Re: Digest Number 44, Daniel Wolf

> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 11:57:24 +0000
> From: Eduardo Sabat-Garibaldi <esabat@adinet.com.uy>
> Subject: Re: Digest Number 42, Daniel Wolf
>
> > Eduardo Sabat-Garibaldi wrote:
> >
> > >The word diatonic comes from Greeks and means "by tones". If we assume
> > that "a tone" is both 9/8 or 256/243, working whith the rows of fifths, the FIRST
> > TIME that it appears these -UNICS- interval for two contiguous notes is seven
> > notes.
> > The pentatonic scale has two m3, the hexatonic has only one m3, and the
> > heptatonic has their elements (notes) separated to the contiguous by 9/8 or
> > 256/243.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Since John Chalmers is away, I'll respond to this one.
> >
> > No, the Greek _tonos_ is only the (whole) tone. The diatonic genus is the
> > one whose tetrachord has, as Chalmers puts it, a whole tone as a
> > 'characteristic interval'. This whole tone ranges in size from ca. 10/9 to
> > ca. 8/7.
>
> Daniel Wolf,
> It seems that neither the Greeks nor you assume the tone could be 256/243 . :- )
> Tthis problem began for me more than 20 years. Mr Manuel Fernadez Spiro,
> professor, composer, pianist, a gentelman, (in 1910, or so, he knew Claude Debussy
> in Paris) taught me harmony.
> He told me that the word "Diatonic" means "by tones", and I believe that's right,
> but I'm not absolutely sure..
> Just this morning I called by phone Ing. Julio Vales (Golden Medal Facultad de
> Ingenieria) and I asked him about the etymological meaning of the word Diatonic. He
> has an Antique Greek -- Spanish dictionary (nuestro lenguaje es Espanol) (Ed. 1988,
> about 35.000 words) and told me that the word diatonic (or related) didn't appear.
> But "dia" means, a traves, separada, en dos partes, en pedazos that translated
> means through, separated, in two parts, in fragments.
> I suppose that several of these meanings may correspond to "by".
> As this is my point of departure I ask you Daniel Wolf, would you tell me what do
> you think about ?
>
> Eduardo

> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 11:28:48 -0500
> From: Daniel Wolf <DJWOLF_MATERIAL@compuserve.com>
> Subject: Re: Digest Number 42, Daniel Wolf
>
> Diatonic does translate as 'by' or 'through' or 'by means of tones'.
> Dividing the tetrachord by successive tones -- of whatever exact size --
> will leave a remainder of -- some kind of -- a semitone. That remainder
> will never be a tone.
>
> In your example, the ditone diatonic, successive 9/8 tones leave a semitone
> remainder of 256/243.
>
> Part of the usage trouble with the term 'tone' has to do with the fact that
> it is used as 'interval' in some contexts and 'pitch' in others. Yes, on
> each division of the tetrachord is found a tone=pitch, but no, these tones=pitches
> are not always a tone=interval away from one another.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel Wolf ,

Yes, I'm in accord with you.
From the first time I heard the meaning of the word Diatonic (20 years ago) as "by
tones" the obvious first question was about the interpretation of the word because in
all the diatonic scales there are always two kind of tone-intervals the whole tone (as
you say from ca. 10/9 to ca. 9/8) and the semitone (or around of).
The diatonic scales are not by whole tones, they have two semitones.
A without-any-doubt "by tones " scale is the root 6 of 2, or all the arrangements you
surely know better than me.
(In this moment I just made some numbers and I found that five 9/8 plus one 10/9 gives
one Octave plus a rational Skhisma ! ). Interesting.
The other possibility we have to evaluate this matter is to consider the tone (of
"diatonic" word) as a tone-pitch. If we consider this possibility from (I imagine) the
theoreticians point of view (either from Greek times or Tuning Digest List) we enter
in the chicken paradox. But It's probable that this name comes from the musicians of
those times (whose they knew few of Physics theory) and latter the theoreticians from
Greece or Alexandria have made an academical use or definition.
It's important to think that from Pythagoras to Ptolemy there are about 8 centuries,
and in that time the languages and the meaning of the words changes a lot

Eduardo