Douglas Blumeyer's RTT How-To: Difference between revisions

We call such a matrix a '''comma basis'''. The plural of “basis” is “bases”, but pronounced /ˈbeɪ siz/.

This was a bit tricky for me to get my head around, so let me hammer this point home: when you say "the null-space", you're referring to ''the entire infinite set of all commas that a mapping tempers out'', ''not only'' the two commas you see in any given basis for it. Think of the comma basis as one of many valid sets of instructions to find every possible comma, by adding or subtracting these two commas from each other<ref>To be clear, because what you are adding and subtracting in interval vectors are exponents (as you know), the commas are actually being multiplied by each other; e.g. {{vector|-4 4 -1}} + {{vector|10 1 -5}} = {{vector|6 5 -6}}, which is the same thing as <span><math>\frac{81}{80} × \frac{3072}{3125} = \frac{15552}{15625}</math></span></ref>. The math term for adding and subtracting vectors like this, which you will certainly see plenty of as you explore RTT, is "linear combination". It should be visually clear from the PTS diagram that this 19-ET comma basis couldn't be listing every single comma 19-ET tempers out, because we can see there are at least four temperament lines that pass through it (there are actually infinity of them!). But so it turns out that picking two commas is perfectly enough; every other comma that 19-ET tempers out could be expressed in terms of these two!

Sometimes a comma basis may have only a single comma. That’s okay. A single vector can become a matrix. To disambiguate this situation, you could put the vector inside a covector, like this: {{map|{{vector|-4 4 -1}}}}. Similarly, a single covector can become a matrix, by nesting inside a vector, like this: {{vector|{{map|19 30 44}}}}.

=== null-space ===

</math>

So why why did we need to do those extra reversals at the beginning and end? Besides, I never said we ''must'' find get the zeroes in the top half on the top right of the augmented matrix when doing column Gaussian elimination, so wasn't rearranging the columns pointless? Well, the reason I told you to do it was because if you're going to adapt this process to a math program like Wolfram Alpha or perhaps even general computer code, you ''will'' need that step, because the way the null-space algorithm is implemented, it ''will'' try to get those zeroes on the right. So I understand this is a bit of a hand-wavy answer, and perhaps one day someone else can edit this with harder facts. But based on observation, if you do not do the reversing, you end up with an incorrect answer, and in particular, it has got zeroes on the wrong side of the matrix than you would expect. Unfortunately, to the best of my Wolfram Alpha ability, I'm unable to make the entire process work in one go (it is possible with Wolfram Language in general, which you can play with in a Wolfram computable notebook), so here is just the part where you take the null-space of the already transposed and reversed comma basis:

=== the other side of duality ===

When we union two maps, we put them together into a matrix, just like how we put two vectors together into a matrix. But again, where vectors are vertical columns, maps are horizontal rows. So when we combine {{map|5 8 12}} and {{map|7 11 16}}, we get a matrix that looks like

Again, we find ourselves in the position where we must reconcile a strange new representation of an object with an existing one. We already know that meantone can be represented by the vector for the comma it tempers out, {{vector|-4 4 -1}}. How are these two representations related?

We can work this one out by hand too:

|}

It’s worth noting that, just as 2 commas were exactly enough to define a rank-1 temperament, though there were an infinitude of equivalent pairs of commas we could choose to fill that role, there’s a similar thing happening here, where 2 maps are exactly enough to define a rank-2 temperament, but an infinitude of equivalent pairs of them. We can even see that we can convert between these maps using Gaussian addition and subtraction, just like we could manipulate commas to get from one to the other. For example, the map for 12-ET {{map|12 19 28}} is exactly what you get from summing the terms of 5-ET {{map|5 8 12}} and 7-ET {{map|7 11 16}}: {{map|5+7 8+11 12+16}} = {{map|12 19 28}}. Cool!

</math>

=== rank-2 mappings ===

* {{map|19 30 44}} asks us to imagine a generator g for which g¹⁹ ≈ 2, g³⁰ ≈ 3, and g⁴⁴ ≈ 5.

<math>

So this is still meantone! But now it’s a bit more practical to think about. Because notice what happens to the octave, {{vector|1 0 0}}. To approximate the octave, you simply move by one of the first generator, or {{vector|1 0}}. The second generator has nothing to do with it. And how about the fifth, {{vector|-1 1 0}}? Well, the first generator maps that to 0 steps, and the second generator maps that to 1 step, or {{vector|0 1}}. So that tells us our second generator is the fifth. Which is… almost perfect! I would have preferred a fourth, which is the octave-complement of the fifth which is less than half of an octave. But it’s basically the same thing. Good enough.

To conclude this section, I have a barrage of unrelated points of order:

* We’ve made it to a critical point here: we are now able to explain why RTT is called “regular” temperament theory. Regular here is a mathematical term, and I don’t have a straightforward definition of it for you, but it apparently refers to the fact that all intervals in the tuning are combinations of only these specified generators. So there you go.

* Note well: this is not to say that {{map|1 1 0}} or {{map|0 1 4}} ''are'' the generators for meantone. They are generator ''mappings'': when assembled together, they collectively describe behavior of the generators, but they are ''not'' themselves the generators. This situation can be confusing; it confused me for many weeks. I thought of it this way: because the first generator is 2/1 — i.e. {{vector|1 0 0}} maps to {{vector|1 0}} — referring to {{map|1 1 0}} as the octave or period seems reasonable and is effective when the context is clear. And similarly, because the second generator is 3/2 — i.e. {{vector|-1 1 0}} maps to {{vector|0 1}} — referring to {{map|0 1 4}} as the fifth or the generator seems reasonable as is effective when the context is clear. But it's critical to understand that the first generator "being" the octave here is ''contingent upon the definition of the second generator'', and vice versa, the second generator "being" the fifth here is ''contingent upon the definition of the first generator''. Considering {{map|1 1 0}} or {{map|0 1 4}} individually, we cannot say what intervals the generators are. What if the mapping was {{vector|{{map|0 1 4}} {{map|1 2 4}}} instead? We'd still have the first generator mapping as {{map|1 1 0}}, but now that the second generator mapping is {{map|1 2 4}}, the two generators must be the fourth and the fifth. In summary, neither mapping row describes a generator in a vacuum, but does so in the context of all the other mapping rows.

* This also gives us a new way to think about the scale tree patterns. Remember how earlier we pointed out that {{map|12 19 28}} was simply {{map|5 8 12}} + {{map|7 11 16}}? Well, if {{vector|{{map|5 8 12}} {{map|7 11 16}}}} is a way of expressing meantone in terms of its two generators, you can imagine that 12-ET is the point where those two generators converge on being the same exact size<ref>For real numbers <span><math>p,q</math></span> we can make the two generators respectively <span><math>\frac{p}{5p+7q}</math></span> and <span><math>\frac{q}{5p+7q}</math></span> of an octave, e.g. <span><math>(p,q)=(1,0)</math></span> for 5-ET, <span><math>(0,1)</math></span> for 7-ET, <span><math>(1,1)</math></span> for 12-ET, and many other possibilities.</ref>. If they become the same size, then they aren’t truly two separate generators, or at least there’s no effect in thinking of them as separate. And so for convenience you can simply combine their mappings into one.

Because we're starting in 4D here, if we temper out one comma, we still have a rank-3 temperament, with 3 independent generators. Temper out two commas, and we have a rank-2 temperament, with 2 generators (remember, one of them is the period, which is usually the octave). And we’d need to temper out 3 commas here to pinpoint a single ET.

Septimal meantone may be thought of as the temperament which tempers out the meantone comma and the starling comma (126/125), or “meantone|starling”. But it may also be thought of as “meantone|marvel”, where the marvel comma is 225/224. We don’t even necessarily need the meantone comma at all: it can even be “starling|marvel”! This speaks to the fact that any temperament with a nullity greater than 1 has an infinitude of equivalent comma bases. It’s up to you which one to use.

=== normal form ===

The latter is sometimes called the “musician’s form” of the temperament, because it’s easy to reason about from a musical perspective. But it turns out there’s not a particularly clean function for consistently getting to it, or even defining it.

<math>

maps the fourth (4/3, {{vector|2 -1 0 }}) to {{vector|0 1}}.

To be clear, normal form isn’t necessary to avoid ambiguity: you will never find a comma basis that could represent more than one temperament.

So we mentioned that a multimap is an alternative way to represent a temperament. Let's look at an example now. Meantone's multimap looks like this: {{multicovector|1 4 4}}. As you can see, it is a bicovector, or bimap, because it has two of each bracket.

First I’ll list the steps. Don’t worry if it doesn’t all make sense the first time. We’ll work through an example and go into more detail as we do. To be clear, what we're doing here is both more and less and different ways from the strict definition of the exterior product as you may see it elsewhere; I'm specifically here describing the process for finding the multimap in the form you're going to be interested in for RTT purposes.

# Take each combination of <span><math>r</math></span> primes where <span><math>r</math></span> is the rank, sorted in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicographic_order lexicographic order], e.g. if we're in the 7-limit, we'd have <span><math>(2,3,5)</math></span>, <span><math>(2,3,7)</math></span>, <span><math>(2,5,7)</math></span>, and <span><math>(3,5,7)</math></span>.

# Take each matrix's determinant.

# Change the sign of every result if the first non-zero result is negative.

We have rank <span><math>r</math></span> = 2, so we’re looking for every combination of two primes. That’s out of the three total primes we have in the 5-limit: 2, 3, and 5. So those combinations are <span><math>(2,3)</math></span>, <span><math>(2,5)</math></span>, and <span><math>(3,5)</math></span>. Those are already in lexicographic order, or in other words, just like how alphabetic order works, but generalized to work for size of numbers too (so that 11 comes after 2, not before).

<math>

</math>

<math>

Let’s try a slightly harder example now: a rank-3 temperament, and in the 7-limit. There are four different ways to take 3 of 4 primes: <span><math>(2,3,5)</math></span>, <span><math>(2,3,7)</math></span>, <span><math>(2,5,7)</math></span>, and <span><math>(3,5,7)</math></span>.

<math>

|}

=== multicommas ===

To understand why, we have to cover a few key points:

# Just as a vector is the dual of a covector, we also have a '''multivector''' which is the dual of a multicovector. Analogously, we call the thing the multivector represents a '''multicomma'''.

[[File:Algebra notation.png|300px|thumb|right|'''Figure 6a.''' RTT bracket notation comparison.]]

So we now understand how to get to multimaps. And we understand that they uniquely identify the temperament. But what about the individual terms — do they mean anything in and of themselves? It turns out: yes!

Now, let’s convert every term of the multimap by taking its absolute value and its inverse. In this case, each of our terms is already positive, so that has no effect. But taking the inverse converts us to <span><math>\frac 11</math></span>, <span><math>\frac 14</math></span>, <span><math>\frac 14</math></span>. These values tell us what fraction of the tempered lattice we can generate using the corresponding combination of primes.

But now try it with only 5 and one other of primes 2 or 3. Prime 5 takes you over 4 in both directions. But if you have only prime 2 otherwise, then you can only move up or down from there, so you’ll only cover every fourth vertical line through the tempered lattice. Or if you only had prime 3 otherwise, then you could only move left and right from there, you’d only cover every fourth horizontal line ''(see Figure 6c)''.

We’ll look in more detail later at how exactly to best find these generators, once you know which primes to make them out of.

!RTT application

|map (often an ET)

|multimap

|multicomma

|-

!RTT structure

|list of maps

|list of denominators of unit fractions of tempered lattice generated by combinations of primes