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GeoMaestro basic principles

1) events and projections


Here are three notes, displayed as usual in a score:



In this classic representation, the pitch of a note is proportional to is vertical position, and the time is represented by the horizontal position.


In GeoMaestro, we could represent this same set of notes like this:

The blue segment represent the time line. It goes from Or to Oi.
The squares are called "events". They become notes when projected on a time line, or "support" (which can be a segment or a circle)

In this example, the pitch of a projected note is proportional to the distance between the corresponding event and the support, just as in a classical representation.








The main idea in GeoMaestro is that this time line can be located anywhere: its distance from the notes, and its angle, can be choosen freely.

Here are three others segments: see how the events are projected onto them. At the right, see the resulting notes.



Segment Or2 to Oi2 gives a simple transposition, because only the distance changes (there are shorter)

Along segment A to B, we can see that two events are projected at the same place: so two notes will sound at the same time.

Along C to D, we get yet another completely different set of notes. 		Or2 to Oi2:
A to B:
C to D:


2) projectors and distortions




Interesting musical structures happen when several support are combined.
Here we have three large triangles, made out of nine segments.

You can see below the resulting music when projecting in turn on all the segments:




A regular construction of projection supports is called a "projector".
We just saw an example of "TPol", a "Turning Polygon" projector.


In the following, you can see the effect of distortion.

Distortion is how projection distance and angle define the parameters of a note. So far, we said that pitch is proportional to distance. This may be different: for example, the pitch may vary with the distance according to a more complex function, such as the one displayed at the bottom. You can see that the notes are all different now. However, the rythmic part is unchanged, since the projections are the same.


Linear distortion:





More complex distortion:






links:
GeoMaestro home page
Composing with GeoMaestro
Introduction to the Compositor tool