The Porcupine Piano

Note: Porcupine Tuning is a relatively new discovery and area of research in music which is not well known. This book seeks to familiarize those interested with the basic understanding of the system and terminology. This book's contents cannot be verified because it is written from the authors perspective. The author does not claim these as "facts" but rather theoretical ideas of his own.

This book is intended to familiarize the reader with both theory and technique for performance and composition of the microtonal porcupine piano. The porcupine piano looks like the image shown below. It contains 15 pitches to the octave rather than 12 and is designed for porcupine temperament rather than meantone which the 12 ET piano is designed for. This guide covers both the 15 equal and unequal porcupine[15] scales, intervals, chords, notation, and tuning concepts needed to become well grounded in the instrument. This guide may also be used with other instruments designed for porcupine tuning such as the guitar but it does not specifically cover the technique for these instruments.

What you should know

The reader should be familiar with basic music terminology and sight reading. This includes scales, how chords are built, mode knowledge, intervals and so on. This guide intends to build upon understanding of these concepts and is not intended for the complete music beginner. In addition, readers should be familiar with basic piano playing skills and technique. While not necessary, some math skills are beneficial if you wish to understand the origin of porcupine and tuning concepts in the introduction section.

What is microtonal?

Microtonal or "xenharmonic" is music which utilizes scales besides the standard 12 tone equal temperament. There are an infinite number of possible scales to work with such as porcupine among others. This means that to the untrained ear, these scales will sound out of tune but they are new systems in their own right.

Table of Contents

Basic Concepts

• What is Porcupine Tuning?
• Porcupine Alphabet methods and Staff Notation
• The 15-Note Piano Layout

Basic Scale Concepts

• The Quill and the Basic Mos Structure
• G/P Hard Major Scale
• Porcupine Key Signatures
• Fingering for All fifteen Hard Major Scales
• Albitonic Interval Names
• Hard and Soft, Major or Minor
• Fingering for Various Modes
• Diminished Modes

15 Equal Temperament and Harmonization

• 15 Tone Chromatic Interval Names
• 15 Tone Pentatonic Cycle
• Major, Minor, and Diminished Triads
• Porcupine(8) - H/Q
• Basic Comma Pump Progression