User:Nasruddin

This is the start of a new article about sonome

ref.1, http://www.theshapeofmusic.com/

Ref.2, http://www.c-thru-music.com/intro.html

Sonome
A sonome is a musical instrument, typically a MIDI controller (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) that uses a specific pattern of notes referred to as the Melodic Table of Musical Elements. The term 'Table' refers to the placement of notes in a symmetrical 2 dimensional array, comparable to the 'Periodic Table' of the chemical elements.

Peter Davies developed this note pattern in 1983 and instruments based on it are now being used by musicians.

The symmetrical array of notes gives the sonome its major and minor key patterns. Unlike many musical instruments, and keyboards in particular, its isometric layout produces any given chord, scale or melody in the same physical pattern no matter which key it is played in. This makes it easier to learn to play than a traditional keyboard.

While a sonome is a musical instrument in its own right; it can also be used to control other parameters. However the generation of musical notes from its symmetrical pattern is its primary function.

The note layout also has an educational value as can be seen by the notetracker slide rule.

Musical structure can be viewed geometrically and notes visualised on an interval basis. For example, augmented chords no longer have to be assembled as a series of steps from a root note (root, major 3rd, augmented fifth, 7th) because it is immediately apparent that they are simply strings of major 3rds. This applies also to the diminished chords, which the table reveals as strings of minor 3rds.

There are 3 diminished chords and 4 augmented. On the table, they cross over one another producing a parallelogram containing one occurrence of each of the 12 notes that comprise the chromatic scale. The augmented chords appear in 3 diagonal rows of 4 notes. Reading this shape the other way round gives the diminished chords: 4 rows of 3 notes. (3 x 4 = 12). This is the essence of the Melodic table.

The controller sits more comfortably alongside a computer keyboard than its rivals with piano keys. The pattern, which is repeating from left to right, can be split into 2 or 3 zones for different sounds each having the entire range of the controller. A 5.25 octave model can be expanded to the entire MIDI range of 10.66 octaves by transposing zones up and down.

Pictures...

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Key words

Melodic table

Harmonic table

Axis

Opel

Note tracker

Hexagonal keys

Hex keyboard

MIDI controller