| Instrument | Scale | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| First Breath | A minor pentatonic | crystalline breath |
| Kintsugi | Japanese miyako-bushi | plucked koto |
| Vestal | Lydian | slow choir, 10 s basilica reverb |
| Rosine | Dorian (Celtic/Nordic) | bowed viola |
| Vulcan | double harmonic (Arabic/Byzantine) | metallic forge |
| Opaline | whole tone | glass bells |
| Sandalwood | raga Bhairav (India) | bansuri flute with a tanpura drone |
| Nebula | slendro (gamelan) | bells, 11 s reverb |
| Obsidian | Ethiopian kiñit | slow sub-drone, 12 s reverb |
| Aurora | Lydian dominant | electric shimmer |
| Ondine | Chinese pentatonic | water drops with cascading echoes |
| Cendres | A blues | smoky glide, slapback echo |
| Ivoire | Shona mbira mixolydian | thumb piano, interlocking echoes |
Your thumb glides freely, but the ribbon is divided into a scale: a small family of pitches that belong together. Wherever you touch, the sound lands inside the family, so nothing you play can clash.
A scale is a choice of distances between notes, and each tradition made its own choice. Pentatonic scales feel open and safe. Lydian floats. The double harmonic scale burns with tension. Whole tone dissolves the ground. The sound of each soul (plucked, bowed, breathed, struck) is paired with the scale that suits it.
The bright bars are the stable notes of the scale: its home and the note a fifth above it, repeated in every octave. A melody is tension and release. Start on a coloured note, wander wherever you like, and end on a coloured note: the ear hears a sentence that has been finished.
The right thumb sings the melody. The left thumb plays a voice an octave lower. Low notes are enriched with higher overtones so that even a small phone speaker can carry them.
Each sound is built by frequency modulation: one tone shaking another. A fast pluck rings like a string, a slow swell breathes like a choir. Echo and reverb are the room around the sound, from a dry forge to a twelve-second abyss.