[lbo-talk] For LBO's music theory crowd

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Sep 3 18:12:09 PDT 2009


On Sep 3, 2009, at 6:20 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:


> The premise that the 12-tone system is universal is just empirically
> wrong.

This is what the paper says: "All musical traditions employ a relatively small set of tonal intervals for composition and performance, each interval being defined by its relationship to the lowest tone of the set. Such sets are called musical scales. Despite some interesting variations such as the pélog scale used by Gamelan orchestras in Indonesia whose metallophone instruments generate nonharmonicovertones, the scales predominantly used in all cultures over the centuries have used some (or occasionally all) of the 12 tonal intervals that in Western musical terminology are referred to as the chromatic scale (Nettl, 1956 -------------- next part -------------- ; Carterette and Kendall, 1999 -------------- next part -------------- )."

Is this what you're saying is empirically wrong? Have Nettle and/or Carterette and Kendall, about whom I know nothing, been proved fakers?

Doug



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