Tonnetz
program
Licenses
Source code
Credits
Authors of this exhibit: Moreno Andreatta and Corentin Guichaoua (SMIR project, CNRS/IRCAM/Sorbonne University, USIAS/IRMA/University of Strasbourg). Adapted by Philipp Legner.
Contributors
Explore how we can represent the notes in a logical and useful way! The Tonnetz is a pictorial representation of the notes in the plane that reveal affinities and structures between notes and on concrete music pieces.
Written scores and keyboard instruments order notes by pitch. However, notes with close pitch tend to sound bad together, but notes separated by intervals such as the octave (12 semitones), the perfect fifth (7 semitones) or the major third (4 semitones) are more harmonic. The different types of Tonnetz display close together notes by specific intervals. Musicians also use the chromatic circle (ordered by semitones) and the fifths circle (ordered by fifth intervals) as useful tools to compose music.