On May 31, 5:50 pm, Danny Schorr <.@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >> >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."
As I have said before, everyone has their own little things that seem
out of place to their genius! I don't know, maybe it is the Islamic
artisan philosophy to make sure that there is at least one
imperfection in things that they produce as only Allah can be perfect!
In this case, I find this very narrow minded and arbitrary on his
part. (Is this in the Craft of Composition? I will try to see if there
is a hidden context in there that clears this up.) He is obviously
ignoring a lot of music by saying this. I would also think that when
you get back to the time immemorial, that singing was at one point
just that, an arbitrary wandering of he voice. I suspect that after
wandering with their voice that they started to come up with some of
the same things that the children do all over the world and they
invented the first version of the m_sl tone set or something very
close to it. Just speculation, but I don't think that P.H. really
backs this statement up with any evidence to sup****t his assumptions
here. His statement of they must be small enough is really rather
imprecise and fortunately, he did not continue with his theory with
this same lack of reasoning! I don't remember reading this quote and
frankly, I am surprised that he made such a statement.
>
> >> 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?
Its that nasty word "context" again. In the context of the overtone
series or the strong relation****p of the Pythagorean 5ths that bind
these 5 notes into a unit of their own that creates a tone set that
when arranges in a linear order will sound natural. It also could be
related to the lack of tension in these pentatons that make it sound
smooth whereas in the harmonic minor scale, it is the deviance from
the paradigm of the major/minor system of scales and harmony that all
love so much that makes it sound "out of place" or "exotic" or is hard
to sing. The hard to sing thing seems to be arbitrary and to me, it
sounds more like a "whine" that would be heard from singers that did
not want to work their brain that hard when singing.
>
>
>
> >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.
Re reading my post, I to may offer a clarification. If you didn't get
my meaning that I don't agree with this definition, I would like to
clarify that. I was trying to point out that this definition was not
able to work except on a limited set of scales and by no means could
be considered universal.
>
> >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.
Maybe so, but my experience in this group has been that there are many
that see everything in a very limited CPP context. I see it as
everything that uses functional harmony based on the principles that
evolved around the Baroque period to present. I would like to have a
universal way of saying this, but until I have one, I will plunder
through with the best choice that I can think of at the the time. I
agree with what you are saying. I have just submitted to the seemingly
will of the group to keep the CPP as meaning this limited period
ending around the 1800s! lol In this particular paragraph, I was
saying that Hindemith and the other sources that I was referring to
seemed to have a very narrow context relative to music as a whole. I
don't think that the definition that I was referring to holds up to
the music of today in Western civilization except in the functional
harmonic style of music and its associated major/minor scale concepts.
I will be concerned with what the charts say when I have something on
them! In the meantime, I see the charts as a yardstick of how many
people are buying what the monopolistic record industry is selling and
this has very little to do with music.
>
> >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.
They are only mentioned and arranged to give examples of how arbitrary
some of the definitions of skip can be. I only used the C twice to
"close" this theoretical scale. And the arrangement or choices of
names were only to keep them in order and to give examples of how the
definition that uses the words "interval of a second" (of any size!)
did not stand up to examples other than the more "Conventional Point
of Perceptive" that generally try to limit ones choices to the Major/
Minor scales and their related forms.
>
> > 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
Who said that there had to be harmony? We are talking about a scale
and the post I replied to mentioned nothing about harmony. I replied
to the conclusions stated and their relevance to the "theoretical idea
of scales" by Tom. And I think that his "idea" of scales definition is
very good. I just was pointing out that his conclusions didn't jive
with his definition! I really like his definition.
a scale is a theoretical idea - a collection of
pitch-cl***** serving as a reference for a body of music.
This has a lot of merit and allows for my view on skips as applied to
ALL scales. With our two definitions, All of the definitions that have
been mentioned will be covered by the context of the era that is being
used because each era or genre has its own characteristic sets of
scales that define the genre so it will all be covered as you define
the scales that you are considering. You would not have a whole tone
scale in everyday Vivaldi! So if you talked about skips in his genre
then you would not be defining the whole tone scale so it would not
apply. The conventions of his genre would preclude this scale.
Whenever you speak of broad subjects like scales, or tonality or many
other things, universal definitions are difficult. One must be very
careful to either stipulate the context of the definition or to craft
the definitions so that they are broad enough to accommodate all of
the contexts. This is not small task. I think that Tom's definition of
the idea of scale is an im****tant part of coming up with a definition
that WILL work for ALL skips in ALL scales in ALL genres.
LJS
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