35. Minimalist piece for Mp3 player, Class 20 Locomotive and Spoken Word.
I was looking at the harmonic series. As is typical, wikipedia describes the interval of the minor third as an approximation of the interval 16:19 where 16 is the root note and 19 is the 19th harmonic which is virtually the minor third.
This is absurd and is only paying lipservice to the myth of tonal theory.
The true nature of the minor third is much simpler : 5:6 where 5 is the median of the scale and 6 is the dominant. All it takes to arrive at this simpler form is to lay aside the illusion of necessity for the tonic to exert any influence.
The notes of the scale in all music are derived from the very simplest intervals: primarily the fifth (2:3 and 3:4):
F C G D A gives you pentatonic scales. Extend it further to F C G D A E B and you have the diatonic modes (all of them).
Beyond this it leads to the full chromatic scale. In general, the simpler the culture, the more likely to stop earlier in the series of fifths, hence so much pentatonic and diatonic folk music.
With the addition of the next simplest intervals, the major and minor thirds/sixths (4:5 / 5:8 and 5:6 / 3:5), all homophonic music can be explained, from the 'purest' tonal music consisting only in modifications of major and minor triads, through to the wildest complexities of chromatic harmony including the infamously degenerate jazz '13th' chords.
But insist on the tonal centre of gravity anchoring it all and things become impossibly complicated very quickly.
The fact that the ubiquitously common interval of the minor third depends on such an obscure ratio under tonality should be enough to raise eyebrows about the system's validity, but tonal theorists seem perfectly content to assume that cultures the world over just happened to stumble upon the minor third as a useful interval in spite of its obscurity whilst ignoring SIMPLER ones such as 7:11 (the very flat fifth).
The truth is, 7:11 is TOO obscure, as is 16:19; but the minor third as 5:6 is mundane and to be expected to occur universally.
A consequence of this possibility, however, is that the E-flat in the C Minor chord stems from an harmonic root of A-flat, not of C at all. I would speculate that the reason for the apparent C-ness of a C Minor chord is the dominance of the G: the G in the chord is a simple harmonic of both C AND E-flat, and when doubly reinforced in that way, it can only be perceived as a tonic or a dominant force in the chord. Given that a tonic would be an impossibly complex aggregate of 13:16:21, it can only be the dominant of the chord, leading us to perceive it as a chord of C.
That's just my speculation, but I definitely wouldn't be satisfied with a system which assumes such a central role for such complex physical intervals whilst precluding simpler ones without explanation.
LOL bit of a techie email (and yet another TONALITY DOESN'T EXIST rant!), sorry bout that! Here's the wiki page anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(music)
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4:06
Lonely Streetsby homophonical730 views
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