Detail questions about V

[Jeffrey Stadelman]

Unfortunately I'm not able to participate in the group reading and
discussion of V at present.  But I can respond to Brian's music question:

As usual when it comes to music theory, things that could be easily
demonstrated sitting at a piano start to sound very complicated very
quickly when described verbally--but here goes.  There is no such thing as
a minor fourth--doesn't exist.  Roughly, octaves, unisons, fourths and
fifths can be 1) perfect, 2) augmented 3) diminished 4) doubly augmented
5) doubly diminished, etc.  Only 1 through 3 occur with any frequency. 
The other diatonic intervals--seconds, thirds, sixths and sevenths, and
their compounds--come in major and minor flavors, expanding and
contracting respectively as augmented and diminshed intervals.  Thus
there's no such thing as a 'perfect third' just as there's no major octave
or minor fourth. If the latter appellation isn't used intentionally by TRP
for some reason, then it's a blunder.

Apart from this, it's strange to me that Pynchon mixes degrees of
specificity in his description; that is, mentioning generic sixths (which
come in the several varieties described above) and then moving to very
specifically *minor* (apparently wrongly) fourths.  

Brian, I think what you're describing are the intervals between scale
degrees within the major and minor scales.  That is, in major keys, the
sixth degree above tonic is a *major* sixth; in minor keys it's a *minor*
sixth.  Etc.  And, as you imply, unisons, octaves, fourths and fifths
above tonic in both modes (that is, in both major and minor keys) are all
perfect.  But I believe the narrator is describing the intervals *between*
the notes played by the two instruments, not the intervals within the two
different instrumental parts.  That is, the narrator is talking about
harmony, not melody.

Yes, if there were such things as minor fourths, these presumably would be
the same size (in number of semitones) as major thirds--better to say,
though, that a major third can be 'respelled' as a diminished fourth, and
vice versa.

The knife fight part might be coming from Pychon thinking he was talking
about a different interval, the *augmented* fourth, one of several
intervals also known as the tritone--an interval that is half an octave
wide, spanning, that is, six semitones. 

---

Harvard Dictionary of Music, 2nd Edition, Willi Appel, Editor

Diabolus in musica [L.]  Late medieval nickname for the tritone, which in
music theory was regarded as the "most dangerous" interval.  See Mi-fa.

---

The 11th partial (overtone), which sounds an out-of-tune
three-octaves-and-a-tritone above the fundamental, is available and
playable on the horn.  I suppose it's possible TRP may have had this in
mind.  For a 'natural horn in F', this natural devil would appear as F
(the fundamental) contra B (the 11th partial)--that is, as one of the
intervals corresponding to the medieval warning 'mi contra fa, diabolus in
musica.'

The whole description brings to mind a number of jazz players in addition
tho the ones explicitly mentioned in the text's music review--for me,
especially, Ornette Coleman and, of course, Thelonious Sphere Monk.

Jeff Stadelman
Buffalo

On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, Brian D. McCary wrote:

> First, a music question.  At the end of Chapter 2, we read:
> 
> "Horn & alto together favored sixths & minor fourths and when this
> happened it was like a knife fight...." ect. ect.  (p 48, Bantam) What 
> are these minor fourths?  In tempered instruments, the fourth is the same 
> in both major and minor scales, as is the fifth and the root.  You have
> minor seconds, thirds, sixths, and sevenths.  By standard notation,
> minor fourths would simply be major thirds, which would hardly invoke
> knife fights.  Are these minor fourths due to the natural horn?  I love
> this whole section, where we hear McClintic for the first time, 
> but I've never quite understood this part of it.
>