I’ve built the harmonypartition system to generate harmonic sequences with just a few small numbers. Here is a simple one, built from simple piles of sine waves. Later they can of course expand to MIDI and DAW systems.
harmony as a sequence
So to begin: the following sequence:
base_seq = [4,3,2,1]…can generate this chord sequence:
This is not such a big deal, but it is already interesting that a harmonic parametrization can be rendered as simply as a melodic contour.
What is interesting is that the system underneath is much more than usually flexible. Change one parameter:
p = 5… and you get this:
This means, for example, that you could change the entire harmonic atmosphere of music (e.g in a game or film) according to easily structured parameters.
Intuitive relationships among these parameters would allow harmonic atmospheres to change meaningfully based on the motion of a joystick, a changing of levels, or other measurable conditions.
minimal encoding
And the encoding is very small, but non-trivial: it gives not only the notes but the function of each chord, which allows for improvisation. Here, for example is the encoding for the chords of ‘Blue in Green’:
b6e3/b6e3/b763/b763/bd22/9da2/a8e3/a8a3/b023/b023/b763/b763/b123/b123/925/925/b364/b364/b123/b123…which sounds like this (with its bass line calculated from the encoding):
…and like this with a field of (mathematically extrapolated, and slightly hysterical) notes above it:
I also use these small generated files (looped, and longer) to help violin students play over chords. Also, the encoding of a chord is small enough (32 bits) that the sharing of harmonic sequences over software (and IoT) could be rigorous on the one hand (for systems), and flexible (for people) on the other.
flexible decompression
What’s curious is that the system employs a type of compression which can be flexibly decompressed – delivering a world of sensible possibilities rather than a single unambiguous solution. This ambiguity derives from the fundamental ternary treatment of the byte.