Math and Music

47

FIGURE 3.8
intervals listed in a umenu
become added tone
values / interval_builder
.maxpat

You now have a list of every chromatic interval in one octave contained in
your umenu. If you had liked, you could have chosen to spell major intervals
with an uppercase letter M and minor ones with a lowercase letter m as is
common in some theory texts. Truthfully, the spelling of these intervals is not
important to umenu. What is important is their ordering in the umenu.
Item 0 is unison. Since we connected umenus item number so that it
changes the argument by which we add intervals (second inlet of the  object),
selecting unison from the umenu will add the note 0 semitones away from the
initial note. Selecting Minor 2nd from the umenu, item number 1, will add the
note 1 semitone away from the initial note, which, as you may have guessed,
forms the interval of a minor second.
51. Lock your patch and play a note on your MIDI keyboard
52. Select an interval name from the umenu and play the same note
to hear the note harmonized according to the interval you
selected
You will find that all of the intervals in the umenu will produce the menu item
number that is the same as the number of semitones needed to produce the corresponding interval. Grandma will be so proud! Take a moment to save your
patch as interval_builder.maxpat by clicking FileSave from the top menu.