Kees semi-height: Difference between revisions
m Mike Battaglia moved page Kees height to Kees semi-height: This is really a semi height function |
quick edit clarifying semiheight, remove ambiguity w/ kees expressibility and kees euclidean, and add some history |
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Given a ratio of positive integers p/q, the ''Kees [[Height|height]]'' is found by first removing factors of two and all common factors from p/q, producing a ratio a/b of relatively prime odd positive integers. Then kees(p/q) = kees(a/b) = max(a, b). The Kees "expressibility" is then the logarithm base two of the Kees height. | Given a ratio of positive integers p/q, the ''Kees [[Height|semi-height]]'' is found by first removing factors of two and all common factors from p/q, producing a ratio a/b of relatively prime odd positive integers. Then kees(p/q) = kees(a/b) = max(a, b). The Kees "expressibility" is then the logarithm base two of the Kees semi-height. | ||
Expressibility can be extended to all vectors in [[Monzos_and_Interval_Space|interval space]], by means of the formula | Expressibility can be extended to all vectors in [[Monzos_and_Interval_Space|interval space]], by means of the formula <math> \lVert |m_2 \, m_3 \, m_5 \ldots m_p \rangle \rVert_{K1} = (|m_3 + m_5 + ... + m_p| + |m_3| + |m_5| + ... + |m_p|)/2</math>, where "K1" denotes Kees expressibility and <math>|m_2 \, m_3 \, m_5 \ldots m_p \rangle</math> is a vector with weighted coordinates in interval space. | ||
The set of JI intervals with Kees height less than or equal to an odd integer q comprises the [[Odd_limit|q odd limit]]. | The set of JI intervals with Kees semi-height less than or equal to an odd integer q comprises the [[Odd_limit|q odd limit]]. | ||
The | The Kees semi-height is only a semi-height function, rather than a true height function, because the set of all ratios with less than some Kees semi-height is infinite and unbounded. Thus it is only a seminorm (or a "semimetric," sometimes called "pseudometric") on the space of JI intervals. However, if one looks at it as a function bounding sets of octave-equivalent [[Pitch_class|JI pitch classes]], then there are only finitely many pitch classes with less than some specified Kees expressibility, making it sort of a height function on these "generalized rationals" which are octave equivalent. | ||
In linear-algebraic terms, the Kees expressibility is a [[Wikipedia:Seminorm]] rather than a true norm; because the distance between two different intervals can be zero (if they are simply octave transpositions of one another). However, if one looks at the space of octave-equivalent intervals, which can be kind of thought of as "tempering" 2/1 as a "comma" and looking at the resulting equivalence classes, the Kees expressibility is a true norm on this space. The Kees expressibility can also be thought of as the quotient norm of Weil height mod 2/1. Additionally, it can be extended to tempered intervals using the quotient norm mod additional commas as a form of [[temperamental complexity]]. | |||
The Kees semi-height is often used as a "default" measure of complexity for octave-equivalent pitch classes, similarly to the use of [[Benedetti_height|Benedetti height]] on pitches (although the Kees semi-height is not the same as "octave-equivalent Benedetti height", though it is related in a different way). | |||
The use of max(a, b) as a complexity function, with or without octave equivalence, is very old; according to Paul Erlich, it may date back even to the Renaissance. In the 20th century the octave-equivalent version was used by Harry Partch, among others. The metric (and particularly the logarithmic version) has since become associated with [[Kees_van_Prooijen|Kees van Prooijen]], who studied extensively its properties as a norm on the space of pitch classes. | |||
== Examples == | == Examples == |