What drives "scales

Some how i missed this post.
There are many different cultures on the globe , many who do not think like us and do not use music in the way that we do.
It gets quite dangerous to attribute anything from our culture as being universal or worse "better" .
We have to acknowledge that many ethnomusicologist would object to the term 'scale' as being a western idea.
I personally do not agree to this assessment. Like melody for which a culture might not have a word for, does not mean that they are not experiencing the quality of separate tones to be heard as a single unit or thread.
So i think we can say very little about scale outside that it a pattern of tones that form the spectrum that is used in a musical performance. But we do and most peoples do recognize what we might call modulation . that is certain spectrums hold together as a unit and when you add new tones a different array is formed. I still find the concept of Moment of symmetry the most inclusive, especially because of the idea of the secondary levels which often are the more interesting scales. yet we have to acknowledge that it does not touch tetrachordal scales especially the enharmonic. nor scales that involves notes in a very limited range. we have scales such as those produced by the 'Are 'Are in the Solomon islands that most ethnomusicologist is a highly developed and very old tradition. I have one set of these scales on my site in the world scale depository which i can't link to at the moment. Here one 'octave' if you can call it that has 5 notes the next has 6. Since different instruments in these ensembles function differently, it stands to reason that the notes number might change. also with the scales we find of Ballophones in africa only certain notes are repeated in certain octaves . This has to do with the wide use of Tonal languages so what is expressed in the lower range in different than the upper so you will have basically a different scale as you play higher.
So much is determined by context and the artistic expression of a people as a whole. Our own methods of putting fence post in some methodical fashion would be unheard of and inappropriate to those mentioned above. still we have scales

So in this sense, you're going back to saying that scale is a
> >byproduct rather than an effect of its own. I don't really

disagree

>>> >strongly, I just don't want to jump to conclusions. I suppose I'm
>>> >looking to be able to say that the origin of "scale" is dependant
>>> >on a specific list of phenomena that come back to
>>> >psycho-acoustics. Then it could be determined what aspects of >>> >scale are potentially universal vs. contextual.
>>> >
>>> >I'm also trying to figure out how to explain these things to
>>> >students. Typical teaching explains everything musical as it
>>> >relates to the scale. If scale is only the byproduct than it is
>>
>>
very

>>> >difficult to reconcile the two ways of looking at things.
>>> >
>>> >To acknowledge the bias in my thinking, I'm wishing there was a
>>> >universal psychoacoustical explanation for scale such that I
>>> >could teach things as they relate to scale without constant
>>> >prefacing that scale is actually just a byproduct or that it just
>>> >happens to be the way western music is at the moment (since it
>>> >SEEMS more universal than that), or without doing what
>>> >everyone else does, which is to completely ignore physical
>>> >realities of tuning and harmonics and beats etc. I'm also
>>> >interested in such an explanation for myself too.
>>> >
>>> >
>>
--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

fowarded this to correct list!

Kraig Grady wrote:

>Some how i missed this post.
> There are many different cultures on the globe , many who do not think like us and do not use music in the way that we do.
> It gets quite dangerous to attribute anything from our culture as being universal or worse "better" .
>We have to acknowledge that many ethnomusicologist would object to the term 'scale' as being a western idea.
>I personally do not agree to this assessment. Like melody for which a culture might not have a word for, does not mean that they are not experiencing the quality of separate tones to be heard as a single unit or thread.
>So i think we can say very little about scale outside that it a pattern of tones that form the spectrum that is used in a musical performance. But we do and most peoples do recognize what we might call modulation . that is certain spectrums hold together as a unit and when you add new tones a different array is formed. I still find the concept of Moment of symmetry the most inclusive, especially because of the idea of the secondary levels which often are the more interesting scales. yet we have to acknowledge that it does not touch tetrachordal scales especially the enharmonic. nor scales that involves notes in a very limited range. we have scales such as those produced by the 'Are 'Are in the Solomon islands that most ethnomusicologist is a highly developed and very old tradition. I have one set of these scales on my site in the world scale depository which i can't link to at the moment. Here one 'octave' if you can call it that has 5 notes the next has 6. Since different instruments in these ensembles function differently, it stands to reason that the notes number might change. also with the scales we find of Ballophones in africa only certain notes are repeated in certain octaves . This has to do with the wide use of Tonal languages so what is expressed in the lower range in different than the upper so you will have basically a different scale as you play higher.
>So much is determined by context and the artistic expression of a people as a whole. Our own methods of putting fence post in some methodical fashion would be unheard of and inappropriate to those mentioned above. still we have scales
>
>
>So in this sense, you're going back to saying that scale is a
>
>
>>>byproduct rather than an effect of its own. I don't really
>>>
>>>
>
>disagree
>
>
>
>>>>>strongly, I just don't want to jump to conclusions. I suppose I'm
>>>>>looking to be able to say that the origin of "scale" is dependant
>>>>>on a specific list of phenomena that come back to
>>>>>psycho-acoustics. Then it could be determined what aspects of
>>>>>scale are potentially universal vs. contextual.
>>>>>
>>>>>I'm also trying to figure out how to explain these things to
>>>>>students. Typical teaching explains everything musical as it
>>>>>relates to the scale. If scale is only the byproduct than it is
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>very
>
>
>
>>>>>difficult to reconcile the two ways of looking at things.
>>>>>
>>>>>To acknowledge the bias in my thinking, I'm wishing there was a
>>>>>universal psychoacoustical explanation for scale such that I
>>>>>could teach things as they relate to scale without constant
>>>>>prefacing that scale is actually just a byproduct or that it just
>>>>>happens to be the way western music is at the moment (since it
>>>>>SEEMS more universal than that), or without doing what
>>>>>everyone else does, which is to completely ignore physical
>>>>>realities of tuning and harmonics and beats etc. I'm also
>>>>>interested in such an explanation for myself too.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

Hey Kraig,

I think you've confused me with Aaron Hunt!

-Aaron Krister Johnson

On Thursday 20 January 2005 12:34 am, Kraig Grady wrote:
> Some how i missed this post.
> There are many different cultures on the globe , many who do not think
> like us and do not use music in the way that we do. It gets quite dangerous
> to attribute anything from our culture as being universal or worse "better"
> . We have to acknowledge that many ethnomusicologist would object to the
> term 'scale' as being a western idea. I personally do not agree to this
> assessment. Like melody for which a culture might not have a word for, does
> not mean that they are not experiencing the quality of separate tones to be
> heard as a single unit or thread. So i think we can say very little about
> scale outside that it a pattern of tones that form the spectrum that is
> used in a musical performance. But we do and most peoples do recognize what
> we might call modulation . that is certain spectrums hold together as a
> unit and when you add new tones a different array is formed. I still find
> the concept of Moment of symmetry the most inclusive, especially because of
> the idea of the secondary levels which often are the more interesting
> scales. yet we have to acknowledge that it does not touch tetrachordal
> scales especially the enharmonic. nor scales that involves notes in a very
> limited range. we have scales such as those produced by the 'Are 'Are in
> the Solomon islands that most ethnomusicologist is a highly developed and
> very old tradition. I have one set of these scales on my site in the world
> scale depository which i can't link to at the moment. Here one 'octave' if
> you can call it that has 5 notes the next has 6. Since different
> instruments in these ensembles function differently, it stands to reason
> that the notes number might change. also with the scales we find of
> Ballophones in africa only certain notes are repeated in certain octaves .
> This has to do with the wide use of Tonal languages so what is expressed in
> the lower range in different than the upper so you will have basically a
> different scale as you play higher. So much is determined by context and
> the artistic expression of a people as a whole. Our own methods of putting
> fence post in some methodical fashion would be unheard of and inappropriate
> to those mentioned above. still we have scales
>
>
> So in this sense, you're going back to saying that scale is a
>
> > >byproduct rather than an effect of its own. I don't really
>
> disagree
>
> >>> >strongly, I just don't want to jump to conclusions. I suppose I'm
> >>> >looking to be able to say that the origin of "scale" is dependant
> >>> >on a specific list of phenomena that come back to
> >>> >psycho-acoustics. Then it could be determined what aspects of
> >>> >scale are potentially universal vs. contextual.
> >>> >
> >>> >I'm also trying to figure out how to explain these things to
> >>> >students. Typical teaching explains everything musical as it
> >>> >relates to the scale. If scale is only the byproduct than it is
>
> very
>
> >>> >difficult to reconcile the two ways of looking at things.
> >>> >
> >>> >To acknowledge the bias in my thinking, I'm wishing there was a
> >>> >universal psychoacoustical explanation for scale such that I
> >>> >could teach things as they relate to scale without constant
> >>> >prefacing that scale is actually just a byproduct or that it just
> >>> >happens to be the way western music is at the moment (since it
> >>> >SEEMS more universal than that), or without doing what
> >>> >everyone else does, which is to completely ignore physical
> >>> >realities of tuning and harmonics and beats etc. I'm also
> >>> >interested in such an explanation for myself too.

--
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.dividebypi.com