[LAU] Re: That must suck. For me it's about beauty--musicisjustone path

[Brad Fuller]

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