Thank you for choosing to use the latest (March, 1999) version of Matrix maker.. This program is a stand-alone Macintosh application for the creation and formatting of twelve-tone matrices. Matrix maker 3.0.2 is a 68K application that will run on either 68K or PowerPC Macintosh or Mac-compatible machines. The next major upgrade to be released, v 3.1, will be a "fat" application, containing both 68K and PPC-native code. In any case, the program executes so quickly that users of PPC machines should not be too upset!
Matrix maker 3.0.2 is useful both for those who compose twelve-tone music and for those interested in analyzing such music. The application enables the user to construct and format matrices employing not only the traditional twelve-tone transformations (transposition, inversion, retrograde, retrograde inversion), but also matrices that demonstrate a number of the less-frequently encountered transformations such as the M5 and M7 transforms, Rotation, and/or "Stravinsky verticals." Furthermore, Matrix maker 3.0.2 is designed to create not only the usual 12 by 12 arrays, but will in addition produce matrices of any other size in which both dimensions are equal, from 2 by 2 through 12 by 12 (all of which can be either based upon the traditional operations of the twelve-tone system or upon the principle of "Stravinsky verticals"). Another option, that of a "Stravinsky verticals" array in which the operation of rotation is performed intra-hexachordally, produces a 6 by 12 array. (Further information concerning the M5 and M7 transforms, rotation, and "Stravinsky verticals may be obtained by consulting the documentation cited in these links.)
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