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

One way to think of this is that 12:19:28 is an excellent low integer approximation of log(2:3:5). That's a really compact way of saying that each of these sets of three numbers has the same ratio between each pair of them:

But why take the logarithm at all? Because a) 2, 3, and 5 are not exponents, b) 12, 19, and 28 are exponents, and c) logarithms give exponents.

To fully understand why this is happening, we need a crash course in [[mediants]], and the [[Stern-Brocot_ancestors_and_rank_2_temperaments|The Stern-Brocot tree]].

=== generators ===

We briefly looked at generators earlier. We saw how the generator for 12-ET was about 1.059, because repeated movement is like repeated multiplication (1.059 × 1.059 × 1.059 ...) and 1.059¹² ≈ 2, 1.059¹⁹ ≈ 3, and 1.059²⁸ ≈ 5. This meantone generator is the same basic idea, but there’s a couple of important differences we need to cover.

Cents and hertz values can readily be converted between one form and the other, so it’s the second difference which is more important. It’s their size. If we do convert 12-ET’s generator to cents so we can compare it with meantone’s generator at 12-ET, we can see that 12-ET’s generator is 100¢ (log₂1.059 × 1200¢ = 100¢) while meantone’s generator at 12-ET is 500¢ (5/12 × 1200¢ = 500¢). What is the explanation for this difference?

Now how in the world could that matrix represent the same temperament as {{map|19 30 44}}? Well, they’re two different ways of describing it. {{map|19 30 44}}, as we know, tells us how many generator steps it takes to reach each prime approximation. This matrix, it turns out, is an equivalent way of stating the same information. This matrix is a minimal representation of the null-space of that mapping, or in other words, of all the commas it tempers out. (Don't worry about the word "mapping" just yet; for now, just imagine I'm writing "map". We'll explain the difference very soon.).

Try one. How about the hanson comma, {{vector|6 5 -6}}. Well that one’s too easy! Clearly if you go down by one magic comma to {{vector|10 1 -5}} and then up by one meantone comma you get one hanson comma. What you’re doing when you’re adding and subtracting multiples of commas from each other like this are technically called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_matrix|elementary column operations]. Feel free to work through any other examples yourself.

* Both {{ket|{{map|5 8 12}} {{map|7 11 16}}}} and {{ket|{{map|1 1 0}} {{map|0 1 4}}}} are equivalent mappings, then. In other words, they are both mapping-row-bases of the same mapping row-space. Converting between them is sometimes called a “change of basis”, though this is a different sort of “basis” than the basis of a space, like comma-bases or mapping-row-bases. Using what we know now, it may be clearer to think of it as a “change of generators”. We’ll look at this idea more in the tuning section later.

* 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. At least, the map {{map|1 1 0}} in isolation does not inherently have a connection with the octave generator of meantone. 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 {{ket|{{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.

* Technically speaking, when we first learned how to map vectors with ETs, we could think of those outputs as vectors too, but they'd be 1-dimensional vectors, i.e. if 12-ET maps 16/15 to 1 step, we could write that as {{map|12 19 28}}{{vector|4 -1 -1}} = {{vector|1}}, where writing the answer as {{vector|1}} expresses that 1 step as 1 of the only generator in this equal temperament.

Let’s review what we’ve seen so far. 5-limit JI is 3-dimensional. When we have a rank-3 temperament of 5-limit JI, 0 commas are tempered out. When we have a rank-2 temperament of 5-limit JI, 1 comma is tempered out. When we have a rank-1 temperament of 5-limit JI, 2 commas are tempered out.<ref>Probably, a rank-0 temperament of 5-limit JI would temper 3 commas out. All I can think a rank-0 temperament could be is a single pitch, or in other words, everything is tempered out. So perhaps in some theoretical sense, a comma-basis in 5-limit made out of 3 vectors, thus a square 3×3 matrix, as long as none of the lines are parallel, should minimally represent every interval in the space.</ref>

So far, everything we’ve done has been in terms of 5-limit, which has dimensionality of 3. Before we generalize our knowledge upwards, into the 7-limit, let’s take a look at how things one step downwards, in the simpler direction, in the 3-limit, which is only 2-dimensional.

<math>

As you can see from the 2.15.7 example, you don't even have to use primes. Simple and common examples of this situation are the 2.9.5 or the 2.3.25 groups, where you're targeting multiples of the same prime, rather than combinations of different primes.

The order you list the pitches you're approximating with your temperament is not standardized; generally you increase them in size from left to right, though as you can see from the 2.9.5 and 2.15.7 examples above it can often be less surprising to list the numbers in prime limit order instead. Whatever order you choose, the important thing is that you stay consistent about it, because that's the only way any of your vectors and covectors are going to match up correctly!