Compact Sets

A rational theory of harmony based on Michael Winter's theory of conjunct connected sets in harmonic space, combining ideas from Tom Johnson, James Tenney, and Larry Polansky.

Installation

# Activate virtual environment
source venv/bin/activate

# Run
python compact_sets.py --dims 4 --chord-size 3

CLI Options

• --dims 4|5|7|8 - Number of prime dimensions (default: 7)
• --chord-size 3|4 - Size of chords (default: 3)
• --symdiff-min, --symdiff-max - Symmetric difference range (default: 2-2)
• --melodic-min, --melodic-max - Voice movement thresholds in cents
• --dca - DCA multiplier (default: 2.0)
• --seed - Random seed (default: random)
• --cache-dir - Graph cache directory (default: ./cache)
• --output-dir - Output directory (default: output)
• --rebuild-cache - Force rebuild graph
• --no-cache - Disable caching

Legacy

The legacy/ folder contains earlier versions of this code, used to create the musical works published at unboundedpress.org/works/compact_sets_1_3.

Output

Generated files go to output/:

• output_chords.json - Chord data
• output_chords.txt - Human-readable chords
• output_frequencies.txt - Frequencies in Hz