Re: [LAU] The Psychology of Music - Linux-audio-user

19 Feb 2013

On Tue, February 19, 2013 6:14 am, Paul Davis wrote:
...
  On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 8:57 AM, Stephen Stubbs
 &lt;fartreader(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote:

 {Stephen}: The Ancient Greeks did not have major keys nor minor keys.
 The 'modes' used by the Medieval European monks were not the same as the
 original modes of the Ancient Greeks.  A great deal was lost in the
 translation, or perhaps it was due to fragmentary sources.

 http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/

 specifically: http://www.huygens-fokker.org/docs/scalesdir.txt

 You will find that there are over 4000 diferent scales there.

 the notion that there are only a handful of scales can be a moderately
 accurate as a description of typical musical practice at a given point in
 time in a given culture.

 but on the other hand it also is a wildly inaccurate and simplistic idea
 that robs humanity of a good part of its cultural heritage. 
Another point that is easy to forget is that (at least with physical sound
producing devices such as acoustic instruments, but also speaker cabs) the
same tune in a different key sounds different just because of the
resonances. I find often times a singer changes the key of a tune to work
with their voice and the song is no longer the same.

-- 
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net