Diatonic notations

The common-practice notation we all know and love is an example of what I call a "diatonic notation". See Carl's 1st Law of Notation for the distinction.

Here, I'll give an example of octatonic notations at work. These are quick and dirty examples only.

First, have a look at this:

This may look like ordinary notation, but it's not! For here, every step over a line or space is one step through an 8-tone scale, rather than one step through the 7-tone diatonic scale as usual.

Let's tune this in the scale known as hanson[8], using nominals A-H. The scale step pattern 1-4-6 gives the following triads...

    C F H ~ 4:5:6    [1M]
    D G A ~ 15:21:25 [2s]
    E H B ~ 4:5:6    [3M]
    F A C ~ 5:7:8    [4S]
    G B D ~ 28:35:40 [5%]
    H C E ~ 15:20:24 [6m]
    A D F ~ 35:42:60 [7%]
    B E G ~ 15:20:24 [8m]

Given this scheme, the above notation represents the following chord progression:

    H-----H-----H.....G.....A-----A...H---H
    F.....E-----E-----E.....F.....E----...F
    C-----C.....B-----B.....C-----C-------C
    1M____6m____3M____8m____4S__sus6__6m__1M

Here's what it sounds like: KleismicExample.mid

We can use accidentals to extend the notation beyond 8 notes. Because the scale is non-MOS there are three possible accidental pairs...

    # and b show 648:625 (4 generators, about 63 cents)
    ^ and v show 419904:390625 (8 generators, about 126 cents)
    + and - show 78125:69984 (7 generators, about 190 cents)

Finally, just for fun, here's what the notation at the top sounds like when tuned to harmonics 8-16 instead of hanson[8].