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To: cymbeline

I don’t know if it’s “luck”; I think it all comes down to the fundamentals of harmonics. Like, you could divide the octave into any number of intervals, equal or otherwise, but then your notes won’t necessarily line up with any of the notes on the harmonic sequence beyond the octave. The 12-tone division that we use just happens to have most of the important notes of that harmonic sequence represented closely by one of the 12 tones. And for the couple of notes of the sequence that don’t match up, we invented “blues” to add those extra notes back in :)


13 posted on 02/20/2023 11:28:31 AM PST by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman

“I don’t know if it’s “luck””

It’s mathematical “good fortune”. I don’t have a good enough ear (or is it auditory sense) to pick up the faint beats produced by the tempered scale.

A lot of music has chromatic harmony that would be a nightmare without the 12-tone scale.

It would be good for me to hear a chord played in the 12-tone scale and then in a perfectly tuned-for-that-chord scale.


17 posted on 02/20/2023 12:52:00 PM PST by cymbeline
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