Danielou's theories

My objection to Danielou as a theoretical musicologist, beyond
what has been presented here earlier, is his rejection of
intervals of 7 (and above), which he claims are outside of human
experience and spiritually dangerous. This is patent nonsense,
metaphysics aside. Intervals of 7, or close approximations, are
found in Blues, gamelan tunings, Barber Shop singing, ancient Greek
scales, Islamic music (Sachs, etc.) and experimental styles. He
tries to justify this bizarre belief by appealing to psychology,
specifically George Miller's work on perceptible distinctions (The
Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two, ...).

A corollary of Danielou's theory is that higher prime intervals,
are perceived only as deviations from ratios of 3 and 5. Since
he believes that there are special spiritual qualities inherent
in 3 and 5 that are intensified and retained in powers and products
of these factors, intervals of 7, etc. can confuse and possibly
disrupt one's spiritual state.

Erv Wilson worked with Das Gupta (Cal Arts) on Indian raga
scales (thats) and discovered many that contain septimal intervals.
However, these are not ones commonly heard, at least by westerners.
Das Gupta did say that intervals of 11 and 13 are foreign to the
Indian musical system.

Scott Makeig has done some work of his own in this area also

Miller says that humans can subconsciously make about seven
distinctions along any perceptual dimension. Hence most scales have
5 to 7 tones; few have 8, 9 or more. The lack of acceptance of serial
dodecaphonic music by the majority of auditors may suggest that
even 12 tones is too many to present as a scalar gestalt.

What this may mean for xenharmonics is that composes should
partition 19, 22, 31, 34, etc into local subsets which may be varied,
modulated, etc. Training and scalar structure may increase this limit,
however, and I wouldn't consider it an argument against xenharmonics.

--John


SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: Kraig Grady
Subject: Re: Chas Smith and Danielou
PostedDate: 25-12-97 05:14:16
SendTo: CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH
ReplyTo: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
$MessageStorage: 0
$UpdatedBy: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH,CN=Manuel op de Coul/OU=AT/O=EZH
RouteServers: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=notesrv1/OU=Server/O=EZH
RouteTimes: 25-12-97 05:12:00-25-12-97 05:12:01,25-12-97 05:11:30-25-12-97 05:11:31
DeliveredDate: 25-12-97 05:11:31
Categories:
$Revisions:

Received: from ns.ezh.nl ([137.174.112.59]) by notesrv2.ezh.nl (Lotus SMTP MTA SMTP v4.6 (462.2
9-3-1997)) with SMTP id C1256578.001710DD; Thu, 25 Dec 1997 05:13:52 +0100
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA25467; Thu, 25 Dec 1997 05:14:16 +0100
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 05:14:16 +0100
Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA25307
Received: (qmail 9919 invoked from network); 24 Dec 1997 20:14:13 -0800
Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1)
by localhost with SMTP; 24 Dec 1997 20:14:13 -0800
Message-Id: <34A1DD40.7885@anaphoria.com>
Errors-To: madole@mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu