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

> I was referring to musicians of an earlier time, and why they wouldn't
> settle on the whole-tone scale as a scale which meets the requirements
of
> something that is felt not to contain any leaps. The problem with the
WTS
> is that it does not contain all the tonal degrees - it only has ^1,
while
> the ^4 and ^5 are sharp. So they wouldn't want to use that in practical
> music-making.

In some places similar scales *were* used.  The slendro scale of
south-east Asia is pentatonic with five *equally spaced* notes
(sort of, the exact tuning varies from one gamelan to another,
but it's always closer to 5-TET than to the pentatonic scales of
northern Asia or to anything you might get from the "overtone
series", however interpreted).  This scale has been around for a
thousand years at least.

==== j a c k  at  c a m p i n . m e . u k  ===  <http://www.campin.me.uk>
====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739
557
CD-ROMs and free stuff:  Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic
fonts