Re: Melodies move by step in any form of music?

On Fri, 30 May 2008 22:45:27 +0200, "Alain Naigeon" <anaigeon@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:

>"Tom K." <tkorth1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> a écrit dans le message de news: 
>_cCdnYOzBbGH_d3VnZ2dnUVZ_rTinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> "Alain Naigeon" <anaigeon@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
>> news:48405157$0$11995$426a74cc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> "Steve Latham" <llatham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> a écrit dans le message de news: 
>>> JmL%j.10928$4c.1530@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>
>>>> "Danny Schorr" <.@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
>>>> news:e41u34dmfg7nr00rb8tdtni6h1n8uplukq@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>> On Thu, 29 May 2008 08:17:39 GMT, Danny Schorr <.@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>When does an interval become a leap?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>When a melody moves by an interval greater than a whole step.
>>>>
>>>> I was going to quiz you on the very same thing.
>>>>
>>>> But your definition actually stands:
>>>>
>>>> Whole Tone.
>>>>
>>>> Bb to C# is, yes, a leap - even though the letters are consecutive,
it's 
>>>> still larger than a whole step.
>>>>
>>>> And it has nothing to do with "scale" - just interval. So even though

>>>> A-C are "adjacent scale steps" in a pentatonic scale, it's still
larger 
>>>> than a whole step, thus leap.
>>>
>>>
>>> Ok, now, let's imagine a scale in which every step is greater than a
tone
>>> (for example a strange C Eb Gb A) ;
>>> would you still call a leap such an atomic step like C Eb ?   ;-)
>>>
>>
>> But Alain, even in our collective imaginations, C Eb Gb A wouldn't be 
>> termed a "scale".  Call it a dim. 7th chord, a tetrachord, or perhaps a
4 
>> PC set - but not a scale!
>> Tom K.
>>
>
>Tom, where is it written that a scale must have 7 notes, or more than
four,
>or that it should contain at least one interval not greater than some 
>inferior
>limit, or..?
>In other words, I'm not necessarly disagreeing with your answer, but I'd
>then ask : how can we turn our common feeling of a scale to a rational
>definition ?

Alain, your inquiry is actually along the same lines as my musing upon
when
it is that a step becomes a leap.
 Hindemith said that 7 notes are the minimum requirement for a succesion
of
notes that move by step and not by leap. I pondered this for a while, and
as far as I can tell he is right ( he derived the 7 note scale from
Pythagoras's metheod, moving lower and higher from the original derivation
of fifths to arrive at the 7 note scale, before filling out the chromatic
with all twelve notes. I can give the details in another post if you are
interested.) 
My intertest was piqued by something Steve said to someone in another
thread - that although there are 12 notes in the chromatic scale, early
music at first used 7 of the notes ( or something like that : Steve - feel
free to restate what you said if I am mis-representing that) 

So, anyway, I started to think about it - the only counter-example I could
think of was the whole-tone scale - say, CDEF#G#A#B#(C) - but that doesn't
have a P5 in it,so that won't fly. I was interested to know how the
pentatonic scales figured into things - the only conclusion I can reach at
present is that people just happen to like the sound of them - highly
unscientific indeed!

Danny