Talk:Musical acoustics/Archive 1

Comments merged from "physics of music"

Could someone please fix the graphs so they don't wrap funny (with a wide screen)? I don't know how to do it... - Omegatron

Anyone watching this page? I just redid the sound article and ran across this one. Seems like there's a lot of overlap. I wonder how to best tidy things up. - kmccoy 07:28, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well it is more oriented specifically to music, explaining harmony, etc. I am not sure if they should be merged or just refer to each other. - Omegatron 13:37, Jul 9, 2004 (UTC)

I made some links to other pages to get more attention towards it. We'll see what happens. - Omegatron 13:47, Jul 9, 2004 (UTC)

While I know it's a somewhat contentious issue (and might not belong on this page anyway) I find some of the terminology a little odd here - what's called the "temperate scale" is more often (in some circles, anyway) called an "equal-tempered scale", and to say it's the usual scale used in Western music ignores the fact that this is a relatively recent development. Various unequal temperings were far more common until recently. And of course, that only applies to instruments with a fixed scale - the vast majority of instruments use more flexible intonation and will bend tones to fit the prevailing harmonies. Might not belong on this page at all, but if the "temperate scale" is mentioned here, I would think that some of the other cultural information would fit in as well. Jaddle 1:21, 21 Feb, 2005 (UTC)

Comments on "musical acoustics"

Just a start, very simple and maybe teh perspective is wrong, so I expect people to edit and expand the article! I have used the term Musical Acoustics, instead of Music Acoustics, because there already was a link to that (previously empty) article from acoustics. --Blondel 22:19, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Today this article seems to be wiped, but I can still get here from my watch list... I have found there already exists an article physics_of_music, which is well written and to the point. --Blondel 09:46, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have merged content at physics of music with the stube here and removed the merger notice. Musical acoustics seemed the better title. --Cjnm 16:39, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Halftones in the scale and the evolution of harmony

I am more or less opposed to this whole section (and a lot of the "trio theory" section above), and I will remove it in a few days if there is no discussion. My reasons:

• The semitone (and smaller intervals) existed in Greek scales in the 4th century BC, and possibly before. They did not gradually appear; they have been a part of the diatonic scale from the beginning.

We do object to its removal. Further, no one wrote the semitone didn't exist in prehistory. We're talking about scales -- not isolated semitones.

The many flutes found in Jiahu China in 9 B.C. (one still playable) were described by the archaeologists in "Studies in Music Arcaeology III" as spanning a period of 1200 years then, wherein 5-note (pentatonic flutes) gradually developed to diatonic and other 7 and 8-note flutes. Therefore, factually speaking, it was gradual in entering the scale. If it happened in that prehistoric time, then it is no longer just "theory" to assume the same evolution could have existed elsewhere, if not everywhere. See: http://www.greenwych.ca/9ooo-1.htm#Update

• "Trio theory" (this page is the first time I have heard it referred to as such) only applies to music of the western tradition from a little before the common practice onward. While it is certainly possible to harmonize folk tunes, gregorian chant, or essentially any melody for that matter, with the three primary chords of western tonality, they are not necessarily (and in many cases, necessarily not) the harmonic basis for these melodies.

You completely miss the point of the trio theory -- It is not about western music. It is clearly written as a description of the likely way in which the diatonic scale evolved in prehistory. The diatonic (or the pentatonic) didn't spring into being all at once.

From the point of view of the scientific method, the parallels between acoustics (overtones of the most widely found intervals) and the most widely found scales in prehistory (pentatonic and diatonic) cannot be ignored as coincidence but must be examined as a possible cause-and-effect. Science abhors "miracles of coincidence" as an explanation of things.

• Chromaticism appears and disappears at various points in western music history; perhaps in the relatively brief period between the early baroque and the late romantic you can ascrive some sort of "evolution", but this ignores several earlier developments (especially the greek enharmonic genera, referenced above), as well as their continual presence in other ethnic musics.

Repeat: The trio theory (in the books published about it since 1958) is about trying to reconstruct the process (if one existed) by which music evolved from random sound to scales in prehistoric times. The examination of overtones reveals a likely cause-and-effect.

You clearly have not read anything of this theory with any care. It is absurd to say the theory denies the existence of chromaticism in early times, or even in prehistory. Before characterizing a work, learn what it says. The book by Fink (1970) Origin of Music which elaborates the trio theory, has a large chapter on the Greek genera and you can read a bit about it by the same author in his website: http://www.greenwych.ca/natbasis.htm -- scroll or search for "modes" or "Greek" to find it.

• "Trio theory", as you describe it, is identical to the theory outlined by Arnold Schoenberg in his 1934 essay "Problems of Harmony" (it can be found in his book "Style and Idea"), but the same phenomena were described also by Hermann Helmholtz in 1865, and Kepler's "Harmony of the World" wasn't far off from it in the 17th century, and I could probably find older examples; is there a good reason that it is being given a funny name and attributed to Bob Fink here? (There are probably more original ideas in his theoretical writings than this, I'm not familiar with him, but I don't think this is really one of them.) And again, this "evolution" theory completely ignores the history of scales.

"Identical"? I doubt that since:

1) You demonstrate that you know little about the trio theory, or assume it says things it never says, and:

2) I doubt if Scheonberg ever wrote about those three intervals in regards to explaining the evolution of music in prehistoric times. I suggest you quote the relevant passages, as we'd be interested to see that.

3) As for Helmholtz, we've read him cover to cover, and he has never come up with these parallels to the scales or anything like the trio theory! If so he wouldn't have asked the question "If the ancients already accepted two semitones in the scale, why didn't they introduce more?" (Sensations of Tone, Dover edition, p. 280.) He didn't know the answer to that. The trio theory does.

4) Finally, the trio theory clearly announces (see the same webpage above) that everything from semitonal chromaticism, to dissonance, to long and short scales, to various forms of harmonic practice -- all existed from prehistory to the present.

But you fail to recognize dominant tendencies of a development in an evolution. For example: In the faces of a family, often we see a family "resemblance." But it is also true that we can see specific differences between each member of the family. Underneath the whole matter lies a genetic tendency -- despite the differences -- for each family member to look alike. The flaw in your argument is that you act as though you're using the existence of the differences to deny that there is a genetic dominant underlying tendency for them to look alike (in most cases) and throughout generations. I.E.: You use various music techniques and practices, the use of various harmonic methods, or other facets of music occurring at different times and places -- to deny the underlying tendency for a longer-range unfolding of an acoustic tendency toward the scales we now find so widespread in time and place and being so parallel to acoustics. You see the trees, but not the forest.

There are so many more errors of fact and understanding in your remarks that correcting them at length would be an enormous task.

It is, anyway, proper to include the matter as Fink has probably written more on the Origin of Music than anyone in the last 60 years. His place in this literature and his books in hundreds of leading research libraries 'round the world require a treatment of his work, whether you agree with it or not.

Fink's credentials includes being asked by Nature Journal -- the leading science journal in the world -- to serve as a juror regarding music in prehistory; He is published in many scholarly journals, including Archaeologia Musicalis; articles in other media (Scientific American; Times of London); Also:

Fink is writing a soon-to-appear 2007 article in a new musicology journal in Turkey;

Fink was asked for an article and was published 2003 in the proceedings of a world conference on music archaeology: Studies in Music Archaeology III;

He was cited seveeral times in the Mass. Inst. of Technology book The Origins of Music;

Invited -- all expenses paid -- to a biomusicology institute conference in Vienna to speak on music origins; -- and on and on.

Read these following URLs and then get back to this discussion only when you know some more -- all of the last 20 years or more of archaeological development in music seems to have escaped you entirely. Western music cannot any longer claim the diatonic scale. The pentatonic and the diatonic are the oldest widespread scales, clearly non-western. Before you propose to slash & burn what people write, learn about the subject more fully.

http://www.greenwych.ca/evidence.htm (Harmony 4,ooo year ago)

http://www.greenwych.ca/babies.htm (Clip on natural basis of consonance)

http://www.greenwych.ca/cycl-5-2.htm (The 7-note solution -- how scales evolve)

http://www.greenwych.ca/drone.htm (ancient counterpoint)

http://www.greenwych.ca/fl-compl.htm (Neanderthal Flute)

The conclusions of that archaeology/anthropology work above support in every way the parallels described in the trio theory, and serve as a serious body of data which now corroborates that theory and its acoustic-based explanations and predictions. It is far more fact than theory at this point.

"The person who does not read learns no more than the person who cannot read." (Anon) -- 65.255.225.43 20:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)