Detail questions about V

[Brett Porter]

Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 08:59:44 -0400
To: bdm at colossus.storz.com (Brian D. McCary)
From: Brett g Porter <bporter at musicamusa.com>
Subject: Re: Detail questions about V

At 05:41 PM 25-06-96 -0500, you 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.

This is just a goof. Fourths and Fifths can only be perfect, augmented, or
diminished. A diminshed fourth is really never seen in the wild, so it may
really be considered a degenerate case. And, as you point out, what TRP
describes would sound like a major third, and an inverted third is a sixth.
Maybe he got his music theory info from the same record cover where he found
out about the "Grippe Espagnole". 

BTW, all the "natural horn" means is that it's valveless (like a post
horn...), so it really only plays notes found naturally in the overtone
series. 2 degrees in music, only an undergrad minor in lit. About time I got
to use 'em for something!

[deletia...]
>Brian McCary
>
BgP
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