21–30 of 97 posts
What is it? The web site doesn't work (FF, Windows & macOS). If they really propose replacing pitch by color, how are they going to get people to tell minute differences apart? How are they going to display chords, or polyphony? Octaves? And as if written notation doesn't exclude enough people, they're now also excluding color-blind people, some 5% of the male population where I live.
Here's a simple app that works on mobile (android/chrome anyway): https://see.chromatone.center/
And also here's where I found a lot of additional web apps. I'll look through them more when I'm at my PC. But just thought I'd post these here for anyone who clicked on the hn link but was underwhelmed or confused by the landing page: https://chromatone.center/practice/
There's a bunch of web apps in the "Practice" section of the site:
https://chromatone.center/practice/
_
But - I do want to say that C == green is not arbitrary at all. It is consistent with my calculations, which are consistent with Newton's calculations. Usually I see the colours being assigned to notes as wrong.. but this C == green is consistent with mapping light, using octave equivalence, given by the following:
f_prime = f * 2 ** (i / 12)
# Where,
# f' is the derived f, (in this case Green {5.66 × 10^14 Hz})
# f is the reference f (in this case 261.63 Hz)
# i is the interval in semitones
light_range_min = 400 * 10 ** 9 # Hz
light_range_max = 790 * 10 ** 9 # Hz
C = 261.63 # Hz
octave = 0
for octave in range(100): # we are just using a high number here
f_prime = C * 2 ** (12 * octave / 12)
if f_prime >= light_range_min:
octave = octave
break
print(f"C in the range of light has f == {f_prime}, which is {f_prime / 10 ** 9} THz. We had to go {octave} octaves up to arrive there")
# outputs: C in the range of light has f == 561846146826.24, which is 561.84614682624 THz. We had to go 31 octaves up to arrive there
The rest of your commentary seems valid.
browser shows this permission popup: chromatone.center wants to control and reprogramme your MIDI devices. [Allow/Block] off-topic: is "reprogramme" a british spelling - dont remember seeing this spelling in a long time.
I got that too, but had never seen that permission before. I just went ahead and allowed it. Current best practice is not to ask permissions like that (location, notifications, or programming midi devices) on landing, but to stick them behind an interaction like a toggle or button press.
What I do appreciate is the engineering design in these interactives. The circular metronome in the rhythm apps is very cool, might be good for generating musical ideas once I get past the semi-opaque UX.