Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning [Fwd: [MMM] What drives "scales]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [MMM] What drives "scales
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 22:34:39 -0800
From: Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>
Reply-To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
To: Aaron K. Johnson <akjmicro@comcast.net>, MMM
<MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>

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

Yahoo! Groups Links

--
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

🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au>

Hi Kraig,

Could you please clue me to the "moment of symmetry" idea?

Agree with you on the need not to plant fence-posts evenly - or even any
fences at all! - where none are wanted.

Regards,
Yahya

PS is "ballophones" the same as "Balofon"? YA

-----Original Message-----
From: Kraig Grady

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 differ ent 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

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

> From: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" <yahya@melbpc.org.au>
>Subject: RE: [Fwd: [MMM] What drives "scales]
>
>Hi Kraig,
>
>Could you please clue me to the "moment of symmetry" idea?
> >
It is presented in this paper informally, and defines it m maybe more by examples than otherwise, but that is in there too.
http://www.anaphoria.com/mos.PDF

>Agree with you on the need not to plant fence-posts evenly - or even any
>fences at all! - where none are wanted.
> >
we so often misunderstand other cultures ( but we should not be afraid to do so, since it is the beginning of dialog) that it is important to err on the side of making sure that we do not impose our own cultural predisposition as being universals. That 'most ' or 'many' people do something should never let us ignore what those other do. More often than not i have found that these are explorations of our species into areas that are often overlooked by a majority and provide the very means to enrich the directions of the "majority'.

>Regards,
>Yahya
>
>PS is "ballophones" the same as "Balofon"? YA
> >
I think so. The wooden marimba like instruments in africa!

>
>
> >

--
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

🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au>

Thank you Kraig,

I've downloaded the pdf for study offline.

On misunderstanding other cultures, and dialog between them, I could not
agree with you more! I do wish that more (apparently sensible) people
shared your openness to the new and different.

Regards,
Yahya
-----Original Message-----
From: Kraig Grady

> From: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" <yahya@melbpc.org.au>
>Subject: RE: [Fwd: [MMM] What drives "scales]
>
>Hi Kraig,
>
>Could you please clue me to the "moment of symmetry" idea?
>
>
It is presented in this paper informally, and defines it m maybe more
by examples than otherwise, but that is in there too.
http://www.anaphoria.com/mos.PDF

>Agree with you on the need not to plant fence-posts evenly - or even any
>fences at all! - where none are wanted.
>
>
we so often misunderstand other cultures ( but we should not be afraid
to do so, since it is the beginning of dialog) that it is important to
err on the side of making sure that we do not impose our own cultural
predisposition as being universals. That 'most ' or 'many' people do
something should never let us ignore what those other do. More often
than not i have found that these are explorations of our species into
areas that are often overlooked by a majority and provide the very means
to enrich the directions of the "majority'.

>Regards,
>Yahya
>
>PS is "ballophones" the same as "Balofon"? YA
>
>
I think so. The wooden marimba like instruments in africa!

>
--
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

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