tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 18 14:09:28 1997

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Re: yu-bIm-'egh



jIQaghchugh 'ej vIlughmoHlu'chugh jIlaj. 'ach wanI'vamvaD
jIlughta'.

According to [email protected]:
> 
> charghwI' just did a wonderful job of describing the differences between the
> eight-note octave and what we know about the nine-note Klingon musical
> notation. 
> 
> 'ach wa'meH cha' QoQ patlh buS tera'ngan (Western) QoQ 'e' qelchu'be'
> charghwI'

ghobe'. *Do re mi fa sol la ti do* ghajbe' wa'maH cha' mu'.

> C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B ghaj

Our instruments can play these notes, but unless you play
atonal music, these are not the notes of a scale. I've written
twelve-tone atonal music (the melody of my favorite composition
had the tones C E D# D F C# F# A# A G# B G... C! The full title
of the piece is "Atonal Fantasia in D minor" because it has two
themes, one which is atonal and the other which is in Dm,
intended to be played on a synthesizer with the "Fantasia" tone
selected...

Scales tend to include irregular spacing. While I recognize
that a Klingon nonatonic scale may mark frequencies at tones
not among the twelve selected for our chromatic scale, it may
also simply choose a different subset of our chromatic scale to
form a new diatonic scale, either by choosing nine notes to
form an octave's diatonic notes, or by choosing nine notes to
form some other interval than an octave, hence a one-and-a-half
octave nonatonic scale that matches, or nearly matches our
current pentatonic scales.

The instruments themselves will have some influence over the
scales. Indian music which does not use the intervals of our
chromatic scale, for example, tends to be played on stringed
instruments or is sung. They don't have much of a history with
brass instruments, while horns seem very much like an
appropriate Klingon instrument. Meanwhile, music featuring
brass tends to use scales described by our chromatic scale
because "natural" horns play the harmonic series. It starts by
playing a fundamental tone (the lowest note you can play). It
then overblows to an octave higher. On a C horn, you play two
Cs.

You can't play notes between these two tones on a natural horn
or bugle. Next, you play a fifth higher (the G above the higher
C). The next note is another C, a fourth higher than the G.
Keep doing this high enough and you get our chromatic scale,
though you get a diatonic scale before all the chromatic tones
get filled in.

As a wild guess, I'd expect a Klingon nonatonic scale to be a
diatonic scale based roughly on our chromatic scale with
perhaps a different boundary than the octave and a different
choice of tones than our major or minor key.

I especially like the idea of it being pentatonic on an
octave-and-a-fifth range because this breadth roughly matches
an average singing range, and the consonant nature of the
pentatonic scale would explain Klingon distaste for Fed music
and the Fed tendency to often get a little bored with Klingon
Opera. Long pieces without our favorite dissonant cadences
would tax Federation concentration. To the Klingon ear, it
would be far purer than our 7ths and tritones...

> machu'DI' C Qav wIqeq 'ach C Qav ngaSbe' QoQ ghomHom  

do re mi fa so la ti do
1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8

> teH
> chaq mIwvam pab tlhIngan QoQ yu Qav
> nIbchuq pongDaj patlh wa'DIch pong je
> 
> However, he failed entirely to indicate that the Western octave is actually
> twelve notes!!!!  

Only the chromatic scale has twelve notes, and we don't notate
those with words like the Kligon system except in diatonic
scales of eight notes, though in fact minor keys restate two of
those notes depending on whether the scale is ascending or
descending, and sometimes we play with the third note in some
contexts.

Anyway, I'd hardly call this a failure. Okrand has told us too
little about the Klingon scale to determine if it parallels our
chromatic scale, listing all potential notes, roughly a third
of which we don't use in most melodies, or whether it parallels
our unevenly spaced diatonic scales, all of whose notes we use
in almost every melody.

> The Western octave has C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B.
>  Although when playing octave practices on a scale we play C through C, the
> final C is not one of those twelve notes.  Perhaps Klingon's ninth note, yu,
> works this way, too.  After all, it has the same name as the first note, yu.

This seems highly likely.

> QoQ yu'eghmey tlhoj tlhIngan QoQ muchwI'pu' wej 'e' wISov
> mu'vam boSovbe'chugh vaj jIQIj
> tera'ngan (Western) QoQ wIqelDI' qaStaHvIS wa' lup (tera'ngan lup) 440logh
> vang patlh A

loSvatlh loSmaH chaDvay' 'oH *A*. {{:)>

> Dung lurgh wIqImchugh vebbogh wa' QoQ ghomHom patlh A wIqelchugh qaStaHvIS
> wa' lup 880logh vang 'oH

ghurDI' chaDvay' qatlh Dung lurgh DaqIm? When we speak English,
we use the terms "up" and "down" relating to pitch, but there
is no reason to believe that Klingons do the same.

> 'ej bIng lurgh wIqImchugh vebbogh wa' QoQ ghomHom patlh A wIqelchugh
> qaStaHvIS wa' lup 220logh vang 'oH
> 
> We do not know yet but would like to know if Klingon musicians realize the
> harmonic values.  For those not familiar with the term, in Western music
> Middle A has a resononance of 440 vibrations per second.  Going up exactly
> one octave, A has a resonance of 880 vibrations per second.  If we had gone
> down exactly one octave, A has a resonance of 220 vibrations per second.  

My point is that the Klingon scale might not repeat at the
octave, but instead at some other interval. In particular, they
like threes so much, perhaps the scale runs from 440 to 1320,
tripling the frequency instead of doubling it. Instead of
giving them the "extra" note within an octave, it would spread
the nine notes out far enough to have the spaciousness and
consonance of a pentatonic scale, leaving out all those
disonant tones a Kligon finds so objectionable in Bach and
Mozart and all those other Human noisemakers!

> mayajchoHchu'meH maghojtaH     Qapla'     peHruS

HIja'. maja'chuqtaHjaj.

charghwI'


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