Tone Clock
Hours, fields, and the relations between them — steering, complements, welds, and bindings.
The Tone Clock is Peter Schat’s twelve-hour map of the chromatic scale: each hour is an intervallic family, and a field is those hours steered so the twelve pitch-classes appear once. He set the idea out in The Tone Clock (1993). Jenny McLeod extended the map in Tone Clock Theory Expanded — hours beyond the original triad steerings, and the working vocabulary used here for reverse steering, welds, and bindings. These tools follow that vocabulary.
Schat: peterschat.nl · Book: The Tone Clock on Amazon · McLeod: Tone Clock Theory Expanded (SOUNZ)
Tools by Erwin Rommert Weerstra.
Aggregate BuilderConstruct a 12-note field: single-hour, dual, tetrad, or mixed.
Field PianoPlace groups on the keyboard, transpose them, and read the complement.
Hex FieldA hexachord and its complement, with the hours that sit inside.
Weld CalculatorTwo steered hours on one path, joined by common-tone welds.
Subset ExplorerIdentify a collection and list the hours and modes it contains.
Binding PartnersZero-bindings, live bindings, and partner-hour networks.