Basic Music Theory in ~200 Lines of Python

Your MaNePu system sounds very cool! It's interesting that you speak of the symmetry vis a vis the number 3. My "way of word" has a similar property. It's based on trigrams from the I-Ching and all of that follows the diminished (3) geometry.

Regarding spelling chords as the iteration over their notes like MaReVe for a major chord, my system can do this as well, by using an -a ending for each letter. In this case a major chord would be BaJaMa. Or even just B' J' M', as in "B'eatles J'amming M'usic" et al. I think this would be used melodically rather than chordally in my system.

Let's say that the first measure of the melody to Ode To Joy is (in MaNePu, Jazz, Word notes):

Ja Ja Ka Ma Ma Ka Ja Fa Ba Ba Fa Ja Ja Fa Fa

3 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 3 2 2

Re Re Su Ve Ve Su Re Pu Ma Ma Pu Re Re Pu Pu

It's great to see that. I immediately notice we're both using consonants only for the first character. I can describe to you the trigram lines being referred to in MaNePu as a bottom line if ending in a, middle if e, and top if u. But the glyphs didn't work here so find the trigrams. I notice you didn't demote the letter 'u' out of your system. I personally am much more partial to the letter 'o'. ;)

We can write this passage with the bass accompaniment as well. Bassline just plays 1/Ja/Ma and 5/Ma/Ve. Weird to look at here because Ma=root for you and Ma=fifth for me! Obviously our layperson reader might not also know that Ma is a standard way to notate a major chord in music, as well.. which kind of also has nothing to do with the first two Ma's we were discussing. And we're not going to bring your mom into it either ;) Anyway here it is. Maybe mistakes (?) cause I'm handwriting here, and I just learned your system:

Bat BAt BAk BApEp Map MApAt MApAb MapEp Bap Bap BIp BAt Bat BIp Map

3/1 3 4 5 5/5 4 3 2/5 1 1 2 3 3/1 2 2/5

ReMa Re Su VeMa Ve Su Re PuVe Ma Ma Pu Re ReMa Pu PuVe

As a critique of your system if I was fluent and you read that out to me, I'd be unsure of when the root actually changes.. because when I read ReMa out I think of playing F# then D. As opposed to F#/D (at the same time).

I use an idea more analogous to the jazz chord symbol system where one specifies the root and the harmony as a compound symbol.. Like 1ma7 or b5mi7. There are actually two separate systems at work in chord symbols like this, and my system is the same as that concept. So you can go either way with "word". That is, using notes (horizontal) vs. using harmonies (vertical). I want to point out that when my system uses less letters it's because the last letters are "A" or "p" meaning no notes in this quarter. That's why some are only one syllable instead of my mentioning two. In another way if a chord is over the root we could omit the B at the beginning because it would be assumed. In this second example I included all the B's and M's (1 and 5. D and A in "normal" notes). This way the melody is seperate on top and the root motion is still specified.

My site is rudimentary but all one needs to name every chord by this method is in a small chart. I threw it in a little html file because posting a table in HN is not going to work well. https://edrihan.neocities.org/ngramcharts.html

I should actually have an explanation on the site which I will add at some point.. but basically you pick a letter for each trigram (quarter scale/chord). So there are four. If they are the first/third it's the vowel, and second/fourth is a consonant. That makes up your quality. Then you combine that with a root-letter of mine. Because those are consonants.. and my word starts with a vowel.. your five-letter word is pronounceable.

You mentioned the pinyin which I intuited on as soon as I saw the "x". You'll see pinyin on my link. Fundamentally related to way of word by its connection to the I-Ching, but not in the sense that I am using it as a sound in my system, like you are.

I like reduction of syllables for these systems. I tried to maximise this property insomuch as all 49152 expressible root-harmonies can be expressed in two syllables. I also like the descriptive property. It just so happens I designed it to be pronounceable and so seem prescriptive as well. I guess the prescriptive version here (which is also derivably descriptive) would be to use the trigram/tetragran/hexagram names. So for our major chord example.. it would be respectively,

Lightning Water Water Earth = = atEp (for some reason HN seems to censor trigram glyphs, on my system at least)

Law Increase Response = 𝌭𝌒𝌮

Sprouting Leader = ䷂䷆ = (atEp)

The trigrams and hexagrams map to this system.. but not the tetragrams. In this trigrammatic way our systems are analogous.

The 7/12 problem is one of the biggest problems with music, I feel as an artist. People have explored a small fraction of tonal possibility.

I will check out Dodeka.. Feel free to check out my material, mostly as we approach the future. I've been hoarding my work for a few years now but am unleashing things. So I guess you heard it here first cause atm I basically do not exist on the internet. But ya I wrote thousands of lines of code to get to this point.

For notation systems I like the circle geometry.. the way of word.. or simply instrument diagrams (mostly only possible with strings and keyboard instruments though, where one can visualise multiple notes simultaneously). I also like the idea of colours.

I think one thing that needs to happen in the education is for people to start learning movable-root systems like yours, mine, the jazz system, or the set system, rather than learning in static keys. People then learn 12 times as much data per neuron (-ish). I thought of a keyboard with 6+6 keys instead of the standard 5+7. Then you'd learn shapes on the instrument 6 times faster by reduction.

Ok there's stuff to meditate on.

Actually my chord naming system is "descriptive" as well but admittedly uses a slightly more compressed encoding.

Good stuff, but since it seems like there is a lot of pedantic responses to this post I'm going to chip in myself and say that most traditional gospel renditions of amazing Grace also make use of the supertonic. In the key of C that would be DMaj.

You may enjoy looking up micro-tones. Where western scales are made up of whole-tones and semi-tones, other cultures don't necessarily use the 12 semi-tone based scale system. Notably, Toxic by Britany Spears samples some Bollywood music, where the backing singing uses a bit of micro-tonality. You can often find different satisfying intervals, although they won't necessarily have the same cultural context/baggage associated with the sounds and therefore won't convey the same strong connotations that a diminished chord might.

Scales are the set of notes you can play during the song that will sound ok to the ear.

On a song in C major (or A minor), you can play any white key.

Chords are sections based around a note.

The notes played during a chord give mood and color to the chord (harmonies). The main notes of a chord (that will sound the best) are found by taking every two notes (the note+2+2), e.g. for the C chord it’s C, E and G.

Also the sequence of the notes is the melody.

And also simultaneously the ordering of the chord “drive” the song and also the mood. The 1-4-5 the parent is talking about is a very common chord progression (C major, F major, G major). The numbers here are simply the 1-index of the note in the scale used as the base for the chord.

So while you have three dimensions simultaneously which can feel overwhelming the parent was saying that simply following the 1-4-5 progression and playing randomly white keys will sound ok.

Next step try to hit one the main notes of the chord when it is playing (C E or G for the 1 for example).

That was (p)unintentional on my part, your pointing it out was instrumental!