tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 10 20:28:41 1997

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Re: music scale (was Re: yu-bIm-'egh

On Tue, 9 Sep 1997 11:17:02 -0700 (PDT)  [email protected] wrote:

> >Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 23:12:54 -0400 ()
> >From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
> >Subject: music scale (was Re: yu-bIm-'egh 

[Lots of interesting/weird stuff snipped on harmonic series] 

> I think the klingon scale should be producable with a natural tone
> instrument. 

I agree that ideally, we should be working with natural tunings 
rather than tempered tunings. This is easy for chorus. For 
keyboards and some other instruments, it is likely to be more 
difficult...
 
> So let's start to fit that into the theories...
> 
> >What if Klingons took this tripling of a base frequency as the 
> >full range of any musical instrument, be it voice, chuS 'ugh, or 
> >whatever. Different instruments would have different base 
> >frequencies, but all instruments would be limited to a scale of 
> >that breadth.
> 
> napbej (That would be a very simple solution.) But it does not explain
> how to write harmonic voices... 

You have to write them as an orchestrator now writes scores for 
Bb trumpets and Eb saxophones. You write each voice for the 
instrument or voice that plays it. This makes Klingon music, by 
necessity, more of a communal art form for higher works, and 
simpler for solo folk tunes. There are notes within your 
singing and playing range which you can't play without 
companions. Each of us fills a role in the harmony to a 
greater degree than in Western music. {{:)>

> But that could explain the atonality of the pice heard of "Akuth and
> Melota" in TNG) ...
> 
> >              There is a nine note scale for each instrument 
> >spanning from a base frequency to triple that frequency.
> 
> We'll see on that later.
> 
> >Now, walk up to a piano. Ignore all the white keys. Start at any
> 
> Hmpf. QaQbe' (not good). You totally base upon a tempered (voc?) scale
> found in western music. Sure, that simplifies the "translation" onto
> normal instruments, but IMHO lacks style, so I woul like to try a
> different approach later this text.

I think that if we use a modern accordian (since it is one of 
the instruments Okrand gives us) or keyboard, we are bound to 
use tempered scales, unless you are willing to retune your own 
instrument. Singers will naturally tend to sing perfect 
intervals with each other, as do fretless string players. I 
think we can deal with this.
 
> >So, my proposal has two parts: The Klingon scale is based upon 
> >the tripling of frequency instead of the doubling of it, and the 
> >scale does not repeat in different nontaves. The scale is simply 
> >complete.
> **snipp**
> >Klingon music can contain a wide range of frequencies because 
> >different instruments and different voices begin at different 
> >base frequencies. This would make for famous performance groups
> >because the music written for each singer has its scale written 
> >for the base frequency for that person's voice. If a different 
> >group wants to sing the same music, they have to find singers 
> >with the same relative dispersion of base frequencies as the 
> >original performers. There is no absolute pitch in Klingon music 
> >in the way that our orchestrated pieces are written in piano 
> >clef, though we do have our own equivalents.
> 
> taQ (Weird)...
> Really.
> But I like it.

HIja. chIch vItaQmoHta'. DaH vIQoy vIneH!
 
> >Klingon music would be an extention of this. Every instrument 
> >would have its own key signature. Every voice would have its own 
> >key signature. Complex harmonies and unusual dissonances would 
> >occur as each voice stays within a very consonant pentatonic 
> >scale across a nine note range. It would be polytonic music 
> >based upon melodies strictly adhering to pentatonic scales.
> 
> Except for the pentatonic scales that is a great idea. 

But having it be pentatonic is a big part of the idea of taking 
a nine note scale across the span of a tripled frequency, which 
happens to roughly approximate a singing range. We might 
rearrange where the seconds and thirds fall in the scale, and 
certainly tune it to natural intervals where possible, but I 
really think it is better to give each voice fewer notes within 
an octave is a positive aspect, especially when we can make up 
that harmonic thinness by adding more notes based on different 
low tones for other voices.

This would affect the overall character of Klingon music, giving 
it both a consistency within itself and a radical difference 
from any human music currently on the planet. The creative 
potentials for this structure are delicious. I want to hear how 
real artists wrestle with these limits. Nowhere have we combined 
such simplicity (as a pentatonic scale across a span of nine 
notes for each voice) with such complexity (as having each voice 
carry a different tonic note, resulting in disonances and 
harmonies and orchestration of melodies never heard before by 
human ears). This is a chance for some genuinely new music, just 
as Klingon is a genuinely new language.

No, it is not constructed of new materials, just as Klingon has 
grammar and vocabulary and sounds which can be described by 
linguists with the same terms as human languages, but for both 
the language and the music, this can be a complex combination of 
a sparce set of rules and elements. The potential musical 
expression here is much as the potential verbal expression of 
the language.

And if it doesn't fit what Paramount has done up to this point, 
well, neither does pIqaD or most of the words they say on TV 
match what we've done in new and interesting ways. Paramount has 
not adapted pIqaD. They may not adopt this music.

But if it sounded cool enough, they might be impressed enough 
with it. Hey, we could do a movie score...
[snip] 
> Some ideas about the scales:
> 
> Scale 3.) : the "Plain" scale - somewhat biased towards terran major
> 	    and with many quint and octave parallels (my music teacher
> 	    will kill me for that).
> 
> Scale 1.) : the "Tragic" scale - somewhat biased towards terran minor
> 
> Scale 2.) : the "Battle" scale - tends towards quite many disharmonics
> 	    over a massive base (without definitive minor/major bias)
> 
> Scale 4.) : the "Free" scale - (sic!)

Go for it. I don't know when I'll have time to experiment with 
my stuff, but you should definitely experiment with yours. We 
might both come up with neat stuff, and it could be different 
schools of Klingon music, like dialects, or songs from different 
ages in the past, or from different Houses. There's room enough 
in the empire for your stuff, my stuff, Krankor's stuff, and 
anyone else's stuff who feels moved by these ideas.

> I will try the one or other piece based upon this theory in the next
> weeks. Be afraid (I am)!

not QaQlIj jIQoyvIp! chaq loQ jIHaj, 'ach jIyoH!
 
> Comments?

reH.

[Mwaahahahahahahahahahaaaaahhhh......]
 
> Qapla'
>    yabHuj

charghwI'

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