterisk. Named 1L ns (monolarge) scales are denoted using italics and are based on its sister scale with the anti- prefix added.

Mos Family Tree (single-period only), with TAMNAMS Names and extended names
Progenitor scale 1st-order child mosses 2nd-order child mosses 3rd-order child mosses 4th-order child mosses 5th-order child mosses
Steps Scale name Steps Scale name Steps Scale name Steps Scale name Steps Scale name Steps Scale name
1L 1s prototonic*

(currently monowood and trivial)

1L 2s antideuteric*

(currently antrial)

1L 3s antitetric*

(currently antetric)

1L 4s antimanic

(currently pedal)

1L 5s antimachinoid*

(currently antimachinoid)

1L 6s anti-archeotonic

(currently onyx)

6L 1s archeotonic
5L 1s machinoid 5L 6s
6L 5s
4L 1s manual

(formerly manic)

4L 5s gramitonic

(formerly orwelloid)

4L 9s
9L 4s
5L 4s semiquartal 5L 9s
9L 5s
3L 1s tetric 3L 4s mosh 3L 7s sephiroid 3L 10s
10L 3s
7L 3s dicoid

(formerly dicotonic)

7L 10s
10L 7s
4L 3s smitonic 4L 7s (formerly kleistonic) 4L 11s
11L 4s
7L 4s (formerly suprasmitonic) 7L 11s
11L 7s
2L 1s deuteric*

(currently trial)

2L 3s pentic 2L 5s antidiatonic 2L 7s balzano

(formerly joanatonic)

2L 9s
9L 2s
7L 2s superdiatonic 7L 9s
9L 7s
5L 2s diatonic 5L 7s (formerly p-chromatic) 5L 12s s-enharmonic*
12L 5s p-enharmonic*
7L 5s (formerly m-chromatic) 7L 12s f-enharmonic*
12L 7s m-enharmonic*
3L 2s antipentic 3L 5s checkertonic

(formerly sensoid)

3L 8s 3L 11s
11L 3s
8L 3s 8L 11s
11L 8s
5L 3s oneirotonic 5L 8s 5L 13s
13L 5s
8L 5s 8L 13s
13L 8

Extended mos pattern names (fewer than 5 steps, archived)

As of August 14, 2022, all of these scales have been named. These descriptions are kept for archival purposes.

Parent scale 1st-order child scales 2nd-order child scales
Steps Originally proposed name Current name Notes Steps Originally proposed name Current name Notes Steps Originally proposed name Current name Notes
1L 1s prototonic, protic, or monowood monowood and trivial The progenitor scale of all single-period mosses.

Despite being a monolarge scale, it's also its own sister and is named regardless.

The current name "monowood" comes from nL ns scales (such as pentawood for 5L 5s), and is used as a base for such scales. The name trivial comes from the fact that this is a trivial (octave-equivalent) scale, consisting of only its generators.

1L 2s antideuterotonic or antideuteric antrial One of the child scales of 1L 1s.

Being a monolarge scale, tetric (3L 1s) may be more worth considering as a parent scale.

1L 3s antitetric antetric Monolarge scale. Similarly to 3L 1s with 1L 2s, 4L 1s may be worth considering as a parent scale.
3L 1s tetric tetric Parent scale to orwelloid (now gramitonic) and semiquartal, the name tetric is assigned similarly to pentic being the parent of diatonic and antidiatonic.
2L 1s deuterotonic or deuteric trial One of the child scales of 1L 1s. 2L 3s - pentic Already established name.
3L 2s - antipentic Already established name.

Proposal: Naming mosses with more than 10 steps (work-in-progress)

This is a system for describing scales beyond the set of named TAMNAMS scales. Both User:Frostburn (User:Frostburn/TAMNAMS Extension) and I have similar systems, with the main difference here being how mosses can be named any number of generations away from a named mos.

To name mosses that have more than 10 notes, rather than giving mosses unique names, names are based on how they're related to another (named) mos. The following names are used for specific generations - namely child, grandchild, and great-grandchild mosses:

  • A child mos is a chromatic (mos name), or generally, chromatic mos. For single-period mosses, this can be written as (mos-prefix)chromatic.
  • A grandchild mos is an enharmonic (mos name), or generally, enharmonic mos. For single-period mosses, this can be written as (mos-prefix)enharmonic.
  • A great-grandchild mos is a subchromatic (mos name), or generally, subchromatic mos. (Tentative name; open to better suggestions.) For single-period mosses, this can be written as (mos-prefix)subchromatic.

Any mos more than 3 generations away from a named mos is broadly referred to as a (mos name) descendant, (mos-prefix)descendant (for single-period mosses), or broadly, mos descendant. These terms can also be used collectively for multiple mos descendants or to broadly describe any one mos descendant. Optionally, the number of generations can be specified, producing nth (mos name) descendant, using the algorithm below:

  1. Let z and w be the number of large and small steps of the parent mos to be found. Assign to z and w the values x and y respectively. Let n = 0, where n is the number of generations away from zL ws.
  2. Let m1 be equal to max(z, w) and m2 be equal to min(z, w).
  3. Assign to z the value m2 and w the value m1-m2. Increment n by 1.
  4. If the sum of z and w is no more than 10, then the parent mos is zL ws and is n generations from the mos descendant xL ys. If not, repeat the process starting at step 2.

As diatonic (5L 2s) doesn't have a prefix, the terms chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic by themselves (and with no other context suggesting a non-diatonic mos) refer to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd diatonic descendants. For consistency, mos descendant names apply to mosses whose child scales exceed 10 notes. Since all mosses ultimately descend from some nL ns mos, every possible descendant up to 5 periods will be related to a named mos.

Mosses whose children have more than 10 notes (1st and 2nd descendants only)
6-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 5s antimachinoid 1L 6s, 6L 1s n/a 1A 7B, 6A 7B n/a
2L 4s malic 2L 6s, 6L 2s n/a 2A 8B, 6A 2B n/a
3L 3s triwood 3L 6s, 6L 3s n/a 3A 9B, 6A 9B n/a
4L 2s citric 4L 6s, 6L 4s n/a 4A 10B, 6A 10B n/a
5L 1s machinoid 5L 6s, 6L 5s mechchromatic 5A 11B, 6A 11B mechenharmonic
7-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 6s onyx 1L 7s, 7L 1s n/a 1A 8B, 8A 1B n/a
2L 5s antidiatonic 2L 7s, 7L 2s n/a 2A 9B, 9A 2B n/a
3L 4s mosh 3L 7s, 7L 3s n/a 3A 10B, 10A 3B n/a
4L 3s smitonic 4L 7s, 7L 4s smichromatic 4A 11B, 7A 11B smienharmonic
5L 2s diatonic 5L 7s, 7L 5s chromatic 5A 12B, 7A 12B enharmonic
6L 1s arch(a)eotonic 6L 7s, 7L 6s archeochromatic 6A 13B, 7A 13B archeoenharmonic
8-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 7s antipine 1L 8s, 8L 1s n/a 1A 9B, 8A 9B n/a
2L 6s subaric 2L 8s, 8L 2s n/a 2A 10B, 8A 10B n/a
3L 5s checkertonic 3L 8s, 8L 3s checkchromatic 3A 11B, 8A 11B checkenharmonic
4L 4s tetrawood; diminished 4L 8s, 8L 4s chromatic tetrawood 4A 12B, 8A 12B enharmonic tetrawood
5L 3s oneirotonic 5L 8s, 8L 5s oneirochromatic 5A 13B, 8A 13B oneiroenharmonic
6L 2s ekic 6L 8s, 8L 6s chromatic ekic 6A 14B, 8A 14B enharmonic ekic
7L 1s pine 7L 8s, 8L 7s pinechromatic 7A 15B, 8A 15B pinenharmonic
9-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 8s antisubneutralic 1L 9s, 9L 1s n/a 1A 10B, 9A 10B n/a
2L 7s balzano 2L 9s, 9L 2s balchromatic 2A 11B, 9A 11B balenharmonic
3L 6s tcherepnin 3L 9s, 9L 3s chromatic tcherepnin 3A 12B, 9A 12B enharmonic tcherepnin
4L 5s gramitonic 4L 9s, 9L 4s gramchromatic 4A 13B, 9A 13B gramenharmonic
5L 4s semiquartal 5L 9s, 9L 5s chtonchromatic 5A 14B, 9A 14B chtonenharmonic
6L 3s hyrulic 6L 9s, 9L 6s chromatic hyrulic 6A 15B, 9A 15B enharmonic hyrulic
7L 2s superdiatonic 7L 9s, 9L 7s armchromatic 7A 16B, 9A 16B armenharmonic
8L 1s subneutralic 8L 9s, 9L 8s bluchromatic 8A 17B, 9A 17B bluenharmonic
10-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 9s antisinatonic 1L 10s, 10L 1s asinachromatic 1A 11B, 10A 11B asinenharmonic
2L 8s jaric 2L 10s, 10L 2s chromatic jaric 2A 12B, 10A 12B enharmonic jaric
3L 7s sephiroid 3L 10s, 10L 3s sephchromatic 3A 13B, 10A 13B sephenharmonic
4L 6s lime 4L 10s, 10L 4s chromatic lime 4A 14B, 10A 14B enharmonic lime
5L 5s pentawood 5L 10s, 10L 5s chromatic pentawood 5A 15B, 10A 15B enharmonic pentawood
6L 4s lemon 6L 10s, 10L 6s chromatic lemon 6A 16B, 10A 16B enharmonic lemon
7L 3s dicoid, zaltertic 7L 10s, 10L 7s dicochromatic, zalchromatic 7A 17B, 10A 17B dicoenharmonic, zalenharmonic
8L 2s taric 8L 10s, 10L 8s chromatic taric 8A 18B, 10A 18B enharmonic taric
9L 1s sinatonic 9L 10s, 10L 9s sinachromatic 9A 19B, 10A 19B sinenharmonic

Names for mos descendants by step ratio

The designations of chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic refer to one of 2, 4, and 8 possible mosses respectively. To describe a specific mos descendant, the name of a step ratio range can be prefixed to the terms chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic (or (mos-prefix)chromatic, (mos-prefix)enharmonic, and (mos-prefix)subchromatic). Specifying the step ratio is optional, and the names for step ratios can be abbreviated into a one or two-letter prefix. (Frostburn's abbreviations can be used here, too.) These prefixes are used for specific descendants, with the notable exception of soft and hard, which may be used for subchromatic mosses to produce terminology that is more precise than just subchromatic but not as specific as their step ratio ranges. These prefixes must include a hyphen.

Descendant mosses sorted by generation and step ratio
Parent mos Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses Subchromatic mosses
Steps L:s range Steps Prefix Abbrev. L:s range Steps Prefix Abbrev. L:s range Steps Broad prefixes Specific prefixes L:s range
Prefix Abbrev. Prefix Abbrev.
xL ys 1:1 to 1:0 (x+y)L xs soft- s- 1:1 to 2:1 (x+y)L (2x+y)s soft- s- 1:1 to 3:2 (x+y)L (3x+2y)s soft- s- ultrasoft- us- 1:1 to 4:3
(3x+2y)L (x+y)s parasoft- ps- 4:3 to 3:2
(2x+y)L (x+y)s hyposoft- os- 3:2 to 2:1 (3x+2y)L (2x+y)s quasisoft- qs- 3:2 to 5:3
(2x+y)L (3x+2y)s minisoft- ms- 5:3 to 2:1
xL (x+y)s hard- h- 2:1 to 1:0 (2x+y)L xs hypohard- oh- 2:1 to 3:1 (2x+y)L (3x+y)s hard- h- minihard- mh- 2:1 to 5:2
(3x+y)L (2x+y)s quasihard- qh- 5:2 to 3:1
xL (2x+y)s hard- h- 3:1 to 1:0 (3x+y)L xs parahard- ph- 3:1 to 4:1
xL (3x+y)s ultrahard- uh- 4:1 to 1:0

Names for mos descendants with more than 5 periods

To name mos descendants with more than 5 periods, the names for wood mosses are extended to hexawood, heptawood (or septawood), octawood, nonawood (or enneawood), and decawood. Beyond that, the naming scheme becomes 11-wood, 12-wood, and so on, and mosses are referred to (number)-wood descendants, or specifically, chromatic (number)-wood, enharmonic (number)-wood, and subchromatic (number)-wood.

Names for wood scales up to 10 periods
Mos Name Prefix Abbrev.
6L 6s hexawood hexwud- hw
7L 7s septawood or heptawood sepwud- or hepwud- sw or hw
8L 8s octawood octwud- ow
9L 9s nonawood or enneawood nonawud- or ennwud- nw or enw
10L 10s decawood dekwud- dkw

Reasoning for names

The names for chromatic scales are based on former names for the child mosses of diatonic (5L 2s) - p-chromatic for 5L 7s and m-chromatic for 7L 5s - and was generalized to chromatic mos. The term enharmonic is already in use to describe the grandchild mosses of diatonic, and so was generalized to enharmonic mos. The term subchromatic is a term coined by Mike Battaglia to describe a scale that is more chromatic than either chromatic or enharmonic, and is generalized to subchromatic mos.

The format of adding a mos's prefix to the terms descendant, chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic is best applied to single-period mosses. With mosses that directly descend from nL ns mosses especially, this is to keep names from becoming too cumbersome.

Various people have suggested the use of p- and m- as prefixes to refer to specific chromatic mosses, as well as the use of f- and s- for enharmonic mosses. Generalizing the pattern to 3rd mos descendants reveals an issue where the letters started to diverge from one another, notably where m- is no longer next to p- and f- and s- are no longer along the extremes. Rather than to use these letters and to maintain temperament agnosticism, prefixes based on step ratios are used instead.

Temperament-based mosdescendant prefixes
Diatonic scale Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses Subchromatic mosses
Steps Notable temperament Prefix Steps Notable temperament Prefix Steps Notable temperament Prefix
5L 2s 7L 5s meantone m- 7L 12s flattone f- 7L 19s tridecimal t-
19L 7s flattone f-
12L 7s meantone m- 19L 12s meanpop m-
12L 19s huygens h-
5L 7s pythagorean p- 12L 5s pythagorean p- 12L 17s pythagorean p-
17L 12s gentle g-
5L 12s superpyth s- 17L 5s superpyth s-
5L 17s ultrapyth u-

The temperament-based prefixes may be used specifically for diatonic descendants as alternatives to the prefixes based on step ratios, effectively bringing back the names of p-chromatic and m-chromatic.

Suggested changes for mos pattern names (work-in-progress)

This section describes changes to existing TAMNAMS names that I would make. Reasons:

  • Some names are still based on a temperament (mainly the -oid names), so those are either replaced with a new name or at least altered so the references are more indirect.
  • There were Discord users with whom I shared a similar sentiment regarding the names of certain scales, mainly the mosses with the anti- prefix and the scales antidiatonic and superdiatonic.
  • Some names are too long (in my opinion).

The choice of names are not perfect and some may have issues. Some name suggestions went through different versions. This section is meant to start a discussion on alternate names should a need come up for it.

Table of proposed name changes
Changes to names to reduce or remove references to temperaments
Mos Current name Suggested name(s) Old suggestions Reasoning Possible issues
Name Prefix Abbrev. Name Prefix Abbrev.
5L 1s machinoid mech- mech mechatonic unchagned unchagned A more indirect reference to machine temperament. Still references machine temperament. May also reference mechanism temperament.
3L 7s sephiroid seph- seph sephirotonic or sephiratonic unchagned unchagned septonic Rather than alluding to sephiroth temperament, the name should allude to Peter Kosmorsky's Tractatum de Modi Sephiratorum (A Treatise on the Modes of the Sephirates), whose name ultimately comes from the sefirot. The document describes several edos that are said to contain the "modi sephiratorum" (sephirate modes). Therefore, instead of the name "sephiroid", suggesting that the mos pattern resembles the modi sephiratorum, the mos pattern is the modi sephiratorum, hence the mosname "sephirotonic". May still reference sephiroth temperament. For a more indirect reference, an alternate transliteration of סְפִירוֹת (sefirot) may be used instead.

New name is longer than the old name.

7L 3s dicoid and zaltertic dico- and zal- dico and zal zaltertic zal- zal As of writing, there are two names. I would favor zaltertic over dicoid in that it removes a name that suggests a temperament. Central zalzalian thirds (another name for neutral thirds) are not the scale's bright generator, but are produced by the scale.
Changes to names that bear the anti- prefix
Mos Current name Suggested name(s) Old suggestions Reasoning Possible issues
Name Prefix Abbrev. Name Prefix Abbrev.
1L 5s antimachinoid amech- amech selenite sel- sel selenic Shorter name. An indirect reference to luna temperament; "selene" is Greek for "moon". The name "selenite" follows the same pattern of 1L 6s being named after a type of gemstone. Pun.
1L 7s antipine apine- apine spinel spin- spin alpine, stelanic Shorter names. These names follow in the same spirit as "onyx" for 1L 6s in the following ways:
  • "Spinel" contains the word "pine", referencing its sister mos of "pine".
  • Depending on pronunciation, the word "agate" may rhyme with "eight".
  • Depending on pronunciation, the word "olivine" may rhyme with "nine".
Pun. The names suggested don't typically rhyme with the words they're trying to rhyme with or reference, ruining the joke.
1L 8s antisubneutralic ablu- ablu agate aga- or agat- aga mineric
1L 9s antisinatonic asina- asi olivine oliv- oliv parivalic, alentic
Changes to names that bear other prefixes
Mos Current name Suggested name(s) Old suggestions Reasoning Possible issues
Name Prefix Abbrev. Name Prefix Abbrev.
2L 5s antidiatonic pel- pel pelotonic unchagned unchagned pelic From "pelog" and "armodue". The proposed names are to make both scales more distinct from diatonic. These names must be changed together. The connection to diatonic may be beneficial to some musicians. Additionally, the mode names commonly used for both mosses are those from diatonic (lydian, ionian, etc) with the anti- and super- prefixes added.

New names reference pelog tuning and armodue theory.

7L 2s superdiatonic arm- arm armotonic unchagned unchagned armic
8L 1s subneutralic blu- blu azurtonic azu- or unchanged azu or unchanged azuric An indirect reference to bleu temperament; azure is a specific shade of blue. Simplified name. Also, the sub- prefix may falsely suggest another scale called "(prefix)neutralic", similar to how subaric (2L 6s) is the parent to both jaric (2L 8s) and taric (8L 2s). New name is referencing a temperament, albeit indirectly. The sub- prefix reasoning may be a stretch, since subaric, jaric, and taric are the only mosses related this way.
2L 6s subaric subar- subar baric bara- bar Rhymes perfectly with jaric and taric. May also mean "basic -aric", as this mos with a basic step ratio (L:s=2:1) cannot produce jaric or taric, or rather, produces both but equalized. Too minor of a modification. The use of "bar" as an abbreviation may be problematic ("bar" may also mean "measure" in sheet music).

Aesthetic rules

These are the rules that attempt to justify the logic behind much of the name suggestions. There are, of course, exceptions to these rules, as some names are arguably too memorable to change.

  1. Names for single-period mosses with 5 or fewer notes are the most general names in the sense that they're not limited to an octave period and end with -ic or -al. These should be the only mosses that contain the anti- prefix, shortened to an-. (Exception: monowood is octave-specific and does not end with -ic or -al.)
    1. An extreme alternative to rule 1 is to say that all mosses named under rule 1 should end with -al, but this requires renaming more mosses (antetral, tetral, pental, anpental) for arguably little gain.
  2. Names for single-period mosses not of the form 1L ns end with -tonic, suggesting that these are octave-specific and reference a specific interval, a notable pre-TAMNAMS or other temperament-agnostic name, or indirectly reference a temperament if all other options are exhausted. (Exceptions: mosh, semiquartal, zaltertic, balzano, and pine don't end with -tonic.)
  3. Names for mosses of the form 1L ns with 6 or more notes are named after gemstones and minerals, following the spirit of 1L 6s being named onyx. These are named differently than those named using the previous rule as these mosses have too broad a tuning range to even suggest a single temperament.
  4. Names for multi-period mosses end with -ic and always refer to an octave-equivalent scale. (Execptions: lemon, lime, tcherepnin, and all the -wood scales don't end with -ic.)
  5. With the exception of mosses named under rule 1, no mosses should be named in a way that they contain additional prefixes such as anti-, sub-, or super-. (Exception: semiquartal bears the semi- prefix, but its mosprefix is chton-).

Other name changes:

  • Antipentic -> anpentic; follows names of other small mosses where an- is used as a shortened form of anti-.
Table of mosses with all proposed name changes (changed names are shown in bold)
Single-period mosses
Mos Name Mos Name Mos Name Mos Name Mos Name Mos Name Mos Name Mos Name Mos Name
1L 1s trivial

monowood

1L 2s antrial 1L 3s antetric 1L 4s pedal 1L 5s selenite 1L 6s onyx 1L 7s spinel 1L 8s agate 1L 9s olivine
9L 1s sinatonic
8L 1s azurtonic
7L 1s pine
6L 1s arch(a)eotonic
5L 1s mechatonic
4L 1s manual 5L 4s semiquartal
4L 5s gramitonic
3L 1s tetric 4L 3s smitonic
3L 4s mosh 7L 3s zaltertic
3L 7s sephiratonic
2L 1s trial 3L 2s anpentic 3L 5s checkertonic
5L 3s oneirotonic
2L 3s pentic 5L 2s diatonic
2L 5s pelotonic 7L 2s armotonic
2L 7s balzano
2-period mosses
Mos Name Mos Name Mos Name Mos Name
2L 2s biwood 2L 4s malic 2L 6s baric 2L 8s jaric
8L 2s taric
6L 2s ekic
4L 2s citric 6L 4s lemon
4L 6s lime
3-period mosses
Mos Name Mos Name
3L 3s triwood 3L 6s tcherepnin
6L 3s hyrulic
4-period mosses
Mos Name
4L 4s tetrawood
5-period mosses
Mos Name
5L 5s pentawood