GRGR(28) - The Origins of Music

[David Morris]

I submit this out of a deep ignorance of whether all this is "generally" 
regarded as valuable or a load of crap:

http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/NATBASIS.HTM

THE NATURAL FORCES BRINGING THE "DO, RE, MI, SCALE" INTO EXISTENCE

"The process that historically forces the do, re, mi scale into existence is 
not hard to grasp," says musicologist Bob Fink. When a note is played, on a 
flute or by any instrument, the note is determined by how many vibrations 
per second it makes. Concert "A" for the orchestra is 44o vibes per second, 
for example. If you play or sing the octave to any note (the "same note, 
only higher"), then it has twice the vibes. The ratio between the notes, 
then, is 2 to 1 (or 2:1). "That's all you need to know that invloves any 
numbers," adds Fink .

Fink says "historically, the ear has preferred simple ratios as harmonious, 
and complex ratios have been avoided or considered noisy or dissonant (to be 
used only as an artistic contrast to harmoniousness --as a sort of 'duelling 
tonalities')." For example, two notes on the piano right next to each other 
have a complex ratio (play them together to hear this) and these kind of 
ratios cause "beats" -- a kind of repetitive "wow-wow-" effect, which Fink 
notes is very unpleasant to the ear.

Fink says you also need to know that whenever a single note, like "A," is 
played, we actually hear several notes at once, called overtones. "They're 
very faint," says Fink, "but the different strengths of the mixture is 
mainly what tells us we are hearing a trumpet instead of a piano or a voice 
-- but all sounding what seems like the same single 'A' note."

Now here are the grabbers:

* The overtones of any one note all add up to its major chord, when played 
out loud rather than as overtones.

* The most audible overtones of a tonic or keynote all have simple ratios, 
like 2:1 (octave), or 2:3 (fifth note of scale), and the 4th note of the 
scale, whose first different overtone is the given tonic, has a ratio of 3:4 
. "In fact these three notes are present in virtually every musical scale 
known on earth," Fink claims. Further, he notes:

* "If you write out the overtones of these three notes and string out the 
three most audible ones of each within the span of an octave, you will get 
the major scale.
Tonic C: Overtones are: C, G, E, and Bb (I've left out the additional octave 
overtones as redundant and too high and weak to be noticed within the 
framework of average human hearing.)
Fifth G: Overtones are G, D, B, and F
Fourth F: Overtones are F, C, A, and Eb.

* "If you substitute the three weakest ones (the 3rd, 6th and 7th notes of 
the scale) with another three notes (which includes the even weaker next 
overtones), and which are flatter, you get the minor scale. (The 6th note is 
strongest of the three because it forms no complex ratios with adjacent 
notes in the scale.).

* "If you leave these two -- the 3rd and 7th notes -- out altogether, you 
get what's called the "Chinese" scale -- or the piano 'black notes' 
pentatonic 5-note scale -- found also in Africa, old Scottish and Irish folk 
music, and elsewhere.

* "Because these overtones are very weak, they were the last to come into 
the scale, and how to tune them was a matter of historic uncertainty -- and 
many people tuned them somewhere between minor and major (in the 'cracks' on 
the piano), producing what are known as 'blue' or neutral notes."

* "When you further consider the advent of harmony (in which there has been 
use of only the three chords of the tonic, dominant(5th) and subdominant 
(4th)) to harmonize all the 7 scale-notes in most of the folk melodies 
known, this further underscores that these three notes and their overtones 
were fundamental influences in the formation of the scale's notes. Even the 
names that evolved for them are perfect representations of their acoustic 
role, even though the names ('dominant' 'sub-dominant' & keynote/tonic) were 
also coined by people without acoustical knowledge."

Says Fink: "Now either all this is the greatest coincidence on earth -- that 
is, people who knew nothing of acoustics coming up with scales reflecting 
all these acoustic properties purely by chance -- or else, in fact, the ear 
was already able to discern the sounds as distinct between harmonious or 
dissonant because the ear could hear these acoustic properties without 
consciously knowing they existed. I have chosen to believe the latter, and 
in 1970 wrote The Origin of Music in order to demonstrate this idea more 
fully."

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