Sonic Pi, SuperCollider, Strudel, and Tidal are theory-native for harmony; Glicol, ChucK, and Punctual require hand-spelling frequencies

The source names a cross-framework split for harmony intent. Theory-native engines have first-class scale/chord/degree vocabulary — Sonic Pi, SuperCollider, Strudel, Tidal. Hand-rolled engines have no chord/scale primitives — Glicol, ChucK, and Punctual — so harmony there is spelled as explicit frequencies or note lists and marked approximate. The practical implication: chord-progression, voice-leading, and modal-interchange intent routes cleanly to the theory-native group; on the hand-rolled group each note must be spelled by hand. This is the TRANSLATE T-2 flag — an agent must know which engine is in use before applying harmony reasoning.

Examples

Strudel (theory-native): chord('<Am7 Fmaj7 G Em7>').voicing(). Glicol (hand-rolled): sum sin 220 + sin 261 + sin 329 + sin 392 to spell an A minor chord as raw frequencies.

Assessment

Which three frameworks lack chord/scale primitives and must hand-spell chord tones as frequencies/MIDI? What does ‘approximate’ mean for harmony intent on them?