tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 09 23:52:51 2000
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Re: Klingon Music
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Klingon Music
- Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 02:57:00 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- Priority: NORMAL
On Wed, 2 Feb 2000 15:00:33 -0500 (EST) david joslyn
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, jeffpicard wrote:
>
> > I've been silent too long
> > but to be technical, between one A and the next there are 12 tones, 6
> > whole and 6 half, 8 of these tones have names and the other 4 are simply
> > the sharp and flat of other tones
c c# d d# e f f# g g# a a# b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 chromatic notes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 diatonic (named) notes
1 2 3 4 5 accidentals (sharps & flats)
It always amazes me at the weird way people count when they
start talking about music. If you are saying that an octave
has 12 tones, then that same octave has SEVEN named notes,
not 8. If you insist that it has 8 notes because you repeat
the tonic, then the chromatic scale has THIRTEEN notes.
Now, you can repeat the tonic or not. I'm flexible, but
when you count a chromatic scale and a diatonic scale,
COUNT THEM THE SAME WAY, DAMMIT. EITHER INCLUDE THE
REPEATED TONIC, OR DON'T. DON'T COUNT IT WITH THE DIATONIC
SCALE AND THEN OMIT IT WITH THE CHROMATIC SCALE.
OKAY?
So, a chromatic scale NOT REPEATING THE TONIC has 12 notes.
Seven of these notes are named and the other five are
accidentals, notated with a sharp (#) or flat (b) appended
to the name of the note.
All this pertains to western music common to western Europe
and all cultures heavily influenced by it. Even on our own
planet, other cultures have scales quite exotic to this 12
tone chromatic scale, and in other times it was tuned
differently, not "equal tempered" as it is now.
> Only when using our chromatic scale. There are others The Indain scale has
> notes that 'bend' up or down, which is why a sitar oft sounds
> "out-of-tune" to me.
The Indian scale does not have notes that bend up and down.
Indian music has notes that bend, certainly, but its scale
happens to have a lot more than 12 divisions within the
doubling of a note's frequency. Fret spacing on a sitar
does not typically reflect the fret spacing of a guitar. In
fact, the frets on a sitar are moveable and are changed for
different pieces of music. Notes are bent to get to pitches
that are not present on any given fret configuration. This
is not the same thing as having a scale step that bends as
part of its definition.
> > it's probable that the same tones are in Klingon music, just one
> > additional one has a name instead of being a sharp/flat
>
> It's *possible*, but not very *probable*. Think about un-keyed horns (like
> the bugle) for a minute and you'll see why.
Meanwhile, an unkeyed horn doesn't play equal tempered
scales without a whole lotta lip effort to compensate for
the just intonation it really wants to play.
> quljIb
charghwI'