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>But you may be surprised to learn that the twelve musical tones that shape our very understanding of Western music today is extremely narrow. Grammar aside, t
by stevage 2y ago
>But you may be surprised to learn that the twelve musical tones that shape our very understanding of Western music today is extremely narrow.
Grammar aside, the twelve musical tones that comprise Western music are, well, the good ones. It's not like there are thousands of notes out there and we randomly picked 12 and didn't think about the rest. We picked the 12 best ones.
- cyberme0w 2y agoI find it a bit reductive to say equal temperament has 'the good [tones]'. I think 'the least bad tones' would probably be more accurate, in the sense that no matter what you are playing (i.e. which note(s)/scale(s) the piece is centered on), it'll sound fairly OK, even though some intervals are not what they should be. It sounds pleasant to the ear because that's what most people hear all day. Other cultures have developed a slightly different relationship with harmony, leading to them considering other tones 'good'. For a cheeky example of what I mean with 'the least bad tones', feel free to check this short demo by Jacob Collier[1], about just how out of tune equal temperament is. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGDWXe2u9kw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGDWXe2u9kw
- stevage 2y agoThe fact that equal temperament is imperfect is a bit of a side issue. The 12 tone scale was settled well before that came along. The fact that our 12 tones, which are mostly made of simple ratios of frequencies, sound good is not a coincidence.