Kite's color notation: Difference between revisions

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restored missing IPAs
Rewrote the intro to better explain color notation's approach and sound less like an advertisement
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'''Color notation''' is a [[musical notation]] system for [[just intonation]]. Color notation has many features that other just intonation notations lack:
'''Color notation''' is a [[musical notation]] system for [[just intonation]] interval qualities. Unlike many systems which linearize interval qualities into a scale with steps along it, color notation takes advantage of just intonation's multi-dimensional structure (similar to a color space) for its model of interval qualities. As such, instead of conventional accidentals or interval qualities, new terms unique to color notation are used instead.  
* No new symbols: all new accidentals are familiar characters; hence they are immediately speed-readable.
* Furthermore, they are all on the QWERTY keyboard, making the notation easily typeable.
* Every new accidental has a spoken name (colorspeak), making the notation speakable.
* Most importantly, one can name not only notes but also intervals. As a result, color notation can name scales, chords, chord progressions, and even prime subgroups and temperaments.


'''Colorspeak''' is the term for spoken color notation. It's designed to be easily pronounced no matter what one's native language is and also to be very concise; almost every element of colorspeak is only one short syllable ending with a vowel. The five basic vowels are pronounced {{w|open central unrounded vowel|/a/}}, {{w|open-mid front unrounded vowel|/ɛ/}}, {{w|close front unrounded vowel|/i/}}, {{w|mid back rounded vowel|/o/}} and {{w|close back rounded vowel|/u/}} (as in m'''a''', m'''e'''t, m'''e''', m'''ow''', and m'''oo''') by an English speaker, but perhaps differently by others (e.g. perhaps {{w|close-mid front unrounded vowel|/e/}} instead of {{nowrap|/ɛ/}}).
Because interval qualities can be notated with color notation, so can both notes and just intervals themselves. This means that as a result, color notation can name temperaments, scales, chords, progressions, and prime subgroups.
 
All accidentals introduced by color notation use familiar characters with no new symbols; hence they are immediately speed-readable. Furthermore, they are all on the QWERTY keyboard, making the notation easily typable.
 
Every new accidental has a spoken name, referred to as '''"colorspeak'''", which makes the notation speakable. Colorspeak is designed to be easily pronounced no matter what one's native language is and also to be very concise; almost every element of colorspeak is only one short syllable ending with a vowel. The five basic vowels are pronounced {{w|open central unrounded vowel|/a/}}, {{w|open-mid front unrounded vowel|/ɛ/}}, {{w|close front unrounded vowel|/i/}}, {{w|mid back rounded vowel|/o/}} and {{w|close back rounded vowel|/u/}} (as in m'''a''', m'''e'''t, m'''e''', m'''ow''', and m'''oo''') by an English speaker, but perhaps differently by others (e.g. perhaps {{w|close-mid front unrounded vowel|/e/}} instead of {{nowrap|/ɛ/}}).


== Color names for primes 3, 5, and 7 ==
== Color names for primes 3, 5, and 7 ==