music notation

[gpeters]

I've been reading up on musical notation; my family's new piano isn't set up at home for a little over a week, but I have spent some time reading music, visualizing my fingers on the keys and such

Comments

More info on tunings

[anonymous]

There's some interesting info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament
especially starting at General Properties and following. Soft-synths often allow finer (cent-based) tunings...

[kiwano]

Of course, not everyone picks seven notes, or uses the major/minor modes even if they do. One major school of music is the chinese, and they use a five note scale. Play a song using only the black keys, and it's all chinese sounding! In fact, for any conventional major/minor key, the five keys you're not playing will make a fine pentatonic scale suitable for use in Chinese music.

Indeed, the last several times I've had the opportunity to sit down at a keyboard, I've spent my time playing around with an 8 note scale, consisting entirely of alternating tones and semitones. I find it really neat, because this stacks the scale all full of tritones and minor 3rds (and skips a lot of opportunities for perfect 4ths and 5ths). Of course this means that it sounds creepy as all hell.

It kind of freaks me out that these two cultures independantly decided on a twelve pitch scale (why is that done? to maximise the potential for harmonious and not-harmonious notes? I notice a perfect fifth for instance can occur in a twelve pitch scale, and that'

[anonymous]

I don't recall the details, but a math/music grad student once convinced me that the basis of the number of notes in the scale has to do with rational approximations to some irrational number. Hmn