Talk:TAMNAMS

Mosoctave?

If you're going with x-step names (which I don't really see catching on due to notation being ordinal, but that's a different subject), why still use the octave name (8-ave)? The ditave is available, very descriptive, and independent of the "8th". --Ayceman (talk) 15:15, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by "notation being ordinal"? Music notation is visual and doesn't have a direct effect on that language. We used "octave" because the idea of octave as 2/1 is so ingrained that it shouldn't cause any confusion. "Ditave" is harder to say and doesn't clarify anything despite being conceptually nicer. --SupahstarSaga (talk)

Notation being ordinal means that notation is based on the idea that the root is the "1st", whether it's 1, A, or α', which is why the second is called the second, and so on. Intervals are relative and can be offset, but the pattern is still there. This is very ingrained, so I don't expect it to change much even in microtonal music. Still, that's a different subject.

I was mostly thinking that, since it's supposed to be a clearely separate system, ditave would not imply 8-step, much like how a nine note system might have a decave/mosdecave instead of an octave. --Ayceman (talk) 17:52, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not too concerned about scale degree names personally, though we could write up something for that in the future. There's nothing inherently connecting the letter A to the number 0, and in Diamond-mos notation notes don't start from A anyway. It's true that ordinal naming is ingrained, but it's arithmetically really confusing, and it's important for interval arithmetic to be easy when working in an unfamiliar system. Since all the intervals are different anyway, I think it's totally worth it to make the switch.

There's a lot of precedent for using "octave" to refer to 2/1 in a non-diatonic context. For me, "octave" is just the word for 2/1 and doesn't usually have a specifically diatonic meaning. If the word were "8th" instead, it would be more confusing, but the "ave" suffix distinguishes it from other diatonic interval classes. --SupahstarSaga (talk)