Guide frame

Guide frames are the most recent formulation of "nice" scales in Inthar's contribution to aberrismic theory. A guide frame consists of:

1. a guided generator sequence (GGS) GS(g1, g2, ...), where each generator subtends the same fixed number of steps in the scale;
2. a polyoffset (offset chord) for that generator sequence where every copy of the generator sequence has the same length. This is the unison for scales with only one GGS chain and a dyad for scales with two GGS chains. LssLssLssMssLssLssMss has three GGS chains; note that the polyoffset is also GS(s).
   • The size of the polyoffset is called the multiplicity of the guide frame. Diasem and diamech have multiplicity 1, and 5sC diachrome and blackdye have multiplicity 2.

Scales that consist of an offset but where the two chains have different lengths can be formulated as a modification of a guide-frame scale. An example is chiral diachrome which can be modified from achiral diachrome by moving one note from one GGS chain to the other.

The term is inspired by Scott Dakota's "guide generators". The idea is that a guide frame scale is a detempered MOS.