Justly
You can use Justly to both compose and play music using any pitches you want. Using staff notation, you can only write the notes of the 12-tone scale. Some intervals in any 12-tone scale are close to harmonic, but other intervals are not. Johnston expanded staff notation, but relying on staff notation limited him.
To start Justly, start Julia and run
using Justly
chords = Chord[]
edit_song(chords)
How to use Justly
In Justly, one writes intervals as a rational fraction (integer / integer) times a power of 2.
A lowercase o stands for (*2^), similar how E stands for (*10^).
One can write the same ratio in multiple ways.
For example, one can write a fifth as 3/2, or 3o-1.
You will likely only need to know 4 intervals:
- Octave:
2/1 - Major fifth:
3/2 - Perfect third:
5/4 - Harmonic seventh:
7/4
You can create other intervals by multiplying and dividing these intervals.
For example, a minor third is up a perfect fifth and down a major third: (3/2) / (5/4) = 6/5.
A major second is up two fifths and down an octave: (3/2) * (3/2) / 2 = 9/8.
In Justly, each row stands for a chord. Each item in the row is a different note in the chord. The first note in each chord is silent; one uses it to change the current key. All of the other notes in the chord are in reference to the key. For example:
Starting key: 440Hz
| Key | Voice 1 | Voice 2 | Voice 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
1 for 1 |
1 for 1 |
3/2 for 1 |
5/4o1 for 1 |
2/3 for 1 |
3/2 for 1 |
5/4o1 for 1 |
o2 for 1 |
3/2 for 2 |
1 for 2 |
3/2 for 2 |
5/4o1 for 2 |
This song starts with a key of frequency 440Hz, that is, a concert A.
The key does not change in the first chord.
The three voices in the first chord play the tonic (≈A4), fifth (≈E5), and the third up an octave (≈C#6).
All four voices play for 1 beat.
After 1 beat, the key changes: you divide the key by 3/2, so the key goes down by a fifth.
Now the key is close to D4.
The four voices play the fifth (≈A4), third up an octave (≈F#5), and up two octaves (≈D6).
After 1 more beat, you multiply the key by 3/2, so the key goes up by a fifth. The voices repeat the notes in the first chord, but play for 2 beats.
You can play any note by clicking the play button underneath the note.
You can play a song, starting with a certain chord, by clicking the play button underneath the chord.
You can add lyrics, or performance notes, to any chord.
You can set beats to 0 to overlap, or to a negative number to "travel back in time".
You can copy the song as YAML on the left.
You can also import YAML.
You can convert YAML, or a vector of chords, directly to an AudioSchedule using make_schedule.
One omits values in the YAML notation if the values are equal to their defaults.
- The default "words" is ""
- The default "interval" is 1
- The default "octave" is 0
- The default "beats" is 1