Paul Davis wrote:
On Thu, 2007-04-05 at 13:57 -0400, Charles Linart wrote:
The Western scale is only seven notes. Ever heard of an octave? The
Eastern (pentatonic) scale has five notes.
If notes are notes only because I've been "conditioned" for them, why
do the same notes show up in music all over the world? Probably has
something to do with the limitations of the human voice and the human
ear. Whatever the explanation, the bushman and Mozart incorporate the
same 12 fundamental harmonics in their music. The sound of a yak
belch can be part of a rhythm, but it is utterly useless as a
component of melody -- unless it happens by chance to be a note.
but thats just it, isn't it? who says melody is the important part?
as for the explanation, its not all that hard. its mostly to do with the
number of ratios between two different frequencies you can fit into a
single doubling (an octave). if you want harmony, then there are limits
to this number because the ratios need to have certain properties. if
you don't care about harmony (or at least, don't care about it as much),
then there are less (or even no) limits on the ratios, and thus the
number of "notes" per octave.
I contend that traditional western harmony did imply a consonant or
dissonant combination of 12-tone-based combination of 2 or more notes.
But, today I would say that that could be _any_ combination of notes in
any scale structure. And, to be precise, a tempered instrument can only
come close approximating perfect harmony, of course.
--
brad fuller
http://www.Sonaural.com/
+1 (408) 799-6124
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