Float values for \degree pitches appear inconsistent

Questions
1

Hi,

I am wondering why a \degree of 0.5 sounds at a lower pitch than a degree of 0.4 as
eg in
Pbind(\degree, Pseq([0.4, 0.5], inf)).play;
or in
Pbind(\degree, Pseg([0, 1, 0], [12, 12])).trace.play;

Does anyone have an idea?

Thanks&Cheersz!
P

2

0.4 is 4 semitones sharp = E natural above C.

0.5 is 5 semitones flat relative to degree 1 = A natural below D.

hjh

3

Thanks a lot James,

so float values are accidentals when using \degrees used to play notes
not in the scale? And its ranges are +4 and -5

I can’t figure out how to chromatically play all notes above C. First I
thought that from your hint

0.4 is 4 semitones sharp = E natural above C.

0.5 is 5 semitones flat relative to degree 1 = A natural below D.

I could do

0.0 C
0.1 C#
0.2 D
0.3 D#
0.4 E
0.9 F
0.8 F#
0.7 G
0.6 G#
0.5 A

to get everything except for B and Bb, but interestingly 0.1 and 0.9
sound the same.

Can you recommend a help file from the documentation which explains
this?

thanks again!
P

4

In western notation, you wouldn’t write C with 9 sharps to get A because no one could read it. There’s not really a good reason to try to do this in SC either.

p = Pbind(
	\degree, Pseq([0, 0.1, 1, 1.1, 2, 3, 3.1, 4, 4.1, 5, 5.1, 6, 7], 1),
	\dur, 0.25
).play;

p = Pbind(
	\degree, Pseq([0, 0s, 1, 1s, 2, 3, 3s, 4, 4s, 5, 5s, 6, 7], 1),
	\dur, 0.25
).play;

0.1 is a raised tonic (e.g., in C, this is C#). 0.9 is a flattened second (in C, D-flat). If the first scale degree covers a whole tone, then they are enharmonic and do indeed sound the same.

The way to understand these accidentals is: round to the nearest integer to find the scale degree to which the accidental is relative. Then, if the given degree (with fraction) is below the rounded value, it’s a flat, measured from the rounded value. If it’s above the rounded value, then it’s sharp.

0.9 should not be measured relative to 0.0! That’s not rounding; it’s truncation. 0.9 is a flat applied to 1.0.

http://doc.sccode.org/Reference/Literals.html#Scale%20Degrees

hjh

5

Jep James,
this covers it entirely, no more questions! Thank you!
best, P