SOUND TO SCALE TO SOUND: A SETUP FOR MICROTONAL EXPLORATION AND COMPOSITION
Olmo Cornelis, Joren Six · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) · 2012
This paper elaborates on a setup for microtonal exploration, experimentation and composition. Where the initial design of the software Tarsos aimed for the scale analysis of ethnic music recordings, it turned out to deliver a flexible platform for pitch exploration of any kind of music. Scales from ethnic music, but also theoretically designed scales and scales from musical practice, can be analyzed in great detail and can be adapted by a flexible interface with auditory feedback. The output, the scales, are written into the standardized Scala format, and can be used in a MIDI-to-WAV converter that renders a MIDI file into audio tuned using the scale. This setup creates an environment for tone scale exploration that can be used for microtonal composition.