>> >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
Clarification: He didn't actually say that 7 tones were needed - it was
implicit in the text and I picked up on it.
"...for the melodic endeavor, known to man since time immemorial, in the
simplist form of musical activity - singing - series of tones are needed
which guide into definite channels what would otherwise be an arbitrary
wandering of the voice. The intervals used for this purpose may be
measured
in various ways. But however they are arrived at, they must be small
enough
so that the progression from a tone to an adjacent tone is felt as a step
and not a skip, if the series which they form is to be the basis for
intelligible melodies."
>> 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
>
>The pentatonic scale is created with 5 consecutive Pythagorean 5ths
>as well as the first 5 different tones of the harmonic series if you
>use the lower note of the 6/b7 interpretation of the 7th partial. How
>scientific does it have to be?
I'm trying to understand how the skip between A_G E_G is not felt to be
bothersome to most people.
The move from b6 to #7 is always cited as being hard to sing. Why is that?
It's the same interval as 1-b3 in minor, 3-5 in major, or 1-3/5-7 in the
pentatonic,which happens all the time. Why the intonation difficulty?
>
>Now, this is of no matter if you go by the traditional definitions of
>"leap". The ones that I have found refer to an interval greater than a
>second. Strange that none of these definitions limited the second to a
>major second! so that would allow for the Bb ->C# in a d harmonic
>scale to be a step as it is a second but would allow the pentatonic
>scale to have 2 leaps in its diatonic movement of notes because the
>"names" of the intervals are more than a second. But then again, this
>would allow the diminished scale that wold have a C C# D# to call the
>C to D# to be called a step and not a "leap" even though it is both
>the same interval (in semitones) as the minor third of the pentatonic
>scale AND it "skips" one of the notes of the scale! And then if you
>have something like a Locrian #7 (B C D E F G A# B) or its rotations,
>the "skip" from the A# to the C is in semitones only a major second.
>
>So with this ambiguity when applied to more modern concepts one has to
>conclude that this definition of "anything more than a major second"
>is specific to a limited number of styles of music.
I should have clarified: I was referring to origins of scale formation.
All
the church modes contained 7 notes.
>I suspect that the
>Hindemith (or was it Piston) definition would be in a book that dealt
>with CPP conventions as well as Dolmetsh and Virginia State and other
>definitions that define a skip in this manner. So as I said before, it
>depends on your context. In the CPP context, this definition may work.
>In the broader spectrum of music, it just doesn't seem to make any
>sense.
Sometimes you say CPP context: other times you say music that came out of
CPP context to become music as we know it today. "CPP "in this case is a
loaded phrase.
We are talking about Western music as we know it today, not something
that
ended around 1900. Melodies that reach the top of the charts in whatever
genre.
>
>That is why I would look at it from the context of the Scale. The
>scale definition being that a "skip" is the movement from one note to
>another that skips a note in the scale. This would make the Pentatonic
>scale "sans skip" as well as allowing Alain's example to work,
>assuming that the notes that he chose would fit the requirements of a
>scale. His particular choice does have a rather unstable quality, but
>then again, so does the whole tone scale. The whole tone scale has 6
>notes, the Pentationic has 5 so why could there not be a 4 note scale,
>and in this case the four notes happen to also be a diminished 7th
>chord. I can imagine Alain's scale expanded to a two octave scale of
>C Eb Gb A B# D# F# Gx C.
I really don't understand the purpose of these enharmonic equivalents
except for the purpose of assigning all the letter names to the tones
( BTW - you have G twice).
The ear doesn't know about "letter names" It's going to hear 4 tones,
period.
> In this case if you combined the major second
>definition and the second definition, Gb to A would be a step and so
>would A to B# although the B# to D# could be a skip and the etc, etc,
>etc, well you get the idea! And only I have mentioned the Chromatic
>scale and the Diminished scale.
>
>So I have to come back to the context. The definition I use that bases
>it on skipping a note in the scale adapts to the various contexts by
>the definition of the scale. Thus it will work not only in the CPP
>context quite nicely, but is also will accommodate the more modern
>aspects of music that may use non CPP scale structures just as
>easily.
>LJS
But you are talking from a soloist's point of view - something else would
supply the harmony ,and you can't get any vital harmony out of Alain's
pitch class set, nor the pentatonic scale.
Danny
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