User:Ganaram inukshuk/Notes/TAMNAMS
This is a subpage for TAMNAMS-related notes, containing various proposals of varying degrees of usefulness and other useful things. This also contains rewrites of sections of the main TAMNAMS page that aren't quite ready to be deployed.
Ordinal-indexed versus zero-indexed names
(Personal notes; may clarify later.)
The use of ordinal indexing for naming mos intervals and degrees is generally discouraged when referring to non-diatonic mos intervals. Ordinal indexing is reserved for describing diatonic interval categories.
Sandboxed section: Naming mos modes
The easiest way to name the modes of a mos, without having to memorize any names, is to refer to them by their UDP, which refers to how many generators are stacked above and below the tonic to produce a mode of the mos.
This section's running example is 5L 3s, whose brightest mode is LLsLLsLs.
Simplified UDP notation
Normal UDP notation is summarized below:
- For single-period mosses, the UDP is notated as u|d, where u is the number of bright generators stacked above the tonic, d is the number of bright generators stacked below the tonic, and "|" is pronounced as "pipe". The full name of a mos's mode is xL ys u|d.
- For multi-period mosses with p periods, the UDP of is notated as up|dp(p). Since there are generators being stacked above and below every period - not just the tonic - there are in total u times p and d times p generators being stacked above and below their respective starting pitches. The full name in this case is xL ys up|dp(p).
To make notation easier, TAMNAMS makes the following modifications to UDP notation:
- The UDP for the mode of a multi-period mosses may be written as u|d(p) rather than up|dp(p). This is because the period already appears in both the quantity of bright (u times p) and dark (d times p) generators, so omitting the p term makes the notation less redundant. In contexts where it doesn't cause confusion, the notation can be simplified further to u|d.
- The UDP for a mode, single-period or multi-period, may be shortened to "u|" under the reasoning that omitting the d term, which can be inferred by the u term, makes the notation less redundant. For example, "5L 3s 5|", which refers to LsLLsLLs, is read as "5 ell 3 ess 5 pipe".
- The shortened notation of "u|" is sufficient in most cases, but in situations where it makes more sense to think in terms of the dark generator, such as with a mos whose dark generator is the bright generator of a related mos, the notation is instead "|d".
This simplified notation will be used throughout this section, unless otherwise specified. In any case, the name of a mos can be substituted for its xL ys form.
Finding mos modes
Rotating the sequence of steps - that is, moving the step at the beginning to the end - produces a different mode. This can be repeated until the initial mode that was started with is produced.
This rotation process usually returns the modes in rotational order, not by brightness. To get the modes in order by brightness, produce every interval for each mode - starting at the mosunison and ending at the mosoctave - producing an interval matrix. The brightest mode will be the mode that has all of its intervals - excluding the mosunison, mosoctave, and mosperiods if multi-period - in its large size. The 2nd-brightest mode will have one interval in its small size - for multi-period mosses, one interval is in its small size for every instance of the mosperiod - and so on. The darkest mode will have all of its intervals in its small size. A much faster way to do this process is to skip making an interval matrix and sort the modes produced by rotation in alphabetical order, effectively sorting all modes by decreasing brightness. In either case, the UDP for the modes sorted by brightness are (n-1)|0, (n-2)|1, and so on to 0|(n-1), or (n-1)|, (n-2)| to 0|. The table below shows the modes produced rotationally, and can be sorted by UDP.
| Mode | Rotational order | Simplified UDP | mosunison | 1-mosstep | 2-mosstep | 3-mosstep | 4-mosstep | 5-mosstep | 6-mosstep | 7-mosstep | mosoctave |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LLsLLsLs | 0 | 7| | 0 (perfect) | L (major) | 2L (major) | 2L+s (perfect) | 3L+s (major) | 4L+s (augmented) | 4L+2s (major) | 5L+2s (major) | 5L+3s (perfect) |
| LsLLsLsL | 1 | 4| | 0 (perfect) | L (major) | L+s (minor) | 2L+s (perfect) | 3L+s (major) | 3L+2s (perfect) | 4L+2s (major) | 4L+3s (minor) | 5L+3s (perfect) |
| sLLsLsLL | 2 | 1| | 0 (perfect) | s (minor) | L+s (minor) | 2L+s (perfect) | 2L+2s (minor) | 3L+2s (perfect) | 3L+3s (minor) | 4L+3s (minor) | 5L+3s (perfect) |
| LLsLsLLs | 3 | 6| | 0 (perfect) | L (major) | 2L (major) | 2L+s (perfect) | 3L+s (major) | 3L+2s (perfect) | 4L+2s (major) | 5L+2s (major) | 5L+3s (perfect) |
| LsLsLLsL | 4 | 3| | 0 (perfect) | L (major) | L+s (minor) | 2L+s (perfect) | 2L+2s (minor) | 3L+2s (perfect) | 4L+2s (major) | 4L+3s (minor) | 5L+3s (perfect) |
| sLsLLsLL | 5 | 0| | 0 (perfect) | s (minor) | L+s (minor) | L+2s (diminished) | 2L+2s (minor) | 3L+2s (perfect) | 3L+3s (minor) | 4L+3s (minor) | 5L+3s (perfect) |
| LsLLsLLs | 6 | 5| | 0 (perfect) | L (major) | L+s (minor) | 2L+s (perfect) | 3L+s (major) | 3L+2s (perfect) | 4L+2s (major) | 5L+2s (major) | 5L+3s (perfect) |
| sLLsLLsL | 7 | 2| | 0 (perfect) | s (minor) | L+s (minor) | 2L+s (perfect) | 2L+2s (minor) | 3L+2s (perfect) | 4L+2s (major) | 4L+3s (minor) | 5L+3s (perfect) |
Since multi-period mosses repeats every period rather than at every octave, the number of modes corresponds to the number of pitches in the period. As a result, multi-period mosses always have fewer modes. An example is shown for 3L 6s, with modified UDPs as described in the previous section.
| Mode | Mode name | Simplified UDP | Rotational order | mosunison | 1-mosstep | 2-mosstep | 3-mosstep | 4-mosstep | 5-mosstep | 6-mosstep | 7-mosstep | 8-mosstep | mosoctave |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LssLssLss | 3L 6s 2| | 2| | 0 | 0 (perfect) | L (augmented) | L+s (perfect) | L+2s (perfect) | 2L+2s (augmented) | 2L+3s (perfect) | 2L+4s (perfect) | 3L+4s (augmented) | 3L+5s (perfect) | 3L+6s (perfect) |
| sLssLssLs | 3L 6s 1| | 1| | 2 | 0 (perfect) | s (perfect) | L+s (perfect) | L+2s (perfect) | L+3s (perfect) | 2L+3s (perfect) | 2L+4s (perfect) | 2L+5s (perfect) | 3L+5s (perfect) | 3L+6s (perfect) |
| ssLssLssL | 3L 6s 0| | 0| | 1 | 0 (perfect) | s (perfect) | 2s (diminished) | L+2s (perfect) | L+3s (perfect) | L+4s (diminished) | 2L+4s (perfect) | 2L+5s (perfect) | 2L+6s (diminished) | 3L+6s (perfect) |
Alterations to a mode
Alterations to a mode are denoted by listing what 0-indexed mosdegrees are altered by one or more moschromas, using accidentals whose meaning and notation is made clear. As a diatonic example, mixolydian b6 can be written as 5L 2s 5| b6 (where the 6th degree is is a ordinal-indexed 6th, not a 0-indexed mosdegree), but for a non-diatonic example, mode 5| of 5L 3s with a 4-mosdegree lowered by a chroma is written as "5L 3s 5| @4d" (read as "5L 3s 5 pipe at-4-degree", where the "at/@" accidental is from diamond-mos notation).
Named mos modes
Many people, or groups of people, who have described individual mosses have independently came up with names for the mos's modes. The mosses listed below have named mos modes on their respective pages. (todo: add links)
- 5-note mosses: 4L 1s
- 7-note mosses: 1L 6s, 2L 5s, 3L 4s, 4L 3s, 5L 2s, and 6L 1s
- 8-note mosses: 3L 5s, 5L 3s, and 7L 1s
- 9-note mosses: 5L 4s and 7L 2s
- 10-note mosses: 3L 7s
For mossess that no such mode names but a less mathematical name is desired, genchain mode numbering may be used, producing 1st xL ys, 2nd xL ys, and so on.
Sandboxed rewrite: Naming mos intervals and mos degrees
Already deployed on main TAMNAMS page: TAMNAMS#Naming mos intervals
Complements of intervals
The octave complement (or equave complement for mosses that don't have an octave equivalence interval, or simply complement) of a mos interval follows the same logic as the octave complement in regular music theory: in general, for a mos with n pitches, a k-mosstep in its large form has a complement of an (n-k)-mosstep in its small form, and the two intervals are complements of one another. Alternatively, if a specific mos interval is thought of as a quantity of large and small steps, then its complement is the number of steps needed to produce the mos pattern of xL ys itself. Additionally, if a mos interval is also altered by raising it by some number of chromas, its complement will be lowered by the same number of chromas, and vice-versa.
| Interval | Complement | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Size | Name | Size |
| Perfect 0-mosstep (unison) | 0 | Perfect 7-mosstep (octave) | 3L+4s |
| Major 1-mosstep | L | Minor 6-mosstep | 2L+4s |
| Perfect 2-mosstep | L+s | Diminished 5-mosstep | 2L+3s |
| Major 3-mosstep | 2L+s | Minor 4-mosstep | 1L+3s |
| Major 4-mosstep | 2L+2s | Minor 3-mosstep | 1L+2s |
| Augmented 5-mosstep | 3L+2s | Perfect 2-mosstep | 2s |
| Major 6-mosstep | 3L+3s | Minor 1-mosstep | s |
| Perfect 7-mosstep (octave) | 3L+4s | Perfect 0-mosstep (unison) | 0 |
Sandboxed rewrite: Mos pattern names
Reasoning for names
See: TAMNAMS#Reasoning for the names
The goal of TAMNAMS mos names is to choose memorable but aesthetically neutral names.
Names for small mosses
All names for single-period mosses (mosses of the form xL ys where x and y are coprime) with no more than 5 notes require that some small integer multiple of the period is equal to an octave or a tempered octave, under the reasoning that these mosses are common and broad enough that they may be of interest in non-octave contexts. As such, the names for these mosses are chosen to be extremely general to avoid bias and to avoid being too flavorful, and to allow these names to be reused for such non-octave contexts.
The names of monowood and biwood, for 1L 1s and 2L 2s respectively, requires that an equivalence interval be an octave, whereas the name trivial, also referring to 1L 1s, is equave-agnostic and may be used for non-octave contexts.
Names for multi-period mosses
Multi-period mosses (mosses of the form xL ys where x and y have a greatest common factor of 2 or greater) are given unique names that do not depend on the name of a smaller, octave-specific mos. The inclusion of such mos names was for completeness, which prompted reconsiderations on how these mosses were named. These mosses were formerly named using names that were octave-specific, producing former names such as "antidimanic" and "dipentic".
Names based on a temperament
All names ending in -oid refer to an exotemperament which, when including extreme tunings, covers the entire range of the corresponding octave-period mos, such that many edos with simple step ratios for that mos will correspond to valid tunings, if not by patent val, then with a small number of warts.
Former names like "orwelloid" and "sensoid" were abandoned because the names were too temperament-specific in the sense that even considering extreme tunings didn't cover the whole range of the mos. The remaining temperament-based names have been abstracted or altered heavily, namely "pine", "hyrulic", "jaric", "ekic" and "lemon".
Names for 1L ns mosses
Mosses of the form 1L ns were originally left unnamed as the range for their generator was too broad and such mosses were considered better analyzed as subsets of its (n+1)L 1s mos. An example of this is 1L 6s and 7L 1s, a pair of mosses that are commonly associated with porcupine temperament.
Although the tuning range is very unhelpful for knowing what such mosses will sound like, it is nonetheless useful for describing structure in situations where one does not want to use the mathematical name of 1L ns, especially given that in such situations the tuning will likely be specified somewhere already, hence the inclusion of these mos names.
This inclusion also affected the names of multi-period mosses. Jaric and taric specifically were chosen over bipedal and bimanual because of this, and to a lesser extent, lemon and lime were chosen over antibipentic and bipentic respectively (with their parent mos of 4L 2s named citric for consistency).
The anti- prefix vs the an- prefix for naming 1L ns mosses
The distinction between using the prefixes "anti-" vs "an-" for reversing the number of large vs. small steps is not as trivial as it may sound.
In the case of mosses with six or more notes, as the period is always an octave, there is a very large tuning range for the 1L ns mosses (hence their original omission), but the "anti-" prefix shows that what is significant is that it has the opposite structure to the corresponding nL 1s mos while pointing out the resulting ambiguity of range.
In the case of mosses with five or fewer notes, as the period is not known and therefore could be very small, this is not as much of a concern as fuller specification is likely required anyway, especially in the case of larger periods, so the name should not be tediously long as the name refers to a very simple mos pattern, and for related reasons, the name shouldn't give as much of a sense of one 'orientation' of the structure being more 'primary' than the other, while with mosses with more than five notes, this suggestion of sense is very much intended, because it will almost always make more sense to talk about the (n+1)L 1s child mos of whatever 1L ns mos you want to speak of.
Names for mosses with more than 10 notes
The scope of TAMNAMS name is to give mosses with small note count a notable name. To keep the number of names controlled, only mosses with no more than 10 notes are named. As a result, the names of mosses with 11 and 12 notes were abandoned, notably the names kleistonic, suprasmitonic, m-chromatic, and p-chromatic.
Step ratio spectrum visualization
I wanted to make a table that better visualizes the step ratio ranges as described by TAMNAMS.
Central spectrum
| Central spectrum of step ratios | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intermediate ranges | Specific step ratios | Notes | |||
| 1:1 (equalized) | Trivial/pathological | ||||
| 1:1 to 1:0 | 1:1 to 2:1 (general soft range) | 1:1 to 3:2 | 1:1 to 4:3 (ultrasoft) | Step ratios especially close to 1:1 may be called pseudoequalized | |
| 4:3 (supersoft) | |||||
| 4:3 to 3:2 (parasoft) | |||||
| 3:2 (soft) | Also called monosoft | ||||
| 3:2 to 2:1 (hyposoft) | 3:2 to 5:3 (quasisoft) | ||||
| 5:3 (semisoft) | |||||
| 5:3 to 2:1 (minisoft) | |||||
| 2:1 (basic) | Also called quintessential | ||||
| 2:1 to 1:0 (general hard range) | 2:1 to 3:1 (hypohard) | 2:1 to 5:2 (minihard) | |||
| 5:2 (semihard) | |||||
| 5:2 to 3:1 (quasihard) | |||||
| 3:1 (hard) | Also called monohard | ||||
| 3:1 to 1:0 | 3:1 to 4:1 (parahard) | ||||
| 4:1 (superhard) | |||||
| 4:1 to 1:0 (ultrahard) | Step ratios especially close to 1:0 may be called pseudocollapsed | ||||
| 1:0 (collapsed) | Trivial/pathological | ||||
Extended spectrum
| Extended spectrum of step ratios | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central ranges | Extended ranges | Specific step ratios | Notes | ||||
| 1:1 (equalized) | Trivial/pathological | ||||||
| 1:1 to 1:0 | 1:1 to 2:1 (general soft range) | 1:1 to 3:2 | 1:1 to 4:3 (ultrasoft) | 1:1 to 6:5 (pseudoequalized) | |||
| 6:5 (semiequalized) | |||||||
| 6:5 to 4:3 (ultrasoft) | |||||||
| 4:3 (supersoft) | Nonextreme range, as detailed by central spectrum | ||||||
| 4:3 to 3:2 (parasoft) | 4:3 to 3:2 (parasoft) | ||||||
| 3:2 (soft) | |||||||
| 3:2 to 2:1 (hyposoft) | 3:2 to 5:3 (quasisoft) | 3:2 to 5:3 (quasisoft) | |||||
| 5:3 (semisoft) | |||||||
| 5:3 to 2:1 (minisoft) | 5:3 to 2:1 (minisoft) | ||||||
| 2:1 (basic) | |||||||
| 2:1 to 1:0 (general hard range) | 2:1 to 3:1 (hypohard) | 2:1 to 5:2 (minihard) | 2:1 to 5:2 (minihard) | ||||
| 5:2 (semihard) | |||||||
| 5:2 to 3:1 (quasihard) | 5:2 to 3:1 (quasihard) | ||||||
| 3:1 (hard) | |||||||
| 3:1 to 1:0 | 3:1 to 4:1 (parahard) | 3:1 to 4:1 (parahard) | |||||
| 4:1 (superhard) | |||||||
| 4:1 to 1:0 (ultrahard) | 4:1 to 10:1 (ultrahard) | 4:1 to 6:1 (hyperhard) | |||||
| 6:1 (extrahard) | |||||||
| 6:1 to 10:1 (clustered) | |||||||
| 10:1 (semicollapsed) | |||||||
| 10:1 to 1:0 (pseudocollapsed) | |||||||
| 1:0 (collapsed) | Trivial/pathological | ||||||
Original table of extended TAMNAMS names (archived)
This is an attempt to describe various mosses that I feel are worth describing, based on experimenting with these scales or for completion. This contains unofficial scale names that try to be as close to existing names as possible and are not meant to be official or standard. The following table shows single-period mosses sorted by generation rather than note count. As of August 2022, much of this section is rendered unnecessary due to TAMNAMS names being reorganized and many scales being renamed, hence this section is kept for archival purposes.
Extended names are denoted with an asterisk. Named 1L ns (monolarge) scales are denoted using italics and are based on its sister scale with the anti- prefix added.
| Mos Family Tree (single-period only), with TAMNAMS Names and extended names | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Progenitor scale | 1st-order child mosses | 2nd-order child mosses | 3rd-order child mosses | 4th-order child mosses | 5th-order child mosses | ||||||
| Steps | Scale name | Steps | Scale name | Steps | Scale name | Steps | Scale name | Steps | Scale name | Steps | Scale name |
| 1L 1s | prototonic*
(currently monowood and trivial) |
1L 2s | antideuteric*
(currently antrial) |
1L 3s | antitetric*
(currently antetric) |
1L 4s | antimanic
(currently pedal) |
1L 5s | antimachinoid*
(currently antimachinoid) |
1L 6s | anti-archeotonic
(currently onyx) |
| 6L 1s | archeotonic | ||||||||||
| 5L 1s | machinoid | 5L 6s | |||||||||
| 6L 5s | |||||||||||
| 4L 1s | manual
(formerly manic) |
4L 5s | gramitonic
(formerly orwelloid) |
4L 9s | |||||||
| 9L 4s | |||||||||||
| 5L 4s | semiquartal | 5L 9s | |||||||||
| 9L 5s | |||||||||||
| 3L 1s | tetric | 3L 4s | mosh | 3L 7s | sephiroid | 3L 10s | |||||
| 10L 3s | |||||||||||
| 7L 3s | dicoid
(formerly dicotonic) |
7L 10s | |||||||||
| 10L 7s | |||||||||||
| 4L 3s | smitonic | 4L 7s | (formerly kleistonic) | 4L 11s | |||||||
| 11L 4s | |||||||||||
| 7L 4s | (formerly suprasmitonic) | 7L 11s | |||||||||
| 11L 7s | |||||||||||
| 2L 1s | deuteric*
(currently trial) |
2L 3s | pentic | 2L 5s | antidiatonic | 2L 7s | balzano
(formerly joanatonic) |
2L 9s | |||
| 9L 2s | |||||||||||
| 7L 2s | superdiatonic | 7L 9s | |||||||||
| 9L 7s | |||||||||||
| 5L 2s | diatonic | 5L 7s | (formerly p-chromatic) | 5L 12s | s-enharmonic* | ||||||
| 12L 5s | p-enharmonic* | ||||||||||
| 7L 5s | (formerly m-chromatic) | 7L 12s | f-enharmonic* | ||||||||
| 12L 7s | m-enharmonic* | ||||||||||
| 3L 2s | antipentic | 3L 5s | checkertonic
(formerly sensoid) |
3L 8s | 3L 11s | ||||||
| 11L 3s | |||||||||||
| 8L 3s | 8L 11s | ||||||||||
| 11L 8s | |||||||||||
| 5L 3s | oneirotonic | 5L 8s | 5L 13s | ||||||||
| 13L 5s | |||||||||||
| 8L 5s | 8L 13s | ||||||||||
| 13L 8 | |||||||||||
Extended mos pattern names (fewer than 5 steps, archived)
As of August 14, 2022, all of these scales have been named. These descriptions are kept for archival purposes.
| Parent scale | 1st-order child scales | 2nd-order child scales | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steps | Originally proposed name | Current name | Notes | Steps | Originally proposed name | Current name | Notes | Steps | Originally proposed name | Current name | Notes |
| 1L 1s | prototonic, protic, or monowood | monowood and trivial | The progenitor scale of all single-period mosses.
Despite being a monolarge scale, it's also its own sister and is named regardless. The current name "monowood" comes from nL ns scales (such as pentawood for 5L 5s), and is used as a base for such scales. The name trivial comes from the fact that this is a trivial (octave-equivalent) scale, consisting of only its generators. |
1L 2s | antideuterotonic or antideuteric | antrial | One of the child scales of 1L 1s.
Being a monolarge scale, tetric (3L 1s) may be more worth considering as a parent scale. |
1L 3s | antitetric | antetric | Monolarge scale. Similarly to 3L 1s with 1L 2s, 4L 1s may be worth considering as a parent scale. |
| 3L 1s | tetric | tetric | Parent scale to orwelloid (now gramitonic) and semiquartal, the name tetric is assigned similarly to pentic being the parent of diatonic and antidiatonic. | ||||||||
| 2L 1s | deuterotonic or deuteric | trial | One of the child scales of 1L 1s. | 2L 3s | - | pentic | Already established name. | ||||
| 3L 2s | - | antipentic | Already established name. | ||||||||
Proposal: Naming mosses with more than 10 steps (work-in-progress)
See: User:Ganaram inukshuk/TAMNAMS Extension
Changes to mos names
Which mosses are worth naming?
Updates to TAMNAMS around 2022 have imposed a maximum step count of 10. I'm arguing there should be a minimum note count 6 for the following reasons:
- Mosses with step counts less than 6 have generator ranges so broad that they encompass multiple temperaments and can be expanded to multiple mosses.
- Mosses 1L 1s, 1L 2s, and 2L 1s have extremely broad generator ranges that it may be difficult to generalize anything about them, let alone compose with them.
- The parents of most of the mosses with note counts 6-10 are mosses with 4-5 notes, so to denote these mosses, it may be better to think of these parents as subsets of those larger mosses instead. When people compose with 2L 3s, for example, they don't invent entirely new notation for that; instead, they use notation for 5L 2s and skip two of the notes.
- 1L 3s, parent of 1L 5s and 5L 1s
- 3L 1s, parent of 3L 4s and 4L 3s
- 1L 5s, parent of 1L 6s and 6L 1s
- 2L 3s, parent of 2L 5s and 5L 2s
- 3L 2s, parent of 3L 5s and 5L 3s
- 4L 1s, parent of 4L 5s and 5L 4s
- The names for these small mosses differ from the other mos names in that they're meant to be equave-agnostic. It's not that these names would go away; rather, they'd be going somewhere else. (Where is not known at the moment.)
- The mos module doesn't even include these names, apart from monowood and biwood.
Proposed style guide
The following is a proposed guide for naming mosses, based on patterns gleamed from existing mosses. There are also exceptions to these rules.
- Names for single-period mosses with 5 or fewer notes are the most general names, not limited to an equivalence interval of an octave, and end with -ic or -al. These should be the only mosses that contain the anti- prefix, shortened to an-.
- Monowood is an exception in that it does not end with -ic or -al.
- Names for single-period mosses not of the form 1L ns end with -tonic, suggesting that these are octave-specific and reference a specific interval, or a notable pre-TAMNAMS or other temperament-agnostic name.
- Temperament-based names may be justified if it applies to a mos with a sufficiently narrow generator range, or if no other naming options are available. Such names should end with -oid.
- Mosh, semiquartal, balzano, and pine are exceptions to this rule.
- Single-period mosses of the form 1L ns with 6 or more notes are named after minerals and gemstones.
- This requires renaming existing mosses, namely antimachinoid, antipine, antisubneutralic, and antisinatonic.
- Multi-period mos names should bear the -ic suffix.
- All of the wood mosses are exceptions to this rule, as are lemon, lime, and tcherepnin.
- With the exception of mosses named under rule 1, mosses should avoid having additional prefixes if possible, such as anti-, sub-, or super-, and mosses should avoid sharing the same word stem unless the mosses in question are related in some way.
- Sets of mosses that share a relationship with one another include the following: subaric, jaric, and taric; monowood, biwood, triwood, tetrawood, pentawood; antidiatonic and diatonic (in that they're sister mosses)
Changes to existing names
This section describes changes to existing TAMNAMS names that I would make, given the proposal described in the previous section and the following reasons:
- Some names are still based on a temperament (mainly the -oid names), so those are either replaced with a new name or at least altered so the references are more indirect.
- There were Discord users with whom I shared a similar sentiment regarding the names of certain scales, mainly the mosses with the anti- prefix and the scales antidiatonic and superdiatonic.
- Some names are too long (in my opinion).
The choice of names are not perfect and some may have issues. Some name suggestions went through different versions. This section is meant to start a discussion on alternate names should a need come up for it. Some of these suggestions may be outdated as TAMNAMS names change, rendering such suggestions unnecessary; notes regarding such changes are in bold.
| Proposals for octave-specific mosses currently referred to by equave-agnostic names | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mos | Current name | Suggested name(s) | Reasoning | Possible issues and other notes | ||||
| Name | Prefix | Abbrev. | Name | Prefix | Abbrev. | |||
| 1L 3s | antetric | The names in this category are not replacements, but octave-specific proposals.
Names for these mosses are based on the base terms "pentoid" and "tetroid" and have appropriate prefixes added. Specifically:
|
||||||
| 3L 1s | tetric | smotetroid | ||||||
| 1L 4s | pedal | mechpentoid | ||||||
| 4L 1s | manual | |||||||
| 2L 3s | pentic | diapentoid | ||||||
| 3L 2s | anpentic | |||||||
| Changes to names that bear a prefix (anti-, sub-, etc) (most justifiable changes) | ||||||||
| Mos | Current name | Suggested name(s) | Reasoning | Possible issues and other notes | ||||
| Name | Prefix | Abbrev. | Name | Prefix | Abbrev. | |||
| 1L 5s | antimachinoid | amech- | amech | selenite or moonstone | sel- or moon- | sel or moon | Shorter names. These names follow in the same spirit as "onyx" for 1L 6s in the following ways:
|
Puns; dependent on pronunciation, which may vary.
A compromise is to recognize both the current and proposed names:
|
| 1L 7s | antipine | apine- | apine | spinel | spin- | spin | ||
| 1L 8s | antisubneutralic | ablu- | ablu | agate | aga- or agat- | aga | ||
| 1L 9s | antisinatonic | asina- | asi | olivine | oli | oli | ||
| 2L 5s | antidiatonic | pel- | pel | pelotonic | unchagned | unchagned | Option 1: make 2L 5s more distinct from 5L 2s. This mirrors a few Discord users' sentiments regarding this scale in that it should not be treated as an "inversion" of 5L 2s but should be treated as something unique. | Connections to 5L 2s may be beneficial to musicians, and this connection already exists for mavila.
Hairtonic. |
| adiatonic | adia- | adia. | Option 2: leave it as-is but change the prefix to adia-. | May be too minor of a change. | ||||
| 8L 1s | subneutralic | blu- | blu | azurtonic | azu- or unchanged | azu or unchanged | An indirect reference to bleu temperament; azure is a specific shade of blue. Simplified name. Also, the sub- prefix may falsely suggest another scale called "(prefix)neutralic", similar to how subaric (2L 6s) is the parent to both jaric (2L 8s) and taric (8L 2s). | New name is referencing a temperament, albeit indirectly. The sub- prefix reasoning may be a stretch, since subaric, jaric, and taric are the only mosses related this way. |
| 3L 2s | antipentic | apent- | apt | anpentic | unchanged | unchanged | Makes the name more consistent with other an- mosses. | Too minor of a modification. A possible compromise is to accept it as a spelling variant. |
| Changes to names to reduce or remove references to temperaments (least justifiable changes) | ||||||||
| Mos | Current name | Suggested name(s) | Reasoning | Possible issues and other notes | ||||
| Name | Prefix | Abbrev. | Name | Prefix | Abbrev. | |||
| 5L 1s | machinoid | mech- | mech | mechatonic | unchagned | unchagned | A more indirect reference to machine temperament. | Still references machine temperament. May also reference mechanism temperament. May be too minor of a modification. |
| 3L 7s | sephiroid | seph- | seph | sephirotonic or sephiratonic | unchagned | unchagned | Rather than alluding to sephiroth temperament, the name should allude to Peter Kosmorsky's Tractatum de Modi Sephiratorum (A Treatise on the Modes of the Sephirates), whose name ultimately comes from the sefirot. The document describes several edos that are said to contain the "modi sephiratorum" (sephirate modes). Therefore, instead of the name "sephiroid", suggesting that the mos pattern resembles the modi sephiratorum, the mos pattern is the modi sephiratorum, hence the mosname "sephirotonic". | May still reference sephiroth temperament. For a more indirect reference, an alternate transliteration of סְפִירוֹת (sefirot) may be used instead.
New name is longer than the old name. May also be too minor of a modificaiton. |
| 2L 6s | subaric | subar- | subar | baric | bara- | bar | Rhymes perfectly with jaric and taric. May also mean "basic -aric", as this mos with a basic step ratio (L:s=2:1) cannot produce jaric or taric, or rather, produces both but equalized. | Too minor of a modification. The use of "bar" as an abbreviation may be problematic ("bar" may also mean "measure" in sheet music). |
Table of all proposed changes
Changed names are denoted in bold.
| Mosses with 2-5 notes are skipped entirely. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6-note mosses | ||||
| Pattern | Name | Prefix[1] | Abbr.[2] | Etymology |
| 1L 5s | selenite; moonstone | sel- | sel | indirect reference to luna temperament |
| 2L 4s | malic | mal- | mal | apples have two concave ends, lemons have two pointy ends. |
| 3L 3s | triwood | triwd- | trw | from 3-wood |
| 4L 2s | citric | citro- | cit | parent mos of lemon and lime |
| 5L 1s | machinoid | mech- | mech | from machine temperament |
| 7-note mosses | ||||
| Pattern | Name | Prefix[1] | Abbr.[2] | Etymology |
| 1L 6s | onyx | on- | on | from a lot of naming puns |
| 2L 5s | antidiatonic | pel- | pel | pel- is from pelog |
| 3L 4s | mosh | mosh- | mosh | Graham Breed's name; from "mohajira-ish" |
| 4L 3s | smitonic | smi- | smi | from "sharp minor third" |
| 5L 2s | diatonic | dia- | dia | |
| 6L 1s | arch(a)eotonic | arch- | arch | originally a name for 13edo's 6L 1s |
| 8-note mosses | ||||
| Pattern | Name | Prefix[1] | Abbr.[2] | Etymology |
| 1L 7s | spinel | spin- | sp | contains the substring "pine" |
| 2L 6s | subaric | subar- | subar | largest subset mos of jaric and taric |
| 3L 5s | checkertonic | check- | chk | from the Kite guitar checkerboard scale |
| 4L 4s | tetrawood; diminished | tetrawd- | ttw | from 4-wood |
| 5L 3s | oneirotonic | oneiro- | onei | originally a name for 13edo's 5L 3s |
| 6L 2s | ekic | ek- | ek | from temperaments echidna and hedgehog |
| 7L 1s | pine | pine- | pine | from porcupine temperament |
| 9-note mosses | ||||
| Pattern | Name | Prefix[1] | Abbr.[2] | Etymology |
| 1L 8s | agate | ag- | ag | rhymes with "eight", depending on one's pronunciation |
| 2L 7s | balzano | bal- /bæl/ | bal | from Balzano scale in 20edo which is 2L 7s |
| 3L 6s | tcherepnin | cher- | ch | common name |
| 4L 5s | gramitonic | gram- | gram | from "grave minor third" |
| 5L 4s | semiquartal | cthon- | cth | from "half fourth" and "chthonic" |
| 6L 3s | hyrulic | hyru- | hyru | allusion to triforce temperament |
| 7L 2s | superdiatonic; armotonic | arm- | arm | superdiatonic is a common name; arm- and armotonic references Armodue |
| 8L 1s | subneutralic | blu- | blu | derived from the generator being between supraminor and neutral quality. blu- is from bleu temperament |
| 10-note mosses | ||||
| Pattern | Name | Prefix[1] | Abbr.[2] | Etymology |
| 1L 9s | olivine | oli- | oli | rhymes with "nine", depending on one's pronunciation |
| 2L 8s | jaric | jara- | jar | from temperaments pajara, injera and diaschismic |
| 3L 7s | sephiroid | seph- | seph | from sephiroth temperament |
| 4L 6s | lime | lime- | lime | limes/4L 6s's steps tend to be smaller than lemons/6L 4s's steps |
| 5L 5s | pentawood | pentawd- | pw | from 5-wood |
| 6L 4s | lemon | lem- | lem | from lemba temperament |
| 7L 3s | dicoid /'daɪˌkɔɪd/ | dico- | dico | from exotemperaments dichotic and dicot (dicoid) |
| 8L 2s | taric | tara- | tar | from Hindi aṭhārah '18' |
| 9L 1s | sinatonic | sina- | si | from sinaic |