Octave and "register doubling"

The octave implies "register doubling", i. e. the ratio 2:1. I
suspect that this may not turn out to be a necessary condition in
Indian music. I am trying to find out in "sangitaratnakara", the
authentic text on Indian music, if this is mentioned, explicitly or
otherwise --without success, till now.

In the mean time, can someone tell me if there were cases of octaves
which did not fulfil the 2:1 condition, in any music? Was this 2:1
requirement introduced by tempering of the scale?

Thanks.
Haresh.

----------
>From: "Haresh BAKSHI" <hareshbakshi@hotmail.com>

> In the mean time, can someone tell me if there were cases of
> octaves which did not fulfil the 2:1 condition, in any music?

Traditional Indonesian gamelan tunings avoid the interval
of 2/1. Pure just intervals are considered dead and
lifeless there.

Some Arabic modes (maqamat) such as Saba do not have an
octave interval. Arabic scales, being descended from Greek
scales, are built on tetrachords that usually span 4/3 or
sometimes 5/4 and thus octaves don't always result.

Authentic African mbira tunings seldom contain many just
intervals, including the octave.

I am told that panpipes played in the Amazonian rainforest
have no octaves but I don't know this for a fact.

> Was this 2:1 requirement introduced by tempering of the scale?

Since even in Western piano tuning, the octaves are
stretched wide from 2/1, probably to increase interest by
giving the octave some motion (and not to match inharmonic
partials as is commonly supposed) who knows? The octave is
the least interesting interval I can think of both
harmonically (where all it does is slightly thicken the
timbre) or melodically (where it is rather wide to be a
step). I believe the only reason it has achieved wide
usage is because it is an easily recognizablelandmark and
thus facilitates tuning and notation of instruments that
are tuned using repeating scale patterns. Of course it is
the fact that the scale pattern repeats at all and not the
fact that it repeats at 2/1 that makes the scale cohesive
to the human wetware.

I would be delighted if you could show us examples of
Indian scales that don't involve or require the octave -
then I could add India to my list of sensible cultures
that weren't so lazy they had to base everything on
octaves!

Best,

Jeff

Hm. I said:

> Some Arabic modes (maqamat) such as Saba do not have an
> octave interval.

But I should have said:

Some Arabic modes (maqamat) such as Saba do not have an
octave interval present in relation to the the tonic,
or as the base of the scale, although the octave interval
is present between some other scale degrees.

And while I'm at it I should note that when I said:

> I would be delighted if you could show us examples of
> Indian scales that don't involve or require the octave -
> then I could add India to my list of sensible cultures
> that weren't so lazy they had to base everything on
> octaves!

I am simply making fun of octave worshipping practices in
Western civilization, and not intending to disparage
anyone!

- Jeff

--- In tuning@y..., "J Scott" <xjscott@e...> wrote:

.......

> > I would be delighted if you could show us examples of
> > Indian scales that don't involve or require the octave -
> > then I could add India to my list of sensible cultures
> > that weren't so lazy they had to base everything on
> > octaves!

> - Jeff

Hi Jeff, thanks for your response. The only such example of Indian
scale is mentioned by Helmholtz [On the Sensations of Tone (1954), p
517] where he reports a Madras Vina to have: the first octave 0-1199,
and the second octave 1199-2398 cents. If there are other references
elsewhere, I do not as yet know. I go a step beyond to state that,
with any explicit reference yet to be found out (by me), NO Indian
scale is required to be octave. This sounds very strange. Perhaps
there is a reference or two, which I have missed. I do not know
whether and how this can be verified.

Haresh.