Margo on Why 12 notes (long)

[Bdshull@AOL.COM]

Hi, Clyde:

<< Granted, some cultures use only the five-tone pentatonic scale, while 
others,
 using microtones, go beyond our familiar system.  But I've wondered if there 
is
 something "natural" about the twelve tones as most of us perceive them, or 
about
 the diatonic scales, all the variances of tuning differences notwithstanding.
  >>  

(In reference to Ed Foote's cross-post of Margo Schulter's piece on the 
history of the development of twelve tones in the octave)

That is certainly the case Leonard Bernstein was trying to make in his 
Harvard Lectures, that there is a kind of meta-tonality and diatonicity which 
compares to the meta-language characteristic in the human race - and that is 
an argument from the "soft science" of anthropology, I think.  And the 
Pythagorean/physics basis for harmony is an argument from the "hard" science 
of physics.  Certainly there is no dogmatic theology here, but maybe a 
rationale for the need of most forms of music to somehow reference - and of 
the tendency of the listener (and often the composer) of even structural 
atonality to continue to refer to - traditional ideas of consonance, even if 
effort is made to distance one's self from that orientation.  All of this, of 
course, seems to happen in historical cycles which provide the garden for the 
creative impulse.

Great post, Ed.

Bill Shull, RPT

In a message dated 3/8/01 4:26:22 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
cedel@supernet.com writes: