Ploidacot/Tetracot

From Xenharmonic Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Tetracot
Pergen [P8, P5/4]
Numeral form 4-cot
Pure generator size 175.49 ¢
Pure period size 1200 ¢
Forms 6, 7, 13, 20
Characteristic multival entry 4

Tetracot is a temperament archetype where the generator is a submajor second, four of which make a perfect fifth of 3/2, and the period is a 2/1 octave. Tetracot temperaments typically generate the 1L 5s and 6L 1s MOS scales, and they split the chromatic semitone into four equal parts, creating "supraminor", "neutral", and "submajor" intervals and containing all dicot intervals.

Tetracot temperaments often generate 7L 6s and 7L 13s as chromatic scales, and for particularly sharp tunings 13L 7s. More info may be found at Ploidacot/Tetracot/Generator tunings.

Intervals and notation

While there is no agreed-upon notation system for tetracot, the notation provided here is based on interpreting the generator as a submajor second, and produced by extending dicot notation, allowing for an ^ or v to stand for a quarter of a chromatic semitone, so ^^Eb = vvE = Ed.

Tetracot intervals (assuming pure fifth and octave)
# Cents Notation Name
−13 118.65 ^Db supraminor second
−12 294.13 Eb minor third
−11 469.62 vF subfourth
−10 645.11 Gd semidiminished fifth
−9 820.60 ^Ab supraminor sixth
−8 996.09 Bb minor seventh
−7 1171.58 vC suboctave
−6 147.07 Dd neutral second
−5 322.56 ^Eb supraminor third
−4 498.04 F perfect fourth
−3 673.53 vG subfifth
−2 849.02 Ad neutral sixth
−1 1024.51 ^Bb supraminor seventh
0 0.00 C perfect unison
1 175.49 vD submajor second
2 350.98 Ed neutral third
3 526.47 ^F superfourth
4 701.96 G perfect fifth
5 877.44 vA submajor sixth
6 1052.93 Bd neutral seventh
7 28.42 ^C superunison
8 203.91 D major second
9 379.40 vE submajor third
10 554.89 Ft semiaugmented fourth
11 730.38 ^G superfifth
12 905.87 A major sixth
13 1081.35 vB submajor seventh

A notable feature of tetracot is the small diesis encountered after 7 steps. This makes tetracot scales cluster around 7edo.

Temperament interpretations

Tetracot

The temperament named "tetracot" is one of the simplest 5-limit interpretations. The step is interpreted as 10/9, meaning the submajor third is interpreted as 5/4, and extends to include prime 11 by mapping the neutral third to 11/9 (so that the step stands for both 10/9 and 11/10). It is best tuned with a sharpened generator of around 176 ¢.

Monkey

Usually framed as an extension of tetracot due to the availability of tetracot's 5-limit mapping, monkey maps 7/4 to 15 steps down, the subminor seventh. In monkey, the 7-step diesis represents both 64/63 and 81/80.