Harmonic pitch class profiles

Okay, let's imagine we have a magic piano that plays every single note at the same time! That would sound like a big mess, right?

But what if we told the piano to only play certain notes that sound good together? We could pick the notes that make a nice and smooth sound, like the notes in a song or a melody.

Now, let's try to organize these good notes in a special way, like putting them in a line, from low to high. This line is called a "pitch class profile."

But wait, there's more! We can also look at how loud or strong each note should be to create a nice sound. We call this the "harmonic" part.

So a "harmonic pitch class profile" is like a list of good notes played together in a nice order, with each note set to a specific loudness, to make beautiful music!