3 ms·
The comment that confused you is largely wrong and confusing, so don't fret about it. But the 5+5=9 part is correct. It's a weird artifact of note-counting. C
by quadrangle 5y ago
The comment that confused you is largely wrong and confusing, so don't fret about it.
But the 5+5=9 part is correct. It's a weird artifact of note-counting. C D E F G is 5 letters. C to G is called "a fifth" (which is a horrendous use of language, but it's a perversion of saying "we got to the fifth letter"). G to D is also "a fifth". Stacking them means C to G and G to D, and you don't count the G twice, that's why 5+5=9 instead of 5+5=10. But if we had actually counted the steps through the letters instead of counting the starting note, it would be 4+4=8, and that's logical and correct, but you can't say that to musicians because that's not how music jargon works.
- srcreigh 5y agoAlthough that makes sense, I actually just figured out what the other person meant. A perfect 5th is a 3/2 ratioof the base frequency (3rd harmonic). If you square that fraction you'll get 9/4, which is a 9/major 2nd.
- quadrangle 5y agoYes, ratio math works without the strangeness. Except it's unfortunate that the 3rd harmonic is the fifth letter and the 5th harmonic is the third letter. Coincidentally, from harmonics 7 through 14, the harmonic numbers match the letter-count numbers. That's partly because 7:8 is the beginning of the harmonics being roughly whole-step sized, and 14:15 is where they shift into half-step size.