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Showing posts from October, 2022

The amplitudes and time relationship of harmonic number

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 When a musical note is played, apart from the fundamental frequency, there are overtones above are generated. On a classical string, the harmonic number and time are related.  1.1 A as the amplitude of the frequency. k is the harmonic number. t is time dominant. This also implies that a frequency takes time to vibrate, ringing a note. As time pass, the sound fades out. For any fundamental or overtone, 1.2 For the intensity of the fundamental, it provides about 50% of the power of a note. The next overtone provides about half of the previous etc. resembling as an exponential decay. For a complex soundwave that we hear daily, a tone for an instrument consists of a fundamental wave and multiple overtones. For k is any individual waves, a note can be described as, 1.3 Using cosine function  The cosine function can also be used for expressing a wave by adding the variable e to shift the phase to achieve the same waveform as what the sine function did. 1.4 Fourier Series Since a wave can be

The chords from percussion spectra

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The harmonic series can generate consonant intervals and even chords from lower harmonic order. Western classical music practice echoes the harmonic series. Percussion instruments are famous for their inharmonicity. In contrast to the common practice, but I follow the same steps by generating chords and harmony from the spectra of inharmonicity. The inharmonicity is due to the irregular shape of an instrument. Standard orchestral-tuned percussion instruments, they can be categorised with the shape of membrane, a bell, a bar and a plate (Dunn et al, 2015). I recorded Here are the chords from the instruments.  Crotales A6 Marimba A4 Tubular bell A3 I picked the strongest partials in the spectra and rearranged them for composition material as the chords below. In my composition for the percussion instruments, the note sets are based on them, the harmony reinforced the spectra (and vice versa) in percussion instruments and escaped from the traditional tonal system idiomatically from the in

Different use of overtone singing

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Overtone singing can produce two tones at the same time. The most direct use is the overtone is melody playing, offering a different timbre contrasting to normal singing. The example below is a famous group from Tuva, skip to 00:50 for the overtone singing section. A skilful singer can also provide polyphonic texture with overtone singing. Since there is a second voice in the overtone, the density is thicker. In Tibetan Buddhist chanting, the overtone part is static compared to the melodic contour in Tuvaina. Overtone in Buddhist chanting provides a richer and more resonating timbre. The texture is thicker and wider in regard to the density, thickness, range, or width, between the lowest and highest pitches.

Language of the texts and musical styles of shōmyō

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The languages used in shomyo demonstrate the migration of Buddhism, from India via China and settling in Japan, from Sanskrit to Chinese and Japanese.  One type of shomyo language is transcription phonically from Sanskrit. Back in the time, people did not have IPA. People in China used Chinese characters to transcribe Sanskrit phonically. Then, the Japanese pronounce the Chinese transcription in Japanese. In both cases, the phonic transcription is not systematic or accurate. The meaning of original literal meaning of Sanskrit was lost in translation. It is all about the sonic experience, in this case, the texts are often performed in melismatic. On the contrary, the literal translation translates the meaning from Sanskrit, texts were drafted in Japan, and explanatory or narrative in ceremonies are chanted in Japanese and with literal meaning. These texts are meant to be heard, so it is often are performed in syllabic settings. Contour Notation The notation is not that accurate compared