We have scales but why??

[crazyfiltertweaker]

I know, if you use a root key, you have your "home" but WHY you can hear this home and why it has this effect?
Why we dont use all notes without selection? why is minor and minor the scales which are the best in our culture?

[cron]

Your answer is in the word culture. Whose culture?

Outside of a few fundamental intervals common to pretty much all musics like the octave, these are the sounds and intervals your culture is used to hearing. Play jazz or chromatic music to someone who isn't versed in the music/culture and they'll tell you it's tuneless. Go to a different country and check out their folk music and you'll find the harmonic structures are wildly different, with different intervals in many cases. Many will sound plain alien to our ears.

[JumpingJackFlash]

I know, if you use a root key, you have your "home" but WHY you can hear this home and why it has this effect?
Why we dont use all notes without selection? why is minor and minor the scales which are the best in our culture?

This question is a minefield of various historical, mathematical, and psychological issues, it's not something that can be explained easily.

[Trakstar]

Without musical scales or fixed pitch associations such as the universally adopted 440htz, there would simply be no rules or order in which to write musical melodies, harmonies and chords. A bit like the universal laws of physics.
Its like the scale of colour that we find in the rainbow. Without knowing what colour is, we wouldnt be able to determine the images that we see and percieve around us without an understanding of the scale of colour. Sound without structure or harmonic identity is what we class as noise. The musical scales allow us to use the order of the Pitch scale to write and construct a harmonic melody that we can then identify of music. Its like learning a language, without understanding what words are what and things like pronunciation and grammar, we would be no better than animals uttering grunts and snorts that are completely unintelligible. this is not trying to procrastinate against you, rather just give a brief answer to a very complex subject. Think of it this way, how would a piano sound without it being properly tuned?? exactly
Trakstar

[Nielzie]

This question is a minefield of various historical, mathematical, and psychological issues, it's not something that can be explained easily.

Exactly that.

[whyterabbyt]

the universally adopted 440htz,

Except its not universally adopted.

Without musical scales or fixed pitch associations there would simply be no rules or order in which to write musical melodies, harmonies and chords.

and yet plenty of music gets written without it.

Its like the scale of colour that we find in the rainbow.

You mean completely arbitrary

Without knowing what colour is, we wouldnt be able to determine the images that we see and percieve around us without an understanding of the scale of colour.

Really? So how do infants and animals manage without understanding 'the scale of colour' ?

Sound without structure or harmonic identity is what we class as noise.

Except, of course, when we class it as music.

The musical scales allow us to use the order of the Pitch scale to write and construct a harmonic melody that we can then identify of music.

Im not sure what the last bit means, but scales are an arbitrary shorthand for approximated harmonic ratios between equally-arbitrary quantized frequencies. That's all. They're part of a system for constraining music within a cultural aesthetic by notating and describing a set of relationships which fit that aesthetic. That's all.

Its like learning a language, without understanding what words are what and things like pronunciation and grammar, we would be no better than animals uttering grunts and snorts that are completely unintelligible.

And yet children manage to speak without understanding what words are, or things like pronunciation and grammar.

Actually, by empirical observation, most people seem to manage to speak without understanding grammar, and write without understanding punctuation...

Think of it this way, how would a piano sound without it being properly tuned??

potentially, awesome. why?

[experimental.crow]

scales are part of our integumentary system , and serve to protect our soft underbellies ...

[dalor]

The way that I understand scales, I think of a picture to paint. The color palette I choose for the painting is equivalent to music scales. You wouldn't paint the sun green, or grass red, unless you intend to and then make somehow clear by other elements in the picture to identify these wrong colored elements for what they are or intent to be. Just my 2C.

[Trakstar]

the universally adopted 440htz,

Except its not universally adopted.

Without musical scales or fixed pitch associations there would simply be no rules or order in which to write musical melodies, harmonies and chords.

and yet plenty of music gets written without it.

Its like the scale of colour that we find in the rainbow.

You mean completely arbitrary

Without knowing what colour is, we wouldnt be able to determine the images that we see and percieve around us without an understanding of the scale of colour.

Really? So how do infants and animals manage without understanding 'the scale of colour' ?

Sound without structure or harmonic identity is what we class as noise.

Except, of course, when we class it as music.

The musical scales allow us to use the order of the Pitch scale to write and construct a harmonic melody that we can then identify of music.

Im not sure what the last bit means, but scales are an arbitrary shorthand for approximated harmonic ratios between equally-arbitrary quantized frequencies. That's all. They're part of a system for constraining music within a cultural aesthetic by notating and describing a set of relationships which fit that aesthetic. That's all.

Its like learning a language, without understanding what words are what and things like pronunciation and grammar, we would be no better than animals uttering grunts and snorts that are completely unintelligible.

And yet children manage to speak without understanding what words are, or things like pronunciation and grammar.

Actually, by empirical observation, most people seem to manage to speak without understanding grammar, and write without understanding punctuation...

Think of it this way, how would a piano sound without it being properly tuned??

potentially, awesome. why?

[Trakstar]

The way that I understand scales, I think of a picture to paint. The color palette I choose for the painting is equivalent to music scales. You wouldn't paint the sun green, or grass red, unless you intend to and then make somehow clear by other elements in the picture to identify these wrong colored elements for what they are or intent to be. Just my 2C.

+1

[Trakstar]

Also, i could speak clearly when i was an infant and i have yet to ask an animal if they understand the colour scale. I assume my pet rabbit knows the difference between the colour of his poop and the colour of his food...otherwise he would eat any, although of course then comes the scale of taste, smell, but yeah you were write, unless of course you just picked me out to start an argument and try to get me banned, now wheres that ignore button

[Trakstar]

440htz, i was just saying that its universally adopted as the standard for Synthesizers and the like that would help the Op, but yeah, sure its been different over the years, in fact its about 100 now i think

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_(pitch_standard)

[whyterabbyt]

The way that I understand scales, I think of a picture to paint. The color palette I choose for the painting is equivalent to music scales. You wouldn't paint the sun green, or grass red, unless you intend to and then make somehow clear by other elements in the picture to identify these wrong colored elements for what they are or intent to be. Just my 2C.

Could you explain how using green paint to colour a realistic representation of a green thing equates to calling a note that's approximately 525Hz 'C' because its approximately 1.9 times the frequency of a note you've decided to call 'A' ?

[Trakstar]

dcjfdkig djkelfnv eyfmgkz f iutv ;o\linc o eh 9wHC9 VY EUVN9ET7

A post without the scale of spelling or words that mean anything

[Trakstar]

http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/Music/12Tone.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_scale

If this is a serious post,(which i am starting to doubt) check this out for some lite reading