On May 31, 8:14 am, "Tom K." <tkor...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Alain Naigeon" <anaig...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
> news:48406765$0$27224$426a74cc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
> > 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 ?
>
> It seems to me that a scale is a theoretical idea - a collection of
> pitch-cl***** serving as a reference for a body of music. While
personally
> I would prefer that it be limited to a subset of the chromatic whole the
> term "chromatic scale" or even "twelve-tone scale" has been in common
usage,
> so the upper limitation is apparently 12 for 12 TET music.
>
> As far as the lower limitation is concerned, I would argue that there is
a
> large body of music employing pentatonic scales - but not anything
smaller.
> So if you can show the 4 tone (especially o7) music, I would revise that
> opinion.
>
> So a "rational definition" would be 5~12 notes; IMHO, a more useful one
> would be 5~8 notes as that encomp***** the largest body of non-chromatic
> music.
>
> Tom K.
Hi Tom,
Your argument makes sense from several perspectives, but I loose it
when you insist on real examples to accept an obviously theoretical
premise.
First, however to the smaller end of the number of notes for a scale.
If you delve into the world of songs that children learn and sing,
even with different words in many cultures, you will find examples of
the tone set m_sl as well as d_m_sl and m_sl_d as well as other
three and four note tone sets that are used as scales. It may be
argued that these are part of a greater whole, however that does not
have to be the case. The fact that these tunes can be harmonized using
other scales does not mandate that they themselves are written in
those larger scales. Speculating outside my main field, I also seem to
remember some African chants that seem to be built on three or four
note patterns as well as possibly some Native American music.
If a scale is "a collection of pitch-cl***** serving as a reference
for a body of music", both of these examples would qualify and thus be
scales in your definition.
Now for Alain's scale. I suggested that it be expanded to two octaves
that was composed of as two octaves with the same note to show
ambiguities with some definitions, but in reality, this is unnecessary
as all scales can of course go up to other octaves and lower octaves.
Now for the theoretical answer to the use of these notes as a scale.
Debussy and others have used the Whole Tone scale to create an
impressionistic style that is ambiguous and some cases may be at least
somewhat atonal. The whole tone scale may or may not have a tonic
note. This tonic note will most likely not be a result of functional
harmony, as it is not inherent in the scale's makeup to provide this
type of tonal gravity, but rather as a melodic factor that may very
well be based on resting places and the starting and ending note. I
believe that we can pretty much agree on this at least in principle.
Thus, what is the difference of using another equally spaced scale?
The "Minor Third Scale", for lack of a better term, would do almost
the exact same thing as the WT scale. It implies no specific start or
ending in and by itself. Without a specific melody, each note of the
scale is equal to all the others. You can create a melodic shape which
is likely to span more than one octave, which is one concept that is
exploited in 20th C composition. It has no perfect 5ths just as the
whole tone scale, it is similar in every respect to the WT except for
the choice of interval for building it.
If you further expand the tesitura to even more octaves as some modern
composers may very well do, the practically of using even smaller
scale segments built on other divisors of the octave as major third,
and augmented 4ths and not excluding the octave itself, you can create
three note, two note and even one note scales that can exhibit many of
the same characteristics as the whole tone scale. In my own experience
at an electronic music workshop at Oberlin, I don't remember if anyone
actually did this for their project, but I do remember that we at
least talked of the possibility and it would be quite easy to compose
a tune in the MTS if there indeed has not been one composed somewhere
already.
So again, we return to that nasty word "context". In the CPP world,
these scales would not fit. But if you step into the Impressionist
period and beyond, there is really no difference with this the WTS and
the MTS.
LJS
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