Transnotating “Wide Gamma”: Introduction


This is the second chapter of my “Wide Gamma” saga (see the previous one: “Wide Gamma 1” ).

Transnotating
Carlos Gamma was an issue I had already addressed before it was “wide”. I had tried many versions of transnotation (see “Transnotating Carlos Gamma” ) but now, having a wider range of notes to transnotate, those are not applicable anymore even though the main reasoning remains the same: the idea is to use the usual 5 line staff, treble and bass clefs, note symbols and note names assigning them different meanings.

The framework interval of Carlos Gamma tuning system is 3:2, that I call a “
diapente”, the Greek name for this interval.
Carlos Gamma divides a “diapente” into 20 equal steps of 35.098 cents each.

This time I have chosen different note names for the 20 steps forming a “diapente”: 5 letter names (C,D,E,G,A) each with 4 accidentals (b, natural,+,#).

The result is: "Cb, C, C+, C#, Db, D, D+, D#, Eb, E, E+, E#, Gb, G, G+, G#, Ab, A, A+, A#".

This means that when you move from, say, one C to another C (up or down), the resulting interval is not an octave, as in standard notation, but a “diapente”!

One advantage of this system is that it is symmetrical as opposed to previous ones.

A table of intervals:

notenames

JI intervals based on “
Anatomy of an Octave” by Kyle Gann.

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