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A Just pentatonic Scale

🔗"Ewan A. Macpherson" <emacpher@...>

5/28/1998 7:55:26 AM
"Just Intonation" wrote:

> Absolute Successive
> Pitch Frequency Ratio Ratio
> C4 400 1/1
> 6/5
> D#4 480 6/5
> 9/8
> F4 540 27/20
> 10/9
> G4 600 3/2
> 6/5
> A#4 720 9/5
> 10/9
> C5 800 2/1

> I was curious whether this scale corresponded to one in any other
> culture or historical period, that anybody knew of. Thanks.
> Bill Flavell

This 4th (27/20) and minor 7th (9/5) are the ones claimed by Seamus
MacNeill (J.M.A. Lenihan and S. MacNeill (1954): "An Acoustical Study of the
Highland Bagpipe", Acustica, vol.4, 231-232. ) to be THE tuning of
these pitches for the Scottish Highland bagpipe chanter. They would
be sounding against drones at 1/2 and 1/4. Howver, I've done some
frequency measurements of recent recorded performances and found that
the tuning of these notes varies quite a lot from player to player.
The pipe chanter uses a 5/4 major 3rd.
--
Ewan Macpherson
WWW Bagpipe Index
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~emacpher/pipes.html