Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!ucsd!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!fir.berkeley.edu!maverick
From: maverick@fir.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: theory behind the scales
Message-ID: <26060@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 10 Jul 90 22:33:33 GMT
References: <8547@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> <1307@fs1.ee.ubc.ca> <26045@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1312@fs1.ee.ubc.ca>
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Reply-To: maverick@fir.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick)
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In article <1312@fs1.ee.ubc.ca>, jthornto@fs1.ee.ubc.ca (THORNTON JOHAN
A) writes:
> Sure, people were using scales long before they figured out what harmony
> means.  The reason they used them was that it sounded good.  A major chord,
> say C-E-G has frequency ratio 4:5:6.  The three superimposed sounds "beat"
> in a very short interval.  Inharmonic tones have a longer (and unrelated)
> beat interval, so it sounds unpleasant.

	Again, you're basing a claim about preharmonic music on a harmonic
claim (Helmholtz's this time, instead of Rameau's).   Why should people
who never isolated the sound of the first, third and fifth degrees
together have worried about its beating?