User:Ganaram inukshuk/TAMNAMS Extension

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This is a system for describing and naming mos scales beyond the set of named TAMNAMS mosses. Both User:Frostburn (User:Frostburn/TAMNAMS Extension) and I have similar systems, with the main difference here being how mosses can be named any number of generations away from a named mos.

Naming mos descendants

To name mosses that have more than 10 notes, rather than giving mosses unique names, names are based on how they're related to another (named) mos.

  • A child mos is a chromatic mos. For the child of a named mos, the name is chromatic (mos name).
  • A grandchild mos is an enharmonic mos. For the grandchild of a named mos, the name is enharmonic (mos name).
  • A great-grandchild mos is a subchromatic mos. For the great-grandchild of a named mos, the name is subchromatic (mos name).
  • A mos that is more than 3 generations away is called a descendant mos. For the descendant of a named mos, the name is (mos name) descendant. This term can also be used to describe any mos descendant any number of generations away from a named mos.

These phrases may also be shortened by adding the mos's prefix to the terms chromatic, enharmonic, subchromatic, or descendant respectively, if the named mos has no more than 3 periods.

Optionally, for the phrase mos descendant, the number of generations away from a named mos can be specified, producing the terms nth mos descendant, nth (mos name) descendant, and nth (mos-prefix)descendant, using the algorithm below to find n:

  1. Let z and w be the number of large and small steps of the parent mos to be found. Assign to z and w the values x and y respectively. Let n = 0, where n is the number of generations away from zL ws.
  2. Let m1 be equal to max(z, w) and m2 be equal to min(z, w).
  3. Assign to z the value m2 and w the value m1-m2. Increment n by 1.
  4. If the sum of z and w is no more than 10, then the parent mos is zL ws and is n generations from the mos descendant xL ys. If not, repeat the process starting at step 2.

As diatonic (5L 2s) doesn't have a prefix, the terms chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic by themselves (and with no other context suggesting a non-diatonic mos) refer to 1st (child), 2nd (grandchild), and 3rd (great-grandchild) diatonic descendants. For consistency, mos descendant names apply to mosses whose child mosses exceed 10 notes. Since all mosses ultimately descend from some nL ns mos, every possible descendant up to 5 periods will be related to a named mos.

Mosses whose children have more than 10 notes (1st and 2nd descendants only)
6-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 5s antimachinoid 1L 6s, 6L 1s n/a 1A 7B, 6A 7B n/a
2L 4s malic 2L 6s, 6L 2s n/a 2A 8B, 6A 8B n/a
3L 3s triwood 3L 6s, 6L 3s n/a 3A 9B, 6A 9B n/a
4L 2s citric 4L 6s, 6L 4s n/a 4A 10B, 6A 10B n/a
5L 1s machinoid 5L 6s, 6L 5s mechromatic 5A 11B, 6A 11B mechenharmonic
7-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 6s onyx 1L 7s, 7L 1s n/a 1A 8B, 7A 8B n/a
2L 5s antidiatonic 2L 7s, 7L 2s n/a 2A 9B, 7A 9B n/a
3L 4s mosh 3L 7s, 7L 3s n/a 3A 10B, 7A 10B n/a
4L 3s smitonic 4L 7s, 7L 4s smichromatic 4A 11B, 7A 11B smienharmonic
5L 2s diatonic 5L 7s, 7L 5s chromatic 5A 12B, 7A 12B enharmonic
6L 1s arch(a)eotonic 6L 7s, 7L 6s archeoromatic 6A 13B, 7A 13B archeoenharmonic
8-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 7s antipine 1L 8s, 8L 1s n/a 1A 9B, 8A 9B n/a
2L 6s subaric 2L 8s, 8L 2s n/a 2A 10B, 8A 10B n/a
3L 5s checkertonic 3L 8s, 8L 3s checkchromatic 3A 11B, 8A 11B checkenharmonic
4L 4s tetrawood; diminished 4L 8s, 8L 4s chromatic tetrawood 4A 12B, 8A 12B enharmonic tetrawood
5L 3s oneirotonic 5L 8s, 8L 5s oneirochromatic 5A 13B, 8A 13B oneiroenharmonic
6L 2s ekic 6L 8s, 8L 6s ekchromatic 6A 14B, 8A 14B ekenharmonic
7L 1s pine 7L 8s, 8L 7s pinechromatic 7A 15B, 8A 15B pinenharmonic
9-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 8s antisubneutralic 1L 9s, 9L 1s n/a 1A 10B, 9A 10B n/a
2L 7s balzano 2L 9s, 9L 2s balchromatic 2A 11B, 9A 11B balenharmonic
3L 6s tcherepnin 3L 9s, 9L 3s cherchromatic 3A 12B, 9A 12B cherenharmonic
4L 5s gramitonic 4L 9s, 9L 4s gramchromatic 4A 13B, 9A 13B gramenharmonic
5L 4s semiquartal 5L 9s, 9L 5s chtonchromatic 5A 14B, 9A 14B chtonenharmonic
6L 3s hyrulic 6L 9s, 9L 6s hyruchromatic 6A 15B, 9A 15B hyrenharmonic
7L 2s superdiatonic 7L 9s, 9L 7s armchromatic 7A 16B, 9A 16B armenharmonic
8L 1s subneutralic 8L 9s, 9L 8s bluchromatic 8A 17B, 9A 17B bluenharmonic
10-note mosses Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses
Pattern Name Patterns Names Patterns Names
1L 9s antisinatonic 1L 10s, 10L 1s asinachromatic 1A 11B, 10A 11B asinenharmonic
2L 8s jaric 2L 10s, 10L 2s jarachromatic 2A 12B, 10A 12B jaraenharmonic
3L 7s sephiroid 3L 10s, 10L 3s sephchromatic 3A 13B, 10A 13B sephenharmonic
4L 6s lime 4L 10s, 10L 4s limechromatic 4A 14B, 10A 14B limenharmonic
5L 5s pentawood 5L 10s, 10L 5s chromatic pentawood 5A 15B, 10A 15B enharmonic pentawood
6L 4s lemon 6L 10s, 10L 6s lemchromatic 6A 16B, 10A 16B lemenharmonic
7L 3s dicoid, zaltertic 7L 10s, 10L 7s dicochromatic, zalchromatic 7A 17B, 10A 17B dicoenharmonic, zalenharmonic
8L 2s taric 8L 10s, 10L 8s tarachromatic 8A 18B, 10A 18B tarenharmonic
9L 1s sinatonic 9L 10s, 10L 9s sinachromatic 9A 19B, 10A 19B sinenharmonic

Names for mos descendants by step ratio

The designations of chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic by themselves does not describe a specific mos descendant. To do that, the name of a step ratio range can be prefixed to the terms chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic (or (mos-prefix)chromatic, (mos-prefix)enharmonic, and (mos-prefix)subchromatic). Specifying the step ratio is optional, and the names for step ratios can be abbreviated into a one or two-letter prefix. (Frostburn's abbreviations can be used here, too.) These prefixes are used for specific descendants, with the notable exception of soft and hard. For enharmonic mosses, these describe mosses with a step ratio outside the hyposoft and hypohard range. For subchromatic mosses, these describe mosses within the entire soft and hard ranges, producing terminology more specific than just subchromatic but not as specific as the specific step ratio ranges. These prefixes must include a hyphen.

Descendant mosses sorted by generation and step ratio
Parent mos Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses Subchromatic mosses
Steps L:s range Steps Prefix Abbrev. L:s range Steps Prefix Abbrev. L:s range Steps Broad prefixes Specific prefixes L:s range
Prefix Abbrev. Prefix Abbrev.
xL ys 1:1 to 1:0 (x+y)L xs soft- s- 1:1 to 2:1 (x+y)L (2x+y)s soft- s- 1:1 to 3:2 (x+y)L (3x+2y)s soft- s- ultrasoft- us- 1:1 to 4:3
(3x+2y)L (x+y)s parasoft- ps- 4:3 to 3:2
(2x+y)L (x+y)s hyposoft- os- 3:2 to 2:1 (3x+2y)L (2x+y)s quasisoft- qs- 3:2 to 5:3
(2x+y)L (3x+2y)s minisoft- ms- 5:3 to 2:1
xL (x+y)s hard- h- 2:1 to 1:0 (2x+y)L xs hypohard- oh- 2:1 to 3:1 (2x+y)L (3x+y)s hard- h- minihard- mh- 2:1 to 5:2
(3x+y)L (2x+y)s quasihard- qh- 5:2 to 3:1
xL (2x+y)s hard- h- 3:1 to 1:0 (3x+y)L xs parahard- ph- 3:1 to 4:1
xL (3x+y)s ultrahard- uh- 4:1 to 1:0
Example with balzano (2L 7s)
Balzano (parent) Chromatic balzano Enharmonic balzano Subchromatic balzano
Steps Name Steps Name Steps Name Steps Broad name Specific name
2L 7s balzano 9L 2s s-balchromatic 9L 11s s-balenharmonic 9L 20s s-balsubchromatic us-balsubchromatic
20L 9s ps-balsubchromatic
11L 9s os-balenharmonic 20L 11s qs-balsubchromatic
11L 20s ms-balsubchromatic
2L 9s h-balchromatic 11L 2s oh-balenharmonic 11L 13s h-balsubchromatic mh-balsubchromatic
13L 11s qh-balsubchromatic
2L 11s h-balenharmonic 13L 2s ph-balsubchromatic
2L 13s uh-balsubchromatic

Other mos names

This section describes additional names for mosses that have more than 10 notes but are worthy of names.

Names for mos descendants with more than 5 periods

To name mos descendants with more than 5 periods, the names for wood mosses are extended to hexawood, heptawood (or septawood), octawood, nonawood (or enneawood), and decawood. (This is not too different from Frostburn's proposal.) Beyond that, the naming scheme becomes 11-wood, 12-wood, and so on, and mosses are referred to chromatic (number)-wood, enharmonic (number)-wood, and subchromatic (number)-wood. The term (number)-wood descendants is also used, and to refer to nth (number)-wood descendants, the algorithm is used below to find the number of generations:

  1. Let z and w be the number of large and small steps of the parent mos to be found. Assign to z and w the values x and y respectively. Let n = 0, where n is the number of generations away from zL ws.
  2. Let m1 be equal to max(z, w) and m2 be equal to min(z, w).
  3. Assign to z the value m2 and w the value m1-m2. Increment n by 1.
  4. If both z and w are equal to 1, then the parent mos is nL ns and is n generations from the mos descendant xL ys. If not, repeat the process starting at step 2.
Names for wood scales up to 10 periods
Mos Name Prefix Abbrev.
6L 6s hexawood hexwud- hw
7L 7s septawood or heptawood sepwud- or hepwud- sw or hw
8L 8s octawood octwud- ow
9L 9s nonawood or enneawood nonawud- or ennwud- nw or enw
10L 10s decawood dekwud- dkw
11L 11s 11-wood 11-wud- 11wd
12L 12s 12-wood 12-wud 12wd
etc...

Names for mos linear families

A mos linear family is a family of related mosses of the form xL (nx + y)s. This family starts with the mos xL ys, where x < y and n=0, and continue with mosses with the same number of large steps but a linearly growing quantity of small steps. An example of such a family is the mos sequence 5L 2s, 5L 7s, 5L 12s, 5L 17s, etc, where each successive mos has 5 more small steps than the last.

Mosses in this family relate to one another by repeated application of the replacement ruleset L->Ls and s->s to the initial mos's step pattern. In terms of step ratio, these mosses relate back to the initial mos if the initial mos has a hard or pseudoequalized step ratio. Continuing with the example of 5L 2s, the smallest edo that can reach 5L 7s is 17edo (where L:s = 2:1, therefore 5L+7s = 17), producing a 5L 2s mos with a step ratio of 3:1, whereas reaching the mos 5L 17s requires the initial mos of 5L 2s to have a step ratio of 5:1.

Names of single-period mos linear families (work-in-progress)
Trivial families
Mos Name Reasoning
1L ns monolarge family Represents an entire family of mosses formerly unnamed by TAMNAMS
2L (2n+1)s bilarge family Named analogously to the monolarge family
Families with 3 large steps
Mos Name Reasoning
3L (3n+1)s tetralinear family Named after tetric, the first mos in this sequence (n=0)
3L (3n+2)s anpentilinear family Named after anpentic
Families with 4 large steps
Mos Name Reasoning
4L (4n+1)s manulinear family Named after manual
4L (4n+3)s smilinear family Named after smitonic
Families with 5 large steps
Mos Name Reasoning
5L (5n+1)s mechlinear family Named after machinoid
5L (5n+2)s p-linear family Named after p-chromatic rather than diatonic, which has no prefix
5L (5n+3)s oneirolinear family Named after oneirotonic
5L (5n+4)s chtonlinear family Named after semiquartal (prefix chton-)
Families with 6 large steps
Mos Name Reasoning
6L (6n+1)s archeolinear family Named after archeotonic
6L (6n+5)s xeimlinear family Named after xeimtonic, a former name for 6L 5s
Families with 7 large steps
Mos Name Reasoning
7L (7n+1)s pinelinear family Named after pine
7L (7n+2)s armlinear family Named after armotonic (also called superdiatonic)
7L (7n+3)s dicolinear or zalinear family Named after dicotonic (also called zaltertic)
7L (7n+4)s prasmilinear family Named after suprasmitonic, a former name for 7L 4s but with a truncated name
7L (7n+5)s m-linear family Named after m-chromatic rather than diatonic
7L (7n+6)s
Families with 8 large steps
Mos Name Reasoning
8L (8n+1)s blulinear family Named after subneutralic (prefix blu-)
8L (8n+3)s
8L (8n+5)s petrlinear family Named after petroid, a former name for 8L 5s
8L (8n+7)s
Families with 9 large steps
Mos Name Reasoning
9L (9n+1)s sinalinear family Named after sinatonic
9L (9n+2)s
9L (9n+4)s
9L (9n+5)s
9L (9n+7)s
9L (9n+8)s

Reasoning for names

The names for chromatic scales are based on former names for the child mosses of diatonic (5L 2s) - p-chromatic for 5L 7s and m-chromatic for 7L 5s - and was generalized to chromatic mos. The term enharmonic is already in use to describe the grandchild mosses of diatonic, and so was generalized to enharmonic mos. The term subchromatic is a term coined by Mike Battaglia to describe a scale that is more chromatic than either chromatic or enharmonic, and is generalized to subchromatic mos.

The format of adding a mos's prefix to the terms descendant, chromatic, enharmonic, and subchromatic is best applied to mosses that have no more than three periods. With mosses that descend directly from nL ns mosses especially (4L 4s and above), this is to keep names from being too cumbersome (eg, chromatic (number)-wood instead of (number)-woodchromatic).

Various people have suggested the use of p- and m- as prefixes to refer to specific chromatic mosses, as well as the use of f- and s- for enharmonic mosses. Generalizing the pattern to 3rd mos descendants reveals an issue where the letters started to diverge from one another, notably where m- is no longer next to p- and f- and s- are no longer along the extremes. Rather than to use these letters and to maintain temperament agnosticism, prefixes based on step ratios are used instead.

Temperament-based mosdescendant prefixes
Diatonic scale Chromatic mosses Enharmonic mosses Subchromatic mosses
Steps Notable temperament Prefix Steps Notable temperament Prefix Steps Notable temperament Prefix
5L 2s 7L 5s meantone m- 7L 12s flattone f- 7L 19s tridecimal t-
19L 7s flattone f-
12L 7s meantone m- 19L 12s meanpop m-
12L 19s huygens h-
5L 7s pythagorean p- 12L 5s pythagorean p- 12L 17s pythagorean p-
17L 12s gentle g-
5L 12s superpyth s- 17L 5s superpyth s-
5L 17s ultrapyth u-

The temperament-based prefixes may be used specifically for diatonic descendants as alternatives to the prefixes based on step ratios, effectively bringing back the names of p-chromatic and m-chromatic.