Notation
The Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation (HEJI) is a microtonal staff notation for rational intonation co-developed with Wolfgang von Schweinitz and revised in 2020 with Thomas Nicholson.
Fonts
The HEJI2 font includes all of the current accidentals for engraving scores in notation software and uses the Standard Music Font Layout. Thomas Nicholson is making a new font family, including the Plainsound Text font used on this page. You can use the built-in ligatures to easily type and combine various notations, i.e., a scale of odd partial pitch classes above *nC, including their staff notations, cents deviations, and ratios from the usual reference note *nA:
1° = *nC −6c (32/27) | 9° = *nD -2c (4/3) | 5° = *no5E -20c (40/27) | 11° = *o11F +45c (44/27) | 3° = *nG -4c (16/9) | 13° = *o13A *ftA+35c (52/27) | 7° = *o7*fB -37c (28/27) | 15° = *no5B -18c (10/9)
PLAINSOUND Harmonic Space Calculator
programmed by Thomas Nicholson and created in collaboration with Marc Sabat, the webapp hejicalc.plainsound.org allows various kinds of information useful for composers and performers (notation, frequency, ratio, melodic distance) to be calculated for microtonal JI pitches.
PLAINSOUND Hexatone
The Lumatone-compatible touchscreen webapp hexatone.plainsound.org plays scala files on a hexagonal layout. It includes a small library of built-in sounds, responds to MIDI input, and can route MIDI Tuning Standard (MTS) data to play other compatible synths.
Soundfonts
Sampled instruments using high-quality open source recordings of a baroque organ, harpsichord, and Indian srutibox for playing the hexatone with fluidsynth and MTS.
Lumatone
An archive of Lumatone layouts compatible with the hexatone, using my custom colours. The 47-limit prime number identities and their combinations are defined as follows: 3° white, 5° ivory, 7° pink, 11° green, 13° violet, 17° grey, 19° pale blue, 23° dark green, 29° dark blue, 31° teal, 35° orange, 37° silver, 41° dark rose, 43° copper, 47° magenta, 55° yellow-green, etc.
I have also developed a MaxMSP patch that generates MTS and MPE data from a Lumatone input and scala file, and allows octave changes and key colour changes while playing. Interested users please contact me directly.
contact: masa (at) plainsound (dot) org