Piano World Home Page Forums General Discussions Musicians Welcome! Why are their only 7 notes?

What is your suggestion?

This thread is so full of false assumptions... The answer to the question is so long and complicated that I'm not going to bother to write it all out, but if you read AND Understand the following articles, you should be able to figure it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meantone_temperament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_tuning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament

As for your assumption that dividing the octave into 12 different notes is the only right way, here's some info on other useful equal temperaments:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_tone_equal_temperament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31_tone_equal_temperament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/41_equal_temperament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/72_equal_temperament

I believe they begin with the title itself. Why limit the discussion to Western music?

Although the OP invited complaints and questions, and I'm accused of unfriendliness for offering them, my questions remain unanswered. I'd like to know what the angle is here!

How can this be an innocent discussion? Why would a music theorist have these misunderstandings of, or make these erroneous assumptions about, music theory?

Steven

The sig on the bottom is a link to a paid product. Each post is potentially an advertisement.

I think we devised the "western" scale by singing it. What sounded good in the human vocal range was decided long before math folks got interested. 'Sorry theorists.

Here's a start:
History - Dolmetschonline It begins by covering other cultures as well, such as China.

I've been given a fascinating book called "Music in the Western World - a History in Documents" which is probably meant as a companion book to music study. It gives snapshots through the writings of people of the period as they argue and think their way through the trends of the day, with some small explanations. It's like being there.

Tuning triads has nothing to do with harmony. The strongest relationship of two notes is the octave, 2:1. The next strongest is the fifth, 3:2. The fourth is a cognate of that, 4:3. Then comes the major third, 5:4. These are the easiest intervals to tune. They arise naturally on horns. They can be played on bugles. You can make them on strings by making nodes.

Tuning three triads results in enough notes for all the Western ecclesiastical scales. It is not the equal-tempered scale, although it is similar. But you can still do a lot with just those notes.

Mathematical and scientific it definitely is and not just from usage of humans in making music over time.

The solfeggio was in place by Guido d'Arezzo singing Gregorian Chant in early time.

Go back even earlier, folks! Antiquity calleth with the lute and the drum.

"Go back even earlier, folks! Antiquity calleth with the lute and the drum." BP

You got that right! I've worked as a piano technician for 35+ years and played guitar on the side for relaxation. I was always fascinated by the versatility of the "western" scale in playing music, and had to deal with the mathematical complexities in my work as a piano tuner.

I got quite a shock when I finally decided to investigate origin of the 12-tone scale. Apparently, we just sang it. No music theorists pondered it. No Math types labored over it ... until later. We just opened our collective mouths and belted it out.

Are we discussing 12 tones or major and minor modes? Betty, did you mean to imply that since antiquity we simply sang and the scales just happened? David, are you refering to the major and minor scale as they exist now with the "7 notes" or the fact of the division of the 12 tones, the properties of P4 & P5 etc.?

Keystring questions: "Betty, did you mean to imply that since antiquity we simply sang and the scales just happened?"

No. Primitive manmade instruments were first - flutelike, stringlike, drum. Men's voices in religious services, folk music.

Notice the distances of the holes on those 16th Century History - Dolmetschonline - that you referred us to - mathematically spaced - symmetrical. This is in alignment with acoustics being produced.

Scales were Guido d'Arezzos' domain in singing the Gregorian Chants with the brothers and teaching tones from the first words in each line of the chants. Hildegarde von Bingen would be a good resource for works in the women's awakening voice world.

I am saying in Antiquity the organization was starting there as a factor for the future from common usage. Music was conjunct before it was disjunct. Short before long. Few tones/pitches before there were octaves of them on keyboard instruments and organ. Single not multiple ensemble (orchestras and oratorios and opera were much later).

Evolution of music, step by step, in all countries as time went on. The invention of the printing press being a huge influence on the writting records of knowledge, history, communication and mankind.

Things were timely and developmental in their discovery and usage. From simple to ornate.

This is a simplistic and rather vague response to all the volumes of books one might read about antiquity. And, different countries are having their own experiences at any particular time.

The question that was asked, however, was why the present system has 7 main notes in the scale, and in that arrangement of intervals. Some of us have already referred to the philosophy that went together with the physics and led to the mathematics. It was not just spontaneous singing. Plato was a philosopher and pursued deep values and disciplines which found their expression in mathematical ratios, and in tightly held tradition in singing. This philosophy, which included an idea of unity and balance, found itself into early Christian church music. Some of the elements are tangled up in the question of the 7 notes.

I think I remember reading that originally we were supposed to be adopting Dorian or some other mode, as our main mode rather than the Ionian which has become our modern major scale. It had to do with what time of character it would call forth in a human being: whether courage, industry and the like. The modes were linked to elements of philosophy and character, not only mathematics - or rather they were all linked together in some way.

The math and the physics were in there, but as I understand it this was only part of the history of how our scales got their present 7-note form.

I don't think the 7 notes scale came out of singing.
Most of the people would sing out of tune with out a musical instrument that play along with them.
So i wander if they opened their mouth and sang in C major.

Take for example Arabic music that have 1/4 tones. For an Arab person that is the right way of singing. They even say that it is natural for the human voice to sing that way. For them - singing western music or even hear it is almost painful to the ear.
So it is for some Indian or African music.

Man must have opened his mouth and sang but i think that once there were musical instruments then the musical tones that was sang before changed in relation to it.
Once musical instrument were born then in order to manufacture them you would need some kind of a formula. That's where math or physics comes in and as a consequence changes the origin.

Where do you think the 7 notes of a scale came from, Prima Vista?

Many singers are trained to sing a capella without going out of tune. It's not that hard.

You are talking about trained a capella singers.
We were talking about the natural way we sing. And because we are living in the western world and hear this scale all our life we sure will try to sing that way.
I think the scale came from a mix of singing and math order and I give math and then physics a higher rate on this matter.

Love the site. The half-filled note looks like an exceptional idea. Why didn't I think of that?

I have read this article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_tuning
and others like it. Not light reading when the tables of frequencies melt my brain but interesting.


Pythagoras's experiments were with a monochord and his concern was over the magical properties of integer value ratios of intervals creating harmony. As to a genuine interest in music, I don't know.
I have an audiobook which walks through what he did. I calculated the frequency values and filled in the note names as each interval was discovered. This isn't E=mc2 mathematics even though I was a bit rusty with it and using a spreadsheet.


This is true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnbOWi6f_IM
@ around 2.55, this is perhaps more interesting than the 7 note theory. The in an episode about rhythm, speech is associated with music.

Another speech connection to music.
"Because the neum system arose from the need to notate songs, exact timing was initially not a particular issue because the music would generally follow the natural rhythms of the Latin language"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_notation#Early_Europe


Also in 1 paper about AP I remember something about the preference of the original 7 notes (whites notes) are used in some languages. Obviously not using them all at once otherwise it would be called..singing. :p
But the point they were making that notes of c major/a minor were more likely to appear in speech than the accidentals.

To say Pythagoras or any scientist invented music by their discoveries is wrong because is were only back-engineering something that was already there.


We all know but.....
Because the Google search engine ranks sites by the number of links attached to it. Every one of your posts gives you a brownie point.

Hopefully a search for primavista on Google doesn't result in the user coming here to these very pages for an interesting read.
But yes it is odd that a music theorist is asking questions that he should know the answers to.

I don't rightly understand one of the first questions anyway because of the use of language.
Is the question "why are pitch collections (scales) in western music generally made up of only 7 notes?".

I am talking about me. One can manage to sing and stay in tune without drifting without recourse to another instrument.

Posted by Devane

"I don't rightly understand one of the first questions anyway because of the use of language.
Is the question "why are pitch collections (scales) in western music generally made up of only 7 notes?"."

If the 7 notes were evolved from singing that's OK.
No problem with that. The question is why those 7 notes and why they are arrange this way.
If the 12 notes system is born because of ratio that arise from physics then that's how nature is acting. We are part of nature so surly we will use this 12 note system and we will get to it along history.
But... it is a 12 notes system and not 7 notes. The 7 notes are not a complete system. It is part of the 12 notes system so even if it developed from singing and talking it is part of some bigger system.
The question is how do we get from 12 to 7 and why those 7. Physics don't have an answer for that. It has an answer for the 12 notes system.
In order to find out the connection between 12 to 7 we need to go to math. I think the answer for this connection is there and if it is there then a math theory of how the notes are interacting with one another can explain the development of music.

But we know how it evolved. There is history behind it. That history resides in philosophy and idealism for which the physics and mathematics were a vehicle. It's not a matter of speculation.