The fundamentals of music should be accessible through FLO software. While it is easy to play harmonics on a guitar string, playing those same notes with frets requires a whole different guitar fretting. This is because the harmonics of an open string do not exactly line up with the frets of standard tuning. Harmonics 3, 5, 7, and 11 have progressively more error compared to their closest fretted notes. Harmonic 11 is so different that it falls almost exactly in between two notes.
This talk shows different ways to use FLO software to experience harmonics and other notes beyond standard tuning. Harmonics can be experienced through a music score of simple frequency ratios or by adapting various midi controllers into microtonal synths. A button grid like a Launchpad can have various layouts of frequency ratios. While midi controllers of varying affordability can do the trick, even a qwerty keyboard and mouse can be turned into an accessible microtonal synth. These HID devices can also substitute for general midi stomp boxes and expression pedals. This talk shows how to adapt a qwerty keyboard and mouse into musical instruments as it is done in !mindparade. The operating system used for all of these demonstrations is GNU/Linux, the greatest operating system of all time.