sonic-weave

SonicWeave is a Domain Specific Language for manipulating musical frequencies, ratios and equal temperaments.

Not to be confused with the Sweave flexible framework for mixing text and R code for automatic document generation.

Package overview

The sonic-weave package is many things.

• The language of Scale Workshop 3
  • Basic level
  • Intermediate level
  • Advanced level
  • Built-in reference
• A command-line interface for calculating musical quantities
• A TypeScript compatible npm package
• A template language for running SonicWeave programs inside JavaScript
• An interchange format (extension .swi)

You may also be interested in the technical overview of SonicWeave as a programming language.

Appendix: tempering, commas

Highlights

Harmonic segment from the 8th harmonic to the 16th (repeating at the octave).

8::16

10-tone equal temperament

tet(10)

The major scale in Pythagorean tuning i.e. 3-limit just intonation.

sort(3^[-1..5] rdc 2)

Scale title, colors and labels.

"Japanese pentatonic koto scale, theoretical. Helmholz/Ellis p.519, nr.110"

9/8 white "Major 2nd"
6/5 green "Minor 3rd"
3/2 white "Perfect 5th"
8/5 green "Minor 6th"
2   gray  "Root & Octave"

Additional resources

• Xenharmonic Wiki

Special thanks

• Arseniiv A. - Co-developer / Language feedback
• Inthar - Co-developer / Language feedback
• Akselai - Quality assurance
• Godtone - Notation adviser / Language feedback
• Joe Hildebrand - Grammar review
• Marc Sabat - Notation adviser

Acknowledgments / inspiration

SonicWeave looks like Javascript with Python semantics, has Haskell ranges and operates similar to xen-calc with some Zig sprinkled on top.

• ECMAScript - Brendan Eich et. al.
• Python - Guido van Rossum et. al.
• Haskell - Lennart Augustsson et. al.
• Zig - Andrew Kelley et. al.
• OCaml - Xavier Leroy et. al.
• NumPy - Travis Oliphant et. al.
• Scala - Manuel Op de Coul
• Scale Workshop 1 - Sean Archibald et. al.
• SQL - Donald D. Chamberlin et. al.
• FJS - "misotanni"
• NFJS - Matthew Yacavone
• Xen-calc - Matthew Yacavone
• Xenpaper - Damien Clarke
• Ups and downs notation - Kite Giedraitis
• S-expressions - "Godtone"
• Peg.js - David Majda et. al.
• Peggy - Joe Hildebrand et. al.
• Xenharmonic Wiki - (community project)
• Xenharmonic Alliance - (community Discord / Facebook)