5 Apr
2007
5 Apr
'07
5:08 p.m.
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.
and your comment on the bushman & mozart? given that most (all?) of
mozart's music uses tET and most indigenous music around the world tends
to be in just intonation, i doubt that they share the same 12
fundamental harmonics, unless you want to fudge and map two quite
different harmonics to each other "because there's the same number".
--p