tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 02 07:35:11 2000

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RE: Klingon Music

	ja' jenwI':

> On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Mike Crane wrote:
> 
> > I have the 'Degh' excerpts and, from the net, several other 
> > samples of Klingons singing. In all of these the music is 
> > bassed on the good ol' Terran octave. KGT says that Klingon 
> > music uses nine notes for its scale. Will the new opera be 
> > using this scale, or is it just too complicated to re-tune 
> > all the instruments?
> 
> 
> Surely it would be terribly complicated as a Klingon tone would be approx 
> 88% of a terran tone... Plus the players would have such difficulty
> because everything would sound a little flat..
> 
	mutlhuHmoH QoQ!

	There has been a lot of discussion on what a 'nonave' is, and how
Klingon music relates to Terran music.  I can't remember who's idea it was,
but someone came up with the notion that a nonave is equivalent to an octave
and a fifth, thus: (yu C, bIm E, 'egh F, loS G, vagh A, jav C', Soch E',
chorgh F', and yu G').  The next nonave would continue from there, ending up
on yu D'''.  This would give a more open and pure sound to Klingon music,
and it would be playable on any standard Terran musical instrument.  Of
course the number of flats and sharps would change with each nonave,
(according to the Terran way of thinking about music.)  I really like this
idea, it fits very nicely into musical theory as well, with all the pure
ratios having denominators of 1 through 4: (yu 1/1, bIm 5/4, 'egh 4/3, loS
3/2, vagh 5/3, jav 2/1, Soch 5/2, chorgh 8/3, and yu again 3/1.  I'm really
going out on a limb here, but a 'minor' version of this scale is possible
with the introduction of the /5's: bImHom 6/5, vaghHom 8/5, and SochHom
12/5.  I welcome further discussion on or off list with anyone.

	- tuv'el

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