AW.: Re: AW.: Re: AW.: Something got done

Johnny Reinhard:

While the hypothesis that the enharmonic was originally pentatonic whose
semitone _pyknoi_ were later divided to create a seven-tone scale seems a
reasonable one, there is no evidence attributing this innovation to Euripides
nor are there critiques of him for for having used the enharmonic, which was
considered to have been the oldest and most esteemed genus.

The critique on the "new music" of Euripides was rather on the playwright's
melodic style and other innovations not concerned with tuning. While this
might include his use of the tones in the pyknon, I would venture that the
tendency toward modulation, melisma and to vary from the direction of the
pitch accent were more serious violations. To my ears, at least, the
surviving fragments from _Orestes_ do indeed have some awkward-sounding
moments.

The strings added by Timotheus more probably extended the range of the
instrument than interpolated additional tones to the scale (which presumably
had a maximum of seven pitch classes within any successive octave).

Daniel Wolf
Frankfurt