This October/November 2021 Tonalibus update presents select sound samples of tonalities recently added to the Tonalibus catalogue. It touches on the massive, now concluding expansion of the tonalities catalogue of the past months. The total number of distinct, fully and partially anchored tonalities present now rose to eighty. Finally, a quote on mast fruiting ends this Tonalibus update.
Select new sound samples
The following recordings are all from November 2021. There was a two months break, because of travel and the failure of a technical component in the Tonalibus studio.
“Reawakening” — a new personal sound sample
A few sound samples of newly added tonalities
Tonalities catalogue expansion
This year brought about many refinements and additions to the Tonalibus catalogue. By now, the total number of distinct tonalities in the catalogue has doubled from initially around forty to eighty. At first, it was just a trickle of new additions. Then, in recent months they grew to quite an avalanche. One trigger was finding that some pitches can be more harmonious when approached from one side than from the other. Another trigger was a deeper study and application of the harmonics or overtone series.
This year’s catalogue refinements included additional tonality classifications and naming improvements. As such, the secondary groupings of Pro(gressive) and Reg(ressive), Cor(e), and Na(tural harmonics) tonalities came about. Further, new subgroups now help keep the number of tonalities in a group and the corresponding website menu structure more manageable — i.e. for Reach, hexa-, and pentatonalities. The latter two benefited from individual name improvements, while all tonalities came to have the initial letter of each component in their name capitalized.
New additions to the catalogue were mentioned in previous Tonalibus updates, e.g. seventeen of them in the September update. Since then, another ten tonalities appeared in the catalogue: BlueMin, LoloReachMin, LoloReach, LoloReachMix, LoReachUpMaj, HexaBluNa or HexaLolo, HexaNaTriMin, HexaNaTriMix, PentaBluNa, and PentaNaTri. The main triggers for their appearance are mentioned above. But there was one further, particular impetus to reevaluate and then accept LoReachUpMaj. This was the only tonality still missing to complete the mapping of a specific heptatonality in the catalogue to each of the I Ching hexagrams, an ongoing Tonalibus project.
A quote on mast fruiting
From The Council of Pecans — Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
“If one tree fruits, they all fruit — there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the country and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual.” — p. 15
“Through unity, survival. All flourishing is mutual. … all are the beneficiaries of reciprocity.” — p. 20
“There is something like a mycorrhizal network that unites us, an unseen connection of history and family and responsibility to both our ancestors and our children… standing together for the benefit of all.” — p. 21
