Mere Badinage: Generative 24 (28edo)
Channel: duckapus
Date: 2023-03-07

Fifteen 8-bar variations in 28edo (28 equal division of the octave). I liked 14edo and thought 28edo must be twice as good, right? And it kinda is. Still has some of the weirdness of 14 and 7, notably the flatness of the fifth (686¢, which is about 16¢ flat of 3:2), which is pretty distinctive. But 28 has some nicely pure intervals not found in 14 or 7, like a near exact 5:4 major third and its inverse 8:5 minor sixth. 

Made with my generative Max program and Logic. the program has a bunch of parameters that I set and store in presets. The form and composition aspect comes from making, ordering, and tweaking the presets. In this case the music builds to more energetic and dissonant (or somewhat "out of tune" sounding) peaks three times. Each time then releasing to something calmer and hopefully nicer sounding. Each variation is basically one of the parameter presets. The presets don't include specific pitches, just the pitch sets from which the algorithms pick notes and parameters that constrain the algorithms in various ways. So each variation has a certain "vibe", and the change from one to another ought to be pretty obvious.

As with other "generatives" the pitches were generated algorithmically, mostly with the recursive chaotic "logistic map" equation. The 32-step rhythym grooves were mostly set manually, but sometimes operate based on probabilities for each of the 32 steps. The parameters for the four main melodic voices are set separately, except the scale/mode and a few other global settings. Max spits out MIDI data to Logic, where notes are recorded. I do a little editing and polishing after recording the MIDI, and add things like drums and percussion.

The program doesn't understand things like keys and chord changes, but it can be set to specific scales and modes, although it doesn't understand scale degree functions or roots/tonics, so depending on various parameters a given scale might sound more like one of its modes or "rotations". The changing of scale and mode function somewhat like chord changes might. The scales (and/or their modes) used for each variation, in the number of steps up per scale degree (the first four were used in Generative 23) are:
 
Var.     Scale                          Name/Description
1           626266                 14edo's 313133 doubled for 28edo
2           66466                   14edo's 33233 doubled for 28edo
3           644446                 14edo's 322223 doubled for 28edo
4           4626622               14edo's 2313311 doubled for 28edo
5           414434143           Diasem, right-hand version (diasem has chirality)
6           441434143           Diasem, left-hand version
7           4141141411411  Oneirotonic-13
8           55155151              Oneirotonic-8
9           5254345                Diatonic minor approximation
10         441434143           Diasem, left-hand version
11         55155151             Oneirotonic-8
12-15   13131313131313  Whitewood major