Adagio Gamma Revisited


Following my previous blog entry I proceeded to experiment with “
Gamma Chameleon Notation”. I chose my “Adagio Gamma” to see how I could apply this notation to create a score for the Chameleon.
The piece was originally played on a standard piano keyboard with a mode of
Carlos Gamma (12 out of 20 steps in order to nicely accomodate a 3:2 interval into a piano octave).
The first 8 bars looked like this:

gamma mode 1

The interval C - Ab is actually a narrow fourth (491.4 cents), Ab - C is a wide step (210.6 cents), C - C is a perfecth fifth!

The same 8 bars in full Carlos Gamma tuning system look like this:

gammabase

The first note is a C-2 that Logic Pro shows with a double flat (a bug, I guess). No one uses C-2 anyway, right?

How did I translated the piece from one tuning system to the other? One note at the time (!) using 2 instances of the same Spectrasonics
Omnisphere patch (accordingly tuned) to make sure I was not making mistakes. Nothing to say, I am very patient, but that’s only the first step.

Once I had the completed score for Carlos Gamma recorded with
Logic Pro I proceeded to create a version for the Chameleon using my “Gamma Chameleon Notation” (again, one note at a time. Actually I used the Logic Pro command “ select all following with same pitch” to move all notes of same pitch at once).

The first 8 bars, now, look like this:

score

In order to memorize note positions I attached stickers to the Chameleon following a couple of patterns I had devised
a few months ago:

 
stickers1thumb stickers2thumb

(click on the thumbnails to see bigger pictures)

The Chameleon patch I use is the same one of “
Chameleons In The Dark

In the meantime someone MUCH more knowledgeable than me sent me a little application called “Remapper” that will probably revolutionize my approach to isomorphic keyboards. My heartfelt thanks!
I am VERY glad I am not the only xenharmonically-minded one in the world with an array keyboard!!!!!

I have added a movie of the scrolling score to show what is going on. The audio is 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, mono and the video is recorded at 10 frames per second to keep the file relatively small (17.6 Mb).

scorethumb

(click on the image to watch the movie)

P. D. commented:
Listening to your scrolling score of 'Gamma Chameleon Notation' I found it very relaxing but also evocative of a very ancient landscape, vivid and far reaching in the imagination! Beautiful and interesting intervals and melody.