Talk:KISS notation

Middle C

Your reasoning for choosing C4 as a standard pitch seems to imply that A=440 Hz both forces two reference pitch standards and has some sort of intrinsic disadvantage for people with absolute pitch.

I don't believe that either of those are generally true for any reason.

One could simply choose A=440 Hz and build all tonal definitions from A instead of from C. It should make no difference at all unless one chooses a tonal system that either does not define an A or does not define a C. I would be inclines, myself, to think that A makes more intuitive sense as a starting point, being the first letter of the alphabet.

I may be mistaken, but I don't see why anyone with any form of perfect absolute pitch in a microtonal context should think it easier to identify a C than an A, nor any named note from any other named note, arbitrarily. For those without perfect absolute pitch, but with some sort of good relative pitch perception might see an advantage in a reference standard that is a harmonic of whatever frequency AC electrical service is in their country, but since both 50 Hz and 60 Hz are widespread standards, both 261 Hz and 440 Hz would be equally bad, in general.

--Bozu (talk) 20:48, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

C261.6 is major-centrism. D293 is the one real standard tuning. FloraC (talk) 04:05, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

I understand that In MIDI, Middle C is note number 60 which equates to C and that this could be the reason some people tend to see "Middle C" as a possible center. Also the clefs typically used for Piano scores give this tone a certain dominance. I play the piano as well and had a lot of work to do to overcome my childish C-major centrism but I'd plead that a notation system should have the freedom to chose its central note. What I don't understand is that a notation system has to define the exact frequency for it's root note. --Xenwolf (talk) 07:22, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

This topic can get toxic at some points. Well, 60 is not a special note in MIDI, yet the center of MIDI, between 63 (Eb) and 64 (E), can be interpreted as centering around C-G.

By suggesting D as the center, I mean it's a fact. The heptatonic scale has two inherent tuning centers that produce symmetry, currently surprisingly nicely signified by D, and betweem G and A. It's surprisingly nice cuz A and G are the first and last letters in the sequence, respectively, and D is right in the middle. There's a unity between tuning and notating. I can see it recognized in this community. Look at how they do the heptatonic porcupine notation: they typically place the one large step between G and A, so it's still centered around D.

Now to develop another notation system, as long as it's based on a scale, we will have such a center, whatever its signifier is, and we'll need the signifier-frequency form to tune it (or how do you tune it?). Do you need a particular frequency for a particular tuning? Probably not. You just take one frequency and tune everything, including the diatonic scale. So the choice is down to one of the frequencies in that scale. Which one? My answer is obvious. FloraC (talk) 17:36, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that logic, though, since it suggests Eb as a reference pitch. --Bozu (talk) 14:20, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't. FloraC (talk) 01:11, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Half of 127 is 63.5 note 63 is Eb, not D. If you choose D as a reference because it's halfway up from A through the musical alphabet, why not just choose A anyway, since your reference is justified by another reference? Anyway, in an octave-based system, halfway up the A scale is the tritone, which is closer to Eb than to D. If you are specifying a heptatonic scale, then it depends on which heptatonic scale you use as a template, which introduces even more references. I mean, if you can get it to catch on, I'll be happy to go with the flow, but I'm just not following your logic on why D should be a universal reference pitch.

In my opinion, whichever is already established as the most universally accepted reference pitch should be the reference pitch to which we try to conform until we can think of something that stands on its own logical ground as being better. I do sometimes see D or C as a defined reference pitch, but the vast majority of tuning forks, keyboards, pitch pipes, electronic tuners, etc., use A4=440 Hz as a standard, in my experience. Maybe it's a North American thing, but I don't think it is. I'm not married to the idea, but I just don't really get why this community seems so insistent on changing the reference pitch to C, unless it's more convenient for a specific circumstance, like MIDI. --Bozu (talk) 15:46, 4 June 2020 (UTC)