Last Updated: 20060905, mei
Thursday, October 5, 4:30 pm — 6:30 pm
T4 - THE GRAND STORY OF MUSICAL SCALES FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN
Gareth Loy, Gareth, Inc. - Corte Madera, CA, USA
Sandra Soderlund, Mills College - Oakland, CA, USA
Why are musical scales organized the way they are? Why is most Western music based on scales made up of seven tones when there are twelve tones per octave? What does “equal-tempered” mean, and why after all these centuries is it still controversial? What choices have other cultures made about intonation, and why? What can we learn about ourselves, our music, and our culture by taking a careful look at the underlying mathematics? This tutorial examines one of the most basic issues of music technology: musical scales, tuning, and intonation.
This tutorial develops a simple, flexible, and convenient way of describing tones and intervals mathematically. However, what starts out simple becomes a surprisingly twisty trail with some deep insights into the choices our culture has made about the music we want to hear.