Agree. You're feeling what we're feeling - all of these different layouts inspire different vibes and can be used for different types of parts, genres, more.

Does that actually fit all 53 tones on the keyboard, or are some keys either inaccessible or only accessible in one or two octaves? Care to flick me a ltn file in a PM? Would be very curious to try it out, but my intuition tells me this will work much better in 31 than in 53...

I just did a quick mockup, and I see that even in 53-equal we still get 6 doubled keys per octave, so because the range is slightly reduced over Bosanquet, we have slightly more opportunity for doublings and moving around the keyboard... interesting. This could make 63-equal a bit more usable, but still missing a couple of notes

Yeah, exactly, your circle of fifths is roughly horizontal, so with a bigger circle of fifths, the pattern takes longer to wrap around horizontally. Minor thirds and sevenths are off to the left, septimal minor things are sharpward to the right.

@@cgibbard, roger! (Actually, critiquing my original post, strictly speaking, that second C is a B# _regardless of what tuning you’re in_ , but in 12, B# happens to be enharmonically equivalent with C. Anyway…)

So, interesting question: In what sorts of compositional contexts would it make sense to have microtonal variants in a different place on the keyboard? As a general matter, it’s good to make traditional harmonies clearly distinct, but Bosanquet-Wilson does that fine as well. This separates them much more substantially though.

@@mr88cet Well, it's definitely an ergonomic tradeoff in favour of making the lower harmonics more accessible, and making the microtonal spice a little more of a reach. I find that agrees pretty well with my sensibilities -- I want the more far-out things to be possible, but e.g. octaves, fifths/fourths and major/minor thirds are way more commonly what I'm going to be using than an 11th harmonic. Making an octave an easier jump on the keyboard for my fingers to hit then sort of makes good sense, and it's not like the important microtonal intervals are all that compromised either. A harmonic seventh is still nearer than an octave would have been. The eleventh harmonic is farther out in 31 equal, but it's still reachable for me on one hand in the flatward direction (and because it's a weirder spice note, you probably only want so much of it anyway). You also of course still have the option of making chord progressions and key changes that move out into that larger space, and while Bosanquet doesn't do a bad job at all of making it physically obvious how to accomplish such a move, it becomes even more physically obvious in W-H what might make sense to carry a listener's ear from point A to point B on the circle of fifths. Bosanquet does a really good job of getting as many interval classes (modulo the octave) as possible in range, and Wicki-Hayden shifts things a good bit in the direction of favouring low-limit harmony, but gives you octaves that are two keys apart, and that makes fancy arpeggios and large chord voicings way easier. I also just really like the chord shapes that W-H gives you as a kind of visual language for thinking about chord voicings. Bosanquet stretches things out so the shapes turn into slightly bent lines, but in W-H, the triads are flag-shaped triangles that point to the right when major and left when minor, and fifths are very apparent, so it becomes visually obvious why e.g. a maj9#11 chord is going to be more consonant than a maj11.

@@cgibbard, great thoughts! Not much I can add along those lines. However, here is a perhaps more-general way to describe the difference between the underlying philosophies of WH and BW in a microtonal context/layout: In short, the roles of the span of your music on the horizontal (right-left) axis, vs. on the vertical (forward-backward) axes are reversed: - Bosanquet-Wilson: A wider range on the horizontal axis produces a greater range of pitches, whereas a wider span on the vertical axis produces greater complexity of harmony. - Wicki-Hayden: A wider range on the horizontal axis produces a greater complexity in harmony, whereas a wider span on the vertical axis produces greater pitch range.

Check out Mike battaglia

Its use in 12-tet is a major focus for us this year, it’s becoming very popular purely for isomorphic layouts and our approach to different play modes. As for the slope - yes, it offers a much more tactile experience when you aren’t looking at keys, so definitely ergonomics and intuitiveness based.

Many thanks for the quick reply. Just rewatched the video and noticed that the slope also allows octaves to be stacked vertically. Very clever. I've got a lot of reading to do on messrs Wicki and Hayden@@lumatone

@@BrotherKplays that too!