why our scales have seven notes, part 2

[macmurphy]

Do you typically find it appropriate to jump in the middle of a conversation you weren't in to referee people's behavior? If you find that somehow more apt socially than someone being frank in a somewhat heated argument, I think you might want to reevaluate you vis a vis society a bit. Or would you do this in a cafe or bar? You ask me, you're quite impertinent here.

and still you go on...

actually this is the end of the matter for me.

[jancivil]

and still you go on. what did you expect then?

of all that went on here, you're going to isolate me as aggressive, & you just had to share. I guess you've been holding onto that for a bit and you thought this was the right spot? Yeah, you just showed me you want to correct me as a person, and do take note that I didn't submit, and that my interest in what you think drops to zero.

and that I don't owe you a thing.

[macmurphy]

and still you go on. what did you expect then?

of all that went on here, you're going to isolate me as aggressive, & you just had to share. I guess you've been holding onto that for a bit and you thought this was the right spot? Yeah, you just showed me you want to correct me as a person, and do take note that I didn't submit, and that my interest in what you think drops to zero.

and that I don't owe you a thing.

i have no idea where you get this idea. i don't want to argue.

all i wanted was to be able to read some very interesting info on music theory by yourself and others. the petty fog makes this awkward.

'want to correct me as a person'? seriously? no.

i apologise for incorrectly isolating you as the aggressive one. i think several folks in this thread have been aggressive including probably myself.


neil.

[IncarnateX]

@macmurphy. I got your initial message and also tried to make a little affirmative joke about it with Vurt. However there is a thing about entering the tread at this stage to make such a point. If you knew what overwhelming shitloads of BS we have had from a certain person in the thread that started it all and now in this one, you would understand the undertones. I actually thought the thread was on prober track again in the beginning of this part two but then the person in question popped up like a troll in a box and started his provocations again. Our reactions should be understandable in this respect, so plz bear over with us and enjoy the potential educational side effects instead.

Peace mate

[macmurphy]

Our reactions should be understandable in this respect, so plz bear over with us and enjoy the potential educational side effects instead.

Peace mate

yes i understand now.

i love the side effects btw

thanks

[spacecult]

Probably because western music scales are derived from chords (and not the other way around)?

[MadBrain]

Probably because western music scales are derived from chords (and not the other way around)?

The earliest written music we have (gregorian church chant) has the classic 7 step scale and pretty much nothing else. As time went on, people started doubling the melody in octaves and fifths, and then thirds, and then chords developed from that (at least, in church music).

The association between 7 note scales and chords is really a jazz thing, where the melody can have all sorts of crazy scales (blues scales, pentatonic scales, bebop scales, all sorts of chromatic passage notes...) but chords are treated as if each chord corresponded to a 7 note scale... for instance, Fmaj7 matches with the F major scale, G7 matches with G mixolydian, Dm7b5 matches with D locrian... and then C7#5 is matched with the C whole-tone scale (6 notes), and G7b9 and variants such as Bdim7 are matched with the G octatonic scale (8 notes - G Ab Bb B C# D E F), but they're the only chords that aren't matched to 7 note scales. So when playing "in the scale", you can basically play any of the notes of the scale matching with the current chord.

It's also a pretty good guide for jazz harmonization - the notes you can add to a chord are usually simply the notes from its matching scale, and if you add notes outside of this, it usually changes the chord altogether. This also means that the densest possible traditional chord is 7 notes, such as Gm13 voiced as C F A Bb D E with G on the bass.

Obviously this is just the tonal part of jazz - melodies really often have notes outside of the chord's scale - playing the C minor blues scale over C7 has Eb and F# outside the scale (and the "avoid note" F) so tonally it makes no sense (but works so well). The most adventurous forms, such as free jazz, take this much further, but I'm not well versed enough in those to talk about them. :3

[stringtapper]

and then C7#5 is matched with the C whole-tone scale (6 notes), and G7b9 and variants such as Bdim7 are matched with the G octatonic scale (8 notes - G Ab Bb B C# D E F), but they're the only chords that aren't matched to 7 note scales.

While those are commonly used scales for those chords there is a seven note scale commonly used with the #5 and b9 dominants, namely the altered dominant scale (also known as superlocrian or diminished whole tone), which is the seventh mode of the melodic minor scale.

[jancivil]

and still you go on. what did you expect then?

of all that went on here, you're going to isolate me as aggressive, & you just had to share. I guess you've been holding onto that for a bit and you thought this was the right spot? Yeah, you just showed me you want to correct me as a person, and do take note that I didn't submit, and that my interest in what you think drops to zero.

and that I don't owe you a thing.

i have no idea where you get this idea. i don't want to argue.

all i wanted was to be able to read some very interesting info on music theory by yourself and others. the petty fog makes this awkward.

'want to correct me as a person'? seriously? no.

i apologise for incorrectly isolating you as the aggressive one. i think several folks in this thread have been aggressive including probably myself.


neil.

Thank you, Neil. The timing was you directly following me being blunt about Digriz's post and 'petty' seems unfair if directed at me. If it wasn't, it's my fault for assuming. But a number of people enjoy telling me eg., 'you come across as [patronising]' and that won't change me. I don't see it like that, nor do I think I've been petty. I have a strong objection to the pile of bullshit from aciddose and the thing of a second thread compounds the thing of people not reading but adding to the noise level.

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

- Major: C D E F G A B
- Minor melodic: C D Eb F G Ab Bb
- Minor harmonic: C D Eb F G Ab B
- "Major harmonic": C D E F G Ab B

If memory serves, 'minor melodic' in the key of C would have 'A' and 'B' natural 'ascending', and Ab and Bb 'descending'; but really, 9 notes as has already been mentioned.

Also, i've never heard of 'major harmonic'. That's a new one to me; especially in the inserting of an Ab without the 'requisite' Bb and Eb.

As for why things are the way they are, why:

FACE?
Every Good Boy Does Fine?
sharps and flats when 12-tone could have 'simply' been A through L?
does it 'begin' on C instead of A?
etc.

On the thing of piano keyboards, why didn't they design it like a typewriter or computer keyboard, with myriad small keys so anyone could play huge intervals and complex chords? it's clear that the 'touch' or 'action' or 'dynamics' thing would probably be different (lessened), but keyboards with lots of small keys would allow for a lot more freedom and possibilities in other ways. thankfully, we live in an age where you can play through such a keyboard.

[theodore_whitmore]

On a point of interest, does anyone have knowledge of the overtone series of the typical gamelan instruments and how that may tie into the particular interval relationships in gamelan music?

The gamelan situation is complicated as the tunings vary and metallophones have complex overtone series. Bill Sethares, who I think I mentioned way back in this thread, did a chapter on it in his book Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale. It's not a slam dunk matchup but I think it's fairly clear that the harmonics of the metallophone instruments drive the scale. Page 216 or so if you look on Google Books is where he does a matchup between slendro and the overtone series of one gamelan instrument.

The relationship between overtones and tuning is easier to see with the Thai renat ek (and the info is easier to find online) - look at the slides at the end of this preso: http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/Ch ... onance.pdf

Information. Thank you!

[jancivil]

Probably because western music scales are derived from chords (and not the other way around)?

The earliest written music we have (gregorian church chant) has the classic 7 step scale and pretty much nothing else.

But it_does_not.
Confer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidonian_ ... iddle_Ages

so, the thread at that time will have been 'why our scales have six notes', isn't it. Yet you want these things to form a foundation. It's just not a foundation, it's reverse-engineering from some notions you have and they seem pretty inchoate even.

[jancivil]

The association between 7 note scales and chords is really a jazz thing
chords are treated as if each chord corresponded to a 7 note scale... for instance, Fmaj7 matches with the F major scale, G7 matches with G mixolydian [etc...]

Both of these chords in C major, for instance, match with C major scale so we have a bit of a problem with this as a truism. I see 'G7' in context with a goal and the choice of note is goal-oriented vis a vis a harmonic drive. So 'G mixolydian' is an extra consideration, as 'D dorian' is for the ii chord.

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

--C D E F G Ab B--

it just dawned that i refer to this as 'A near minor' or 'A tonicless minor'.

in my personal lexicon the G and G# are arriving from a combination of natural/harmonic minor, but without the tonic (A), but the G# is spelled 'Ab' rather than 'G#' so as to give each note a unique letter. interesting set of 'triads' here:

AbCE
BDF
CEG
DFAb
EGB
FAbC
GBD

and it sounds to me like it always wants to 'touch upon' that 'A' note, but it never quite gets there (unless of course the 'A' note is thrown in at some point for 'greater resolution').
---------
someone might have been saying that clusters 'sound bad', but in my experience the 'astral minor' scale with its cluster sounds 'good'.

ABCDEFGb

'triads':
ACE
BDF
CEGb
DFA
EGbB
FAC
GbBD

here the G/G# are removed from the 'melodic minor', but F/F#(Gb) are retained. so the 'cluster' is EFGb

ymmv

[MadBrain]

Probably because western music scales are derived from chords (and not the other way around)?

The earliest written music we have (gregorian church chant) has the classic 7 step scale and pretty much nothing else.

But it_does_not.
Confer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidonian_ ... iddle_Ages

so, the thread at that time will have been 'why our scales have six notes', isn't it. Yet you want these things to form a foundation. It's just not a foundation, it's reverse-engineering from some notions you have and they seem pretty inchoate even.

Right, it had the variation between B and Bb, and that strange hexachord solfege system which gives some really strange results in analysis... but they also called notes "C D E F G A B", which is 7 notes, with B and Bb falling on the same staff lines and on the same knuckles on the Guidonian hand... I guess I should've said "7 notes per octave" instead of "7 step scale" to account for this. But this music system is still diatonic in practically every possible way.

The association between 7 note scales and chords is really a jazz thing
chords are treated as if each chord corresponded to a 7 note scale... for instance, Fmaj7 matches with the F major scale, G7 matches with G mixolydian [etc...]

Both of these chords in C major, for instance, match with C major scale so we have a bit of a problem with this as a truism. I see 'G7' in context with a goal and the choice of note is goal-oriented vis a vis a harmonic drive. So 'G mixolydian' is an extra consideration, as 'D dorian' is for the ii chord.

G7 fits well in the series of chords derived from the C major scale yes (Cmaj7 - Dm7 - Em7 - Fmaj7 - G7 - Am7 - Bm7b5), and these chords are often used in that way, true... but G7 can appear in so many other contexts : it can be the root chord in a G major blues (G7 C7 D7...), it can be an augmented sixth in the key of B (which would be written as G7 F#7 B in Jazz notation) or a tritonic substitution of B7, it can appear in all sorts of subdominants of course, etc... In those contexts, you can be pretty far from the song's root key, so it can help to think of G7 as a temporary G mixolydian, especially when harmonizing... sometimes it's not quite the "right" scale though (in which case it's probably something like a G7#11 or a G7b9 without the #11/b9), but even in those cases you should still have only one scale going at any moment.