Tempered monzos and vals

A regular temperament is a homomorphism (a kind of function) from the space of just intervals to the space of tempered intervals generated by that temperament, where both these spaces are abelian groups. Technically, a regular temperament refers to an equivalence class of functions separated by unimodular transformations (which are functionally the same temperament). An element of the space of tempered intervals is called a tempered monzo, or for short "tmonzo", and represents the number of steps of each generator required to reach a tempered interval, and an element of the dual module K* is called a tval.

Tmonzos are rather straightforward, and tvals act on tmonzos in the same way that vals act on monzos: they're linear functionals which map from tmonzos to a scalar representing a certain number of steps. Note that there is no restriction on which bases tmonzos can be written in, but one option is to use the basis corresponding to the mapping matrix for the temperament which is in normal val list form.

Example

As an example, consider the mapping

[⟨1 1 0]]

[⟨0 1 4]]

This mapping, which is referred to in mathematical terms as a "matrix", represents meantone temperament. If we apply this mapping to the monzo [1 0 0⟩, representing 2/1, we get the tmonzo [1 0⟩ (one tempered 2/1). If we instead apply it to [-1 1 0⟩, we get the tmonzo [0 1⟩ (one tempered 3/2). That 2/1 and 3/2 map to [1 0⟩ and [0 1⟩ respectively tell us that the tempered versions of these intervals can serve as a basis for meantone. If we now apply this mapping to the monzo [-2 0 1⟩, representing 5/4, we get the tmonzo [-2 4⟩, telling us that the tempered 5/4 maps to four tempered 3/2's minus two tempered 2/1's.

See also

• Mapped interval – a beginner-level introduction