Forum

Hi,

I recently thought of a nice new setup for the Tau.
I like to be able to play across multiple octaves without having to resolve to not playing accidentals. In chromatic mode you miss out on a lot of octaves since a lot of keys are located on more than 1 spot on the keyboard. In chromatic mode, you've got 12 tones in each octave, so I thought about how to implement that. I did so by using the following setup.
The setup of the actual keys was kind of hard, since my mode keys got screwed when i used "kgroup 1 listen" and "k choose". That's why I cheated my way in there.
I did so by making a custom scale, which has just these 4 values: 0 1 2 12
This makes it behave exactly what i want, but the courses don't behave like I'd want, since they start way to high, at a C#(2) by default, so i changed that by using:
kgroup 1 listen
course 2 offset 3 semitone set
course 3 offset 3 semitone set
course 4 offset 3 semitone set

Tell me what you think of it. I'm still learning to play the setup, but for now it seems like I've got a lot of space. The great thing about is that you can easily grab octaves as well, by your 2nd and 5th finger (or 1st 4th).

Greets,
Bart Kuipers

I haven't been doing a lot of chords yet, but the few i tried weren't too hard. It is harder than the default chromatic setup, since you've got to stretch a little more because you're almost always using the full 4 courses, but that's no problem for me, my hands are big enough :). It's a lot easier to remember stuff as well, since you've only got 3 instead of 4 notes to remember on every course:P

Here some additional tips how to make the handling of these user defined layouts more comfortable. For that we add Belcanto commands to the scale talker (that is used when choosing scales) so that the course offsets are automatically adjusted according to the selected scale.
This assumes that you assign the "ZaPPZion layout" to slot 7 and the "horizontal layout" to slot 8 of the scale controls (so they replace the factory diminished and whole tone scales, the quick reference guide p. 21 "Advanced Scale Controls" explains how to do this).

The user scales have to be added to the User Scales.txt:
[ZaPPZion chromatic]
intervals= 0 1 2 12

[horizontal chromatic]
intervals= 72 68 64 60 56 52 48 44 40 36 32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0


Then copy the following lines into the EigenCommander (or save it as a script and load it from your script folder).

empty join
scale talker 1 listen
kgroup 1 listen

course 2 offset to 4 interval when 9 set
course 3 offset to 4 interval when 9 set
course 4 offset to 4 interval when 9 set

course 2 offset to 4 interval when 10 set
course 3 offset to 4 interval when 10 set
course 4 offset to 4 interval when 10 set

course 2 offset to 4 interval when 11 set
course 3 offset to 4 interval when 11 set
course 4 offset to 4 interval when 11 set

course 2 offset to 4 interval when 12 set
course 3 offset to 4 interval when 12 set
course 4 offset to 4 interval when 12 set

course 2 offset to 4 interval when 13 set
course 3 offset to 4 interval when 13 set
course 4 offset to 4 interval when 13 set

course 2 offset to 4 interval when 14 set
course 3 offset to 4 interval when 14 set
course 4 offset to 4 interval when 14 set

course 2 offset to 3 semitone when 15 set
course 3 offset to 3 semitone when 15 set
course 4 offset to 3 semitone when 15 set

course 2 offset to 1 semitone when 16 set
course 3 offset to 1 semitone when 16 set
course 4 offset to 1 semitone when 16 set

empty join


edit:
* replaced "semitone" by "interval", otherwise it won't work with the nonchromatic scales.
* it is important that you first load the user scales and then apply the above script (loading a user scale seems to revert the changes to scale talker 1)

(It seems to work as expected on first sight, no guarantee for unwanted sideeffects though ;) )
Now save the whole setup as a user setup and from now on you can switch between the ZaPPZion layout, the horizontal layout and the remaining original scales transparently without having to care about course offsets.

Happy Eigenharping,
NothanUmber

Short update, since i decided to go to Windows (being my 'normal' OS), I decided to give your script a try, I thought something was wrong, but as usually, the user (me) was the cause of the problem.

It might also be a good idea if a moderator could move this topic to the Tau section, as it applies to the Tau specifically :)