Microtonal Music Improvisation using a Web MIDI Tonality Diamond

In this performance, Web MIDI and Web Audio are used to transform the Novation Launchpad, a commonly available MIDI controller, into a tactile 15 limit tonality diamond. The eight by eight grid of the controller makes it possible to reimagine a music theory diagram as an easily playable electronic musical instrument. It is a tool that allows a simple and direct way to discover the sonorities of the small number proportions of just intonation. The image of the tonality diamond can be displayed to show which intervals are being played in real time. A diamond using the higher primes of 17 to 41 will also be played during the performance. The tonality diamond was used by the American composer Harry Partch as the foundation of his 11 limit just intonation scale, showing possibilities for ratio-based harmony. In just intonation terms, a limit is the largest odd or prime number used as a factor in a series of frequency ratios. The diamond had previously been presented in the research of the Mexican composer and theorist Augusto Novaro and that of the American psychologist Max Meyer. The performer, David Paulick, is a microtonal musician, multiinstrumentalist and web developer. He was born in Bedford, England, educated in northern California and currently lives in Les Lilas, France. He has had works included in Club Transmediale, Berlin, and most recently collaborated with Andreas Reihse and Alexander Paulick-Thiel from the band Kreidler on the soundtrack to the Heinz Emigholz film "Berlin [Underground]". A spatial audio sound installation by the same team is exhibited at the Periode gallery in Berlin during May 2022.Performance pape