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From: maverick@fir.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: theory behind the scales
Message-ID: <26045@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 10 Jul 90 17:14:08 GMT
References: <8547@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> <1307@fs1.ee.ubc.ca>
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In article <1307@fs1.ee.ubc.ca>, jthornto@fs1.ee.ubc.ca (THORNTON JOHAN
A) writes:
> The major scale is indeed based on harmonics.  In the key of C (what else?) :
> [scale omitted]
> This is of course the true tempered scale.

This is actually the "Ptolemaic" or "Just" scale.  It has problems if
you want to play anything but I/IV/V; the supertonic triad, for example,
has the "wolf fifth" 40/27 (ratio 1.48 instead of 1.5).  "Tempering" it
would be to tweak some of the intervals so the worst case doesn't sound so bad.

The idea that the scale and the chords are based on the overtone series
dates (I think) from Rameau -- there's not much evidence we can bring to
bear, since people were using scales before they knew much about
harmony, and also before they wrote much about either.