Re: Dozenal chars in music

From: Thomas LAMBERT (thomas@lame-spirale.net)
Date: Tue May 19 2009 - 06:32:14 CDT

  • Next message: Andreas Prilop: "Re: Dozenal chars in music"

    Thank you all for your input.

    Charlie :
    ⑩, ⑪ is not satisfying as i would like to add numbers, in dozenal : 7 + 7 =
    12

    But this is a tricky question, as even dozenal societies of great britain
    and america have chosen different characters. At least 5 different notation
    exists (see
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Advocacy_and_.22dozenalism.22 ) :
    - script X and a script E (not a bad choice but seems awkward in use)
    - T and E (for Ten and Eleven which i found stupid because doz ten = dec
    twelve, it just leads to confusions)
    - A , B (which has not been chosen by any dozenal society)
    - *, # (the worst in my opinion)
    - rotated 2 to represent ten and a rotated or horizontally flipped 3 (Ꜫ) for
    eleven (which i found quite nice but i did not found a rotated 2 in unicode.
    Do you know if such a char exists ?)

    Also i would like to add the counting constraint. IE : be able to count out
    loud.
    How do you pronouce A4 ?
    "aty-four" sounds like eighty-four.
    This is not like hexadecimal which is just used in a more compact
    representation of binary : dozenal can be used to do math, and should be
    used to do math given it's magic properties (here again, see Wikipedia
    page).

    So even if we take rotated 2 and 3, a vocal representation will have to be
    invented, which i'm working on too but is obviously really subjective. If
    your curious, for the moment it's "duc" for ð (with a french "u" ? that's
    why ð looks kind like a d), and "las" for Ꜫ (it sounds like "last", and a
    "S" sound for the last char creates a tension, which releases on the ten).
    Try counting to twenty, it's hard ! ^^ Our brain cannot process the new gap
    between 9 and 10

    Again thanks for your interest. I was not sure at first that this was the
    right place to post such a question, but i'm glad i did.

    Thomas

    2009/5/19 Mark E. Shoulson <mark@kli.org>

    > Thomas LAMBERT wrote:
    >
    > Hello,
    >>
    >> I'm currently writing a web application for music theory, and in this app
    >> (and in general in music) i would like to promote the use of the dozenal
    >> (duodecimal) system, because it will make additions of intervals very easier
    >> (among other advantages).
    >>
    >> For quite some time i've been roaming in unicode pages to find 2 perfects
    >> characters to complete the decimal numbers with no luck.
    >> Cause A and B reprensente notes in music, so i decided not to use them to
    >> avoid confusion.
    >> X and E are suggested too but roman numbers are also used in music to
    >> represent chords relatively to a scale so X may be a bad choice.
    >>
    > I know the Dozenal Society also uses * and #, but that would be even more
    > disastrous in music, given the importance of ♯.
    >
    >>
    >> I was wondering if you had any advice for me ?
    >> For example, one problem i come across is that the decimal number are
    >> normalized in height, and i cannot find a char that COULD BE a number : they
    >> always stand out (different baseline, different height). What code chart do
    >> you suggest ?
    >> Also they will have to be readable by any unicode implementation/font. Is
    >> that a concern ?
    >> Or should i just take letter to simplify ?
    >>
    >> Here is it what i found best : 123456789ðꜪ
    >>
    > I am pretty sure that this problem is outside the scope of this list,
    > though it is fun to comb through the character list in search of interesting
    > candidates (⑩, ⑪? Would look terrible, and confusing. You could use ɸ or
    > something like it, which at least resembles a 1 and a 0... Good luck). But I
    > think the Unicode community appreciates your intention to use existing
    > characters in inventing your orthography, rather than making up another one
    > we'd have to see in use and argue about.
    >
    > ~mark
    >

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