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Justified

Just intonation　純正律音楽

This song is not directly a cover of "On The Green Hill", but a compendium of notable interpretations of this iconic piece of video game and musical history. I hope you enjoy this as this song means so much to me.

Updated to include more "song"

Attributed Composer(s): Masato Nakamura, Yuzo Koshiro, Jordan Lange
Arranged By: SNick!
Thumbnail Art By Naoto "Big Island" Ohshima

On That Green Hill

Release Date: September 2, 2022

A suite of raga-inspired compositions and improvisations that grew from a fertile collaboration between Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison and John Also Bennett centered around a devotion to just intonation tuning, deep listening, and resonant spaces.

Michael Harrison is a composer and pianist who is a dedicated practitioner of just intonation and North Indian classical music. He was La Monte Young's protégé and piano tuner during The Well-Tuned Piano years and a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath, and has since developed his own customized tuning systems. Guided by conversations with Christina Vantzou, who provided structural frameworks for each piece and directed the sessions, the compositions drew from Harrison's daily raga practice, using its ancient forms as starting points from which the compositions could blossom and morph. A resonant backdrop of modular synthesizers played by John Also Bennett, who also contributed piano improvisations played on Harrison’s custom tuned Steinway concert grand, expanded the sessions into true collective praxis.

As noted by Parul Gupta, a conceptual artist based in New Delhi who contributed the stunning artwork for the album, “the songs feel like an extension of silence.” The notes from the piano emerge, resonate, and dissolve in measured and meditative sonic fields, allowing for a concentrated listening experience where every sound lives, breathes, and ultimately returns to silence. Contained within these aural ecologies are potentialities that emerge from a collective listening and improvising experience, and a resonant rebuttal of the standard equal tempered tuning system that has dominated Western music for centuries.

This release collects the verdant recordings from the trio’s 2019 Berlin sessions on two 45rpm records, accompanied by a risograph printed insert featuring track credits and Harrison’s handwritten tuning charts used on the album.

BUY VINYL HERE: https://www.seance-centre.com/shop/christina-vantzou-michael-harrison-and-john-also-bennett

BUY DIGITAL HERE: https://vantzou-harrison-bennett.bandcamp.com/album/christina-vantzou-michael-harrison-and-john-also-bennett

S/T (33SC)

Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison and John Also Bennett - Harp of Yaman (33SC)

Game: Mother 3
Song: And El Mariachi
Composer: Shogo Sakai

Mother 3 - Track 81 - And El Mariachi - Paper Mario 64 SoundFont

Game: Mother 3
Song: Formidable Foe
Composer: Shogo Sakai

Mother 3 - Track 101 - Formidable Foe - Paper Mario 64 SoundFont

Game: Mother 3
Song: Snowman
Composer: Shogo Sakai

Mother 3 - Track 186 - Snowman - Paper Mario 64 SoundFont

The latest root of sine collection demonstrates a clutch of talented artists exploring the way of the sine. Employing diverse techniques such as the glitch melodics of Michael Santos to the chaos patterns of Johan Zwart the results are compelling.

+ local [michael santos]
+ remembered root of sines [celibacy club]
+ the queen of brooklyn [bluermutt]
+ just intonation [henry walmsley]
+ spine theft [stheft]
+ sinebulb 2 [unknown artist]
+ sinebulb 3 [unknown artist]
+ sinebulb 4 [unknown artist]
+ a sign in grain [johan zwart]

Root of Sine - Volume 4 is available from the PROJECT page of
http://www.audiobulb.com

just intonation [henry walmsley]

song from the upcoming album "Saint Elizabeth", coming 2024

follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/ellaguro and on my bandcamp: https://ellaguro.bandcamp.com/ to get more updates about the album

Terrible Town

commission for a game called CLOVER ! you can find them on twitter/x at their handle @CLOVERTHEGAME

CLOVER - FOUR IN ONE

Wurlitzer piano tuned to magic frequencies of Earth F Major.  Guitar (strat) processed with Melodyne to really bring it into tune.
For more info about Earth Tuning, visit www.HarmonicsOfNature.com
F 345.6
F# 364.09
G 388.8
Ab 409.6
A 432
Bb 460.8
B 486
C 259.2
C# 273.07
D 288
Eb 307.2

If you think I'm sexy - melo

This track was written to demonstrate the harmonic possibilities of using higher harmonics freely whenever the composer wishes, without the bounds of a traditional scale, but within the bounds of major/minor/seventh harmony. It is also quite funky!

Harmonics of 11ths, 13th, 23rds etc are prominent in this composition, without being overwhelming in their unusualness. The highest prime harmonic used was the 127th harmonic in the final melody! E#''' was also used (125th harmonic)

It was written using a new notation system which has been devised to make accessing higher harmonics as intuitive as possible (it still takes a bit of getting one's head around!). Please contact me if you would like to see the score written in this notation system, or for details about how this notation system enables interesting harmonic composition outside of the bounds of the Western 12-note scale to be realised.

It qualifies for chiptune since although it is (much to my shame) 16-bit 44100Hz audio instead of the pure 8-bit, the sounds were synthesised from scratch using modified sin/saw waves, with a bit of band-limited noise thrown in for good measure. The synth took as input CSV 6xN matrices as sequence files, and processed in Octave/MATLAB to give MP3 output which you hear here.
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update 10th Apr 2015:

Here is a brief description of how the MP3 track was generated:

Just Intonation Notes (1/1 4/3 7/4 etc) <-> New Notation System (C F `Bb~7 etc) which is easier to read than pure numbers and where the letter corresponds (roughly) to the position in the 12ET scale
-> Excel block of chords and melody notes for visual presentation to composer (.txt)
-> Excel long (~1700 columns) of calculated note letters, frequencies, note lengths, etc
-> Excel final sequence file with 6 columns: channel, start time, frequency, note length, loudness, stereo position (.csv)
-> Octave/MATLAB code to take the 6 columns and turn them into chiptune (.mp3 or .wav)
-> Sometimes extra post processing in Audacity for final .wav

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See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Sonata 1 'Cheery' - Chip Synth, Justly Intoned

What Year Is This

This is a justly intoned arrangement of J. S. Bach's Prelude in C Major, the first Prelude of the 48 Preludes and Fugues, a body of work by Bach which demonstrated that with tempered tunings every major and minor key was usable.

As well as being one of my favourite pieces of music, I thought it would be worthwhile to demonstrate that this music sounds just as interesting (maybe more interesting!) in Just Intonation (JI), where exclusively rationally-spaced intervals are used. JI is the natural way of tuning intervals. It derived from harmonic series, which are produced by string and wind instruments.

Due to the 'wrap-around' nature of tempered tunings, some transitions (e.g. D minor to G major) are good transitions in tempered tunings, but sound 'further away' or less harmonious in JI. Also, transitions from ,D' to `D (10/9 to 9/8) and from C to `C~7 (1/1 to 63/64) are noticeably microtonal shifts. Some people might like them, some might not. Personally, I like them. The major advantage is the purity of all the triads and seventh chords, which in my opinion outweigh the 'disadvantages' of having noticeable microtonality.

As always, I've slipped in an 11th and 13th harmonic (the 11th is obvious, the 13th less so). I refuse to write any new music which does not contain both 11th and 13th harmonics.

Another interesting feature was Bach's usage of diminished chords. My favourite justly intoned diminished chord is the sequence 10:12:14:17:20:24:28:34:40 etc. Hence, some 17th harmonics have been used, wherever there is a diminished chord, in both 17/1 and 1/17 formats (and 5/17).

Hence, this track contains all the harmonics 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and 17. I will attempt to remedy the lack of 19, 23, ..., 127th harmonics in my next upload.

Enjoy!

Dave

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Bach number of this track: BWV846 or BWV 846

See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Bach BWV846 Prelude in C major - Chip Synth, Justly Intoned

This is a justly intoned arrangement of Chopin's Etude in C Major (Opus 10, No. 1), the first Etude of his series of Etudes which demonstrated his new piano performance techniques.

Although Etudes are usually technical exercises, Chopin's are special since they are immensely listenable with intricate harmonies.

I have retuned Chopin's harmony to have much more than 12 notes to the scale. More to come (hopefully soon!) about the notes which have been used. Concisely, the major and minor triads and sevenths have almost everywhere been preserved, and Chopin's use of sequences leads the harmony down very interesting and long paths in the 7-limit tonal lattice. A couple of jarring transitions are where the harmony jumps up by a syntonic comma (or 7-limit comma). As always, 11th and 13th harmonics are smuggled in, in some of the diminished chords near the end.

Enjoy!

Dave

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See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Chopin Etude in C Major - Op. 10, No. 1 - Chip Synth, Justly Intoned

This is a justly intoned arrangement of J. S. Bach's Prelude in C Sharp Major, the third Prelude of the 48 Preludes and Fugues, a body of work by Bach which demonstrated that with tempered tunings every major and minor key was usable. It was made using a custom sequencer in Excel+Octave which allowed exact frequencies to be specified.

'Normalised commas' mean that the piece was composed in simple Just Intonation by specifying local frequency ratios, the most important of which are major (4:5:6) and minor (10:12:15) triads locally. However, between different sections they may be out of tune by microtonal commas (e.g. 81/80) and to fix this the different sections need to be stitched together by multiplying the later section by an accumulation of commas. This means that we get 'comma travel' so the piece moves sharp or flat in frequency. To fix this second issue, the commas can be normalised by dividing out by a local moving average of the accumulated commas.

By comparing this normalised version to the 'comma travel' version, it is easy to detect this movement in pitch. The commas on this track were normalised over 48 beats (8 bars).

Accumulation of commas, normalised or unnormalised, will be explained further in my second JI maths/music paper - pending! The theme of it is how to take any sheet music and retune it into JI using comma alterations, mainly of 5th and 7th harmonics. However, as always, in this track I've snuk in some 11th and 13th harmonics which you might be able to locate by ear or by examining the code blocks in Github (upload pending as of 9th Nov 2015).

Enjoy!

Dave

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Bach number of this track: BWV848 or BWV 848

See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Bach BWV848 Prelude in C Sharp Major - Chip Synth, Justly Intoned, Normalised Commas

pythagorean tuning vs. just intonation. c5 scale

Show me your moves! Falcon quotes aside, here is an F-Zero cover I did recently. I wanted to do a more synth orientated cover for my next VGM cover and so I ended up picking “Silence”, from the first F-Zero game on the SNES. It was also a case of me really wanting to do an F-Zero cover as it’s one of my favourite gaming franchises. Whilst GX is my favourite game in the series, I really dig this song and thought it would make for an interesting rendition. 

I’m very proud of the outcome of this cover. The sounds I got out of the keyboard were perfect and set up a nice sci-fi synth vibe. I also managed to play the bass part with fingers competently, considering I am still a novice on bass, especially when playing with fingers. And I’m very pleased with how the trumpet section in the original track translates nicely onto guitars, as well as the rhythm guitar I wrote for this rendition. As I am still learning about mixing I also believe I did a decent job with the mixing, doing the best I could with what I knew and what I had. 

Hope you like my cover and stay tuned for more VGM covers in future.

F-Zero is the property of Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo. 

Equipment used:

Interface: Lexicon Alpha USB
DAW: Cubase LE 5
Drums: MT PowerDrumKit 2 (Drumming assembled in drum editor)
Bass: Ibanez GSR180-BK
Bass amp sim: AudioAssualt Bassgrinder VST
Keyboard: Yamaha PSR-200
Rhythm & Lead Guitars: Epiphone Les Paul Standard
Harmony Guitars: Ibanez GRG270B
Guitar amp sim: Peavey Revalver HPse

F-Zero - Silence (Synth/Metal Cover)

This track is an example of a simple twelve bar backing track accompanying a solo melody written in free Just Intonation (JI).

JI allows access to all the frequencies, not just the ones on the piano keyboard or guitar frets. Often musicians when playing the blues, jazz, or guitar solos, bend the string to produce a higher pitch. In this track, there are no 'bent' notes, only precisely specified notes which are often noticeably different to the standard notes from 12-EDO.

Some devices used include:
- No scale - only addressing frequencies (in Hz) directly via whole numbers. E.g. 4, 5, 6 multiplied by 60 Hz would give 240Hz, 300Hz, 360Hz directly.
- Descending harmonic series, e.g. 32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16
- What sounds like vibrato, but is actually a combination of holding and sliding pitches several times a beat
- Rapid switching of frequency several times a beat, this is a common chip tune device.
- Descending shifting triads, e.g. 61, 54, 47, 56, 49, 42, 51, 44, 37, 46, 39, 32...

Just Intonation is the future for those of us who like both maths and music! I understand that not everyone wants numbers in their music composition. However, that's fundamentally what frequencies are, thats what harmony is, a combination of whole numbers. And you get more interesting results when using the numbers for what they are, which is unique chords well outside of traditional harmony. I am particularly enjoying the sound of the prime numbers 11, 13, 23, 29, 31, 41, 43 and 61 in this composition.

May the prime numbers be with you! Enjoy - Dave

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See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Example of the Twelve Bar Blues with crazy Solo in Just Intonation

This track is an example of a simple twelve bar backing track accompanying 3-note block harmony written in free Just Intonation (JI) with added sliding chords.

For example, one transition used is between a major triad 1st inversion (5 6 8) to a major triad root position (4 5 6), with 1 and then 2 different intermediate chords on the 1st and 2nd repetitions respectively:

1 intermediate chord on 1st repetition:
16   14   12
12   11   10
10    9     8

2 intermediate chords on 2nd repetition:
24   22   20   18
18   17   16   15
15   14   13   12

You could call these types of transition a ‘linear step’ since the frequencies of each note in the harmony undergo linear steps from the starting point to the end point. They are otonal, operating on the upper harmonics (the set of whole-number N, as opposed to utonal which operate on 1/N).

These types of transitions give access to higher prime numbers such as 11, 13, 17 in the examples above. In Just Intonation, hearing the higher prime numbers is the coolest thing of all and I fully anticipate this being as interesting and widespread a hobby as trainspotting or stamp collecting in the decades ahead. Imagine listening to all the prime numbers between 1 and 500! The sheer joy!! No doubt this type of thing will have a high frequency in the future.

If prime numbers wasn’t enough, some chords undergo continuous linear slides instead of linear steps. In the track icon, it is a screenshot of the spectrogram of this track, and a linear step looks like a ladder, but a linear slide looks like a slope of constant gradient. The great thing about a linear slide is that at any rational point during the slide, the notes are in a whole number ratio, but that ratio is changing constantly. So I guess it counts as some kind of extension of Just Intonation.

May your musical listening frequently slide into Just Intonation :) Dave

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See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Example of the Twelve Bar Blues with 3-note harmony using linear steps and slides in Just Intonation

This is a justly intoned arrangement of J. S. Bach's Invention 1 in C Major, the first of his 2 Part Inventions.

It was made using a custom sequencer in Excel+Octave which allowed exact frequencies to be specified, with plenty of post-processing in Audacity.

The prime limit for this track is 2029. The highest primes used were 2029, 521, 61, 29, 19, 13 and 11. However most of the notes were on the 7-limit JI lattice. I only added higher primes to spice things up! Also I put in a whole stack of pitch bends and special effects which weren't in the original. Hopefully to improve on Bach's work! To be honest, even if its worse, I had fun :) and when musicians originally played this they would have ornamented and embellished it, in my defence. It now has features, its definitely not ruined/buggy, its now full of art and soul.

When arranging this music, a few 'commas' were used, which is where the key has travelled from say C4=1/1 to C[5]4=80/81. The commas were normalised out over 3 seconds, which means the base frequency was smoothed out so that the music was not away from 1/1 for more than around 3 seconds. If this had not been done then the ending key would have been out from the starting key by the product of all the commas encountered along the way.

If anyone is bothering to follow the development of my sequencers and general mixing ability (or is still reading) then I have just discovered Reverb in Audacity. Reverb reverb reverb! Its awesome! I am definitely going to binge and misuse that for the next few tracks. Apologies in advance. I wish I could go back in Time using a Time travelling device and put More Reverb on all my previous tracks (a friend commented they were 'too dry' and I now know what they mean). But SoundCloud has not this feature to modify an Existing Track. They are Set In Stone. So I won't and can't add reverb to my previous tracks. But I would if I could. Reverb rocks! wow

Enjoy!

Dave

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Bach number of this track: BWV772 or BWV 772

See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Bach BWV772 Invention 1 in C Major using 2029-limit Just Intonation

Day 6 - Minty Fresh Snow

Moon Wheel — རྡོ་རྗེ་རྣལ་འབྱོར་མ་

Mega Man X5 - Boss [Disaster] (Famitracker MMC5)

Synth cover of aquatic ambience from Donkey Kong Country. My favorite game soundtrack. Sometime I put on the SNES and just let it sit in this level. I used the microbrute, microkorg, behringer model d (only for withe noise) and volca keys.

Donkey Kong - Aquatic Ambience (Synth cover)

Higher - Rem Lezar

DOWNLOAD

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum - Eterna City(Solo Piano)

s3xmoditminia entry - Round 1
arena.sincx.xyz/battle.php?id=23

dj-jamster-PSYCHIQ - GOOD FEEL (LIVE @ THE METAL TANK 2000/07/07 (RARE EXTENDED MIX)).mp3

Original soundtracks of adventure game Changed
Composed with Famitracker by composer Shizi

Changed on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/814540/Changed/

22 - Finale

An extended version of my entry for a BotB battle where we used Sintel's protoplug script to automatically tune MIDI into 5-limit just intonation.
https://battleofthebits.org/arena/XHB/5399/

The B section manages to resolve comma pumps and returns to the original C before it loops back to the A section >:D

pump that even more yeah (5-limit JI)

this was fun to make, esp because i really like this theme

also i do not care that it's inaccurate because i pitch bended the bass a single time mainly because it sounds better with it, i tried to find some way to have it sound good without the pitch bend but nothing i tried worked (now that i think about it... i guess it could technically be accurate if it was a separate sample? let's just say that's how i did it.)

Battle Against a Clueless Foe (S5B Cover) - Mother 4 Soundtraaaack!!

I'm into Just Intonation (JI), which is using harmonics (or undertones) to generate music. Over time, my profile will fill up with wonderful and melodious New Harmony, fresh from the infinite vaults of the original and best source of harmony, Just Intonation.

I’ve written some papers on the music theory of Just Intonation. You can check them out via the arXiv link below. Topics include the mathematical analysis of harmony (in Just Intonation), and a notation system to cover all of Just Intonation.

Enjoy listening!

Example of the Twelve Bar Blues with 3-note harmony using linear steps and slides in Just Intonation

David Ryan