KiteGiedraitis
Kite Giedraitis is a musician, author, theorist, instrument builder and software developer.
Latest track: I Hear Numbers
He has written alt-tuner, unique from other microtonal software in several ways:
It allows dynamic retuning via midi input from the musician, in the form of keyswitches and/or foot pedals. This in turn allows the "holy grail" of retuning: adaptive just intonation.
It features a color-coded lattice and a graph of all intervals up to an octave, both of which respond instantly to tuning changes.
With others such as Robert Walker and Ozan Yarman, he has developed a new tuning method that uses very high keyswitches (midi notes 122-127) to "smuggle" tuning information through DAWs that won't transmit sysex messages. This method has been used to retune Kontakt instruments to allow complete retuning freedom -- any note can take on any pitch in the 10-octave midi range, and can even glide to any pitch while sounding, all using only one instrument instance, one midi channel, and one DAW track.
He has developed several notation systems, not only typable and staff notation but also spoken and sung notation:
His color notation represents each prime up to 19-limit via 1 or 2 colors (2 = clear, 3 = white, 5 = yellow for otonal and green for utonal, 7 = blue and red, etc.). Combined with standard diatonic notation, any ratio can be expressed as a color plus a degree, e.g. "blue third" for 7/6. There is a rigorous one-to-one correspondence between ratios and color notation, making it ideal for JI. But it can also be applied to temperaments and EDOs, since ratios are often used to refer to intervals in such tunings.
His da-ro-mu is a form of solfege that uses the traditional consonants of do-re-mi but replaces the vowels with "color vowels" (a = white, e = red, i = green, o = yellow and u = blue). Thus 5/3 - 14/9 - 3/2 is "Lo Lu Sa".
His ups and downs notation represents every key in an EDO. The standard seven letters and the standard sharp and flat is used to represent the chain of fifths. For EDOs in which 7 fifths octave-reduce to one EDOstep (12edo, 19edo, etc.) this is sufficient. For other EDOs, the up symbol "^" and the down symbol "v" represent raising and lowering the pitch by one EDOstep. For example, in 22-edo, 7 fifths = 3 EDOsteps, and 22edo would be written:
C-Db-Db^-Dv-D-Eb-Eb^-Ev-E-F-Gb-Gb^-Gv-G-Ab-Ab^-Av-A-Bb-Bb^-Bv-B-C
P1-m2-^m2-vM2-M2-m3-^m3-vM3-M3-P4-d5-^d5-vP5-P5-m6-^m6-vM6-M6-m7-^m7-vM7-M7-P8
Just as each black key has two names in standard notation, each key and each interval has multiple names: Db^ = C#v and ^d5 = vA4.
Along with Praveen Venkataramana, he has developed the concept of a pergen, which categorizes rank-2 and rank-3 temperaments.
Kite has called for xenharmonic terminology that requires less memorization. His manifesto:
Things I refuse to memorize:
- I refuse to memorize any ratio with numbers of more than 2 digits
- I refuse to memorize any extended ratio with numbers higher than 20
- I refuse to memorize the difference between a limna, a kleisma, a schisma, a diaschisma, and a diesis
- I refuse to memorize the 62 sagittal accidentals
- I refuse to memorize the 750 temperament names
Homepages:
www.tallkite.com (Kite's microtonal software, writings and music)
www.FoolsInParadise.com (Kite's marimba/mbira band)
www.PortlandMarimba.com (group classes in African marimba)
xenwiki pages:
xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Ups+and+Downs+Notation
http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/pergen
xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/New+Tuning+Method
Naming Rank-2 Scales using Mode Numbers (unfinished)
xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Stern-Brocot+ancestors+and+rank+2+temperaments (unfinished)