We have scales but why??

[james_mcfadyen]

just that if you want it to have one key, then the easiest and most definitive way to establish it is to have some kind of dominant to tonic progression.

That is what I said several pages back, but I think some people miss-understood what I was saying.

I think I can relate to you. You understand that something may not be 'technically correct' or by the book, but it still sounds good. I think some don't make that connection too well.
It's all about understanding the different systems of harmony and then using them in your music.

Some people don't understand that by it's very nature, tonal harmony can be a bit limiting for today's ears, not to even mention diatonic harmony, the most basic form of tonality.

If people don't want to be hemmed in by the limitations of tonal harmony, you find harmonic system that's more suited to your music. It's as simple as that.

Sir Harrison Birtwistle, like many of his peers, thought that 12-tone harmony didn't allow him to write the music he wanted and as such does not use it as his harmonic language.

Harmony is the real power of music, but in order to use it well, you have to understand it as a theory first, and then as application. Often, particularly with EDM, people try to do it the other way 'round.

You don't go to uni and play a bunch of chords THEN work out the theory - you study the theory, then build the chords. Or scales, or cells, or whatever.

[fmr]

In modal jazz/fusion you play scales/modes over chords. It's a pretty simple concept.

"Chords" and "Harmony" are two different things. Pretty simple concept.

[james_mcfadyen]

Stravinsky might have disagreed with you there. lol

'Harmony' can be thought of as being in a linear or super-imposed state.

Linear = voice-leading and counterpoint
Super-imposed = chords

[fmr]

I agree you the general concept of your post, Howevere, when you say:

If people don't want to be hemmed in by the limitations of tonal harmony, you find harmonic system that's more suited to your music. It's as simple as that.

I would not say harmonic system. I would rather say "music system". Because not all systems are harmonic. Actually, only a few are harmonic.

Harmony is the real power of music, but in order to use it well, you have to understand it as a theory first, and then as application. Often, particularly with EDM, people try to do it the other way 'round.

You don't go to uni and play a bunch of chords THEN work out the theory - you study the theory, then build the chords. Or scales, or cells, or whatever.

I agree with what you say, except when you state: "Harmony is the real power of music." In the last century, sound came to replace gradually the prdominance of harmony (ay least, that's how I see the evolution). And I never considered harmony over melody and over timbre (orchestration). Music is a whole mix of melody, harmoby, rhythm and timbres. It's like cooking. You use rice, potatoes, meat, salt, herbs, oil, etc., and you cook using several methods (boil, rust, fry). How you mix the different ingredients, and how you cook, that's what makes the difference.

[james_mcfadyen]

I agree, but maybe its best to leave the esoteric talk for another day/topic.

[fmr]

Stravinsky might have disagreed with you there. lol

'Harmony' can be thought of as being in a linear or super-imposed state.

Linear = voice-leading and counterpoint
Super-imposed = chords

Yes, but you already had superimposed voices on the begining of polyphony, or even in the renaissance era, and you cannot call that harmony (I don't). Even when you go to Josquin, or even Palestrina, the "harmony" is a very light dimension, which only appears more clearly in the cadences that end the different sections. You have to go the the baroque, the numbered bass and the opera, to start talking clearly about harmony.
And when you reached Wagner and Mahler, harmony was again a very fluid dimension constantly moving from one tonality to another, until complete dissolution of tonality itself. That's what, with Schoenberg, led to atonality.

[dwringer]

Just wanted to say that as I was reading this, one post summed it all up:

although we gravitate to these pure ratios, I think we enjoy imperfection from them as well

That's why we have scales, and why, when playing an instrument that will allow it, we deviate from them frequently depending on the style of music.

[james_mcfadyen]

fmr, again a discussion for another thread. WAYYYYY to esoteric for this kind of thread.

I'm not saying you are wrong, not in the slightest, it is interesting to me when you mention Palestrina in particular.

I'm sure in the future we can have educated discussions about these kinds of things, but let's keep things simple for the sake of clarity within this post. Besides. "scales" (the subject of this thread) and "Schoenberg" raise some pretty interesting questions. GREAT ones, but specialized ones.

[JumpingJackFlash]

Stravinsky might have disagreed with you there. lol

'Harmony' can be thought of as being in a linear or super-imposed state.

Linear = voice-leading and counterpoint
Super-imposed = chords

Yes, but you already had superimposed voices on the begining of polyphony, or even in the renaissance era, and you cannot call that harmony (I don't). Even when you go to Josquin, or even Palestrina, the "harmony" is a very light dimension, which only appears more clearly in the cadences that end the different sections.

It is "harmony" in the physical sense of several musical notes sounded at the same time, but it is not tonal harmony (since, as you correctly pointed out, tonality hadn't been invented yet... or rather, the concept was still coalescing into what we now understand it to mean).

Also, in relation to James' point, tonal harmony can sometimes be implied from a single melodic line (if it's written in such a way). That is perhaps what you mean by 'linear harmony'.
Also, voice leading (or part writing) is an essential part of tonal harmony. Counterpoint is not quite the same thing; some counterpoint is written on a tonal harmonic basis, while other types of counterpoint are not really tonal at all.

[james_mcfadyen]

For clarity, my statement about Stravinsky and then subsequently the two states of harmony are not meant to be linked.

The Stravinsky comment was a tongue in cheek off-the-cuff remark, because Stravinsky was very much a 'chord' man; he would often let Diaghilev hear his chords. Diaghilev would often cringe. That's why I love Stravinsky!!

The two states of harmony are not in relation to this point in history, they are devoid of time and history. Their application of course has been different going through the ages. In fact, Anton Webern once said the voice-leading is the true voice of harmony.

Of course, the same could be said of Palestrina, but the application is different.

Enjoy making music!

[Arrested Developer]

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?

First of all: to the question, why they are scales:

From a psychoacoustic point of view, there is a correlation between frequency groups (which have a range of about a little third) and the fact that within this range, your brain intrinsically perceive intervals as a "notes, which have changed their frequency".
(in fact, if you tell a person who has no musical eduction e. g. to recite a poem on a single pitch, you will observe that if a word has a strong emphasis, his "tone" will rise about the interval of a second. If he loses tension (i. e. if he speaks more softly), there will be a slight falling.
(It's also interesting of watching non-musicians in Karaoke bars. They often tend to sing too high when getting excited, and to sing too low, when getting soft & sentimental)

Now if you look at typical scales, they have mostly no gaps which are bigger than a little third (there are exceptions though in some ethnic scales)
The pentatonic scale made of a series of five fifths has big seconds and little thirds; the heptatonic scales are made of little and big seconds; in harmonic minor there is also an augmented second.

So by altering a note (c becomes cb, cbb, c# or cx and any intervall inbetween) you basically control the whole "continuum" of frequency with no more than five, six or seven (flexible) degrees. (Of course, also scales with more degrees exist)


Outside of this, everything is only depending on culture & style:

There are tibetan traditions, which use no "fixed" pitches, since they focus on glissando-like shift of the pitch. Here, intervals determined by numerical proportions have no importance; though they appear via overtone-singing.

Classical pentatonic (as it found in Chinese culture already 1500 B.C. (!) ) has typically _no_ home note, or flexible ones.

There are cultures which use whole-tone scales, and in some Gamelan-music there exists for example a "tempered pentatonic" scale, where all intervalls are the same (they are too big seconds, and they don't base on numerical proportions, since they are not played on instruments with harmonic overtones)

Also keep in mind that harmonic progressions are mostly typical for music that dervied from the classical (European) culture. In an ethnological account, it's more often that there is one basic "sounding" that's more or less constant.

Also, it's very clear that the use of a Dominant (the fifth degree) is a convention, but not more.
In the modal music of the renaissance, a typical mixolydian cadence used IV-I; a typical phrygian cadence used II6-I
In actual pop music you may find e. g. in (aeolian) minor chord progressions like: I-VI-IV-VII (like: aMin-F-dMin-G); in different electronic-styles you can find e. g. progressions like aMin7/9-abMin7/9 - gMin7/9- aMin7/9 (and others)

Anyhow, first of all there is no need to use scales.
Second, if you use scales, don't forget that there is no need to keep the degrees untouched. Don't forget that the word "chromatic" bases on the word "chroma" which means: colour.
I, for my part, i love colours

[vurt]

[frederik D]

Most practical music though does not use all these mathematically pure ratios. In equal temperament for example, according to you, we should perceive major thirds as highly dissonant!

Sure, but it's so close to 5:4 that our brains would perceive it basically as such wouldn't you say? I detune synth oscillators because I like the sound, and a guitar can still sound good to us slightly detuned on some strings but we can still enjoy those intervals as if they were perfect. Which leads to another point however which is that although we gravitate to these pure ratios, I think we enjoy imperfection from them as well, but that gets into a whole other story.

Well, there's quite some research and experiments that have been done on this subject, for instance http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/e ... l_1965.pdf

To quote an interesting part: "In this way, it may be clear that for complex tones, as produced by musical instruments, consonance is related to simple frequence ratios.
More simple frequency ratios are presented by sharper peaks. This means that octave and fifth are much more sensitive to a deviation of their right frequency ratio than the other consonant intervals are."


That's why the equal tempered scale has turned out such a strong compromise. The deviation are smallest for the intervals for which are ears/hearing system is most sensitive: the octaves are perfect, the fifth is only slightly detuned (far less then the wolf-fifths in some meantone tuning systems), and the bigger deviations start from the third.

To put it another way: the reason why the compromise works is that frequncy ratios based on the 12th root of two (the ratio of a semitone in equal temperament) happen to correspond quite well with the simple frequency ratios. I say 'happen to' , because it's just a lucky mathematical fact...

So to me, it's undeniable that there is a natural root to our scale system, based on the fact that our hearing system has a special sensitivity for simple frequency ratios. Of course there is a big cultural aspect to it too, as is proved by the fact that other cultures have other musical systems (though the octave seems to be quite universal).

[Arrested Developer]

...Of course there is a big cultural aspect to it too, as is proved by the fact that other culture have other musical systems (though the octave seems to be quite universal).

While i basically agree with your post, it's important to point out that one has to differ between intervalls when played together and intervalls in a melodic progression.
It's a fact that in melodic progressions most listeners prefer it when intervalls like fifths and octaves are too big.
Also, lot of musicians (of instruments with a variable intonation) and singers play those two intervalls too big, when they appear in a progression.

[ThoughtExperiment]

You're all wrong, all of you - not one of you has thought this through, so I've decided it's time to put you out of your misery. Just take a second to look at the original question. No, I mean it, just take a look at the original question. Now, have you got it yet?

No?



OK, here's the answer...

...FISH HAVE SCALES, we don't

...now don't you all feel silly, banging on and on for page after page after page about Pythagoras and consonance and equal Temperament and frequencies and such?

No really, don't mention it -

'If I can help somebody, as I pass along,
If I can cheer somebody, with a word or song,
If I can show somebody, how they're travelling wrong'