Allen Forte's unique notation system commonly known as Forte Notation has come to be recognised as one of the most successful attempts at providing a means of describing and analysing musical pitch structures that defy interpretation as tonal or 12-note serial systems. Thus, Forte's system is equally at home describing Ives and Stravinsky as it is Schoenberg and Webern.
Such a system able to deal with intervallic relationships from pitch class extrapolations of material has a potential within SCOM to be itself a generator of pitch series. In the examples below the composer may chose an type equivalent to those used by Forte but including SCOM's symbolic representation; :integer, :vector, :symbol :pitch.
Pitch-class, one of the 12 pitch-classes designated by integers 0 11. Pitch-class 0 refers to all notated pitches C, B-sharp, D-double-flat. Pitch-class 1 refers to all notated pitches C-sharp, D-flat, B-double-sharp , and so on.
The name of pcs consisting of two numerals separated by a hyphen. The numeral to th left of the hyphen is the cardinal-number of the set; the numeral to the right of the hyphen is the ordinal number of the set, its position on the list of prime-forms.
(pcs :integer '6-Z10)
=> (0 1 3 4 5 7)
(pcs :symbol '9-7)
=> (a b c d e f h i k)
(pcs :vector '9-7)
=> (6 7 7 6 7 3)
(pcs :pitch '6-Z10)
=> (c4 c#4 d#4 e4 f4 g4)
The final parameter is an fname-list and expects the composer to make explicit reference to the Forte Notation name for a particular pitch-class set. Thus, the name 3-1 denotes a pitch class set of 0,1,2 and the interval vector, 210000, an ordered array of numerals representing the interval content of the pitch class set.
