What is microtonal music: Difference between revisions

Line 1:

~~__FORCETOC__~~

~~=What is microtonal~~ music?=

While microtonal music may not be easy to define, most people know it when they hear it.

Conventional Western music uses 12 logarithmically equal semitones in the ~~<span style="">~~octave~~</span>~~ (the octave is a frequency ratio of 2:1 in Western music, or 1200 cents. A "cent" is defined as 1/100 of a semitone.)

Conventional Western music uses 12 logarithmically equal semitones in the octave (the octave is a frequency ratio of 2:1 in Western music, or 1200 cents. A "cent" is defined as 1/100 of a semitone.)

The difficulty in defining exactly what microtonal ~~<span style="">~~music~~</span>~~ '''''is''''' arises from the long history of Western music. Definitions of music have changed enormously over the past 2500 years of Western history, and as a result the very definition of what is and is not standard practice in Western has transformed beyond all recognition.

The difficulty in defining exactly what microtonal music '''''is''''' arises from the long history of Western music. Definitions of music have changed enormously over the past 2500 years of Western history, and as a result the very definition of what is and is not standard practice in Western has transformed beyond all recognition.

Let's take a look at several popular definitions of microtonality to see what's involved:

"All the world's music is microtonal." -- [[~~Johnny_Reinhard|~~Johnny Reinhard]]

: "All the world's music is microtonal." -- [[Johnny Reinhard]]

"Microtonal music is music which sounds audibly different from the standard Western tuning, and may include individual scale-steps which are either larger or smaller than the conventional semitone of Western music -- or both." -- [[~~Ivor_Darreg|~~Ivor Darreg]]

: "Microtonal music is music which sounds audibly different from the standard Western tuning, and may include individual scale-steps which are either larger or smaller than the conventional semitone of Western music -- or both." -- [[Ivor Darreg]]

"Microtonal music means music whose individual steps are smaller than the standard Western semitone." -- Grove's Dictionary Of Music and Musicians

: "Microtonal music means music whose individual steps are smaller than the standard Western semitone." -- Grove's Dictionary Of Music and Musicians

"It is not sufficient merely that a scale be numerically different from the conventional tuning in order to call is microtonal. It must sound audibly different." -- [[~~Ezra_Sims|~~Ezra Sims]]

: "It is not sufficient merely that a scale be numerically different from the conventional tuning in order to call is microtonal. It must sound audibly different." -- [[Ezra Sims]]

"These well temperaments are what we might call paper tunings: fine in theory, but in practice indistinguishable from the modern twelve tone equal temperament." -- J. Murray Barbour

: "These well temperaments are what we might call paper tunings: fine in theory, but in practice indistinguishable from the modern twelve tone equal temperament." -- J. Murray Barbour

By holding each of these definitions in our hand and turning it over in the light, we can see each separate facet of what makes music microtonal. The first definition, by Johnny Reinhard, seems as first glance entirely inadequate, since it does not define. A definition must eo ipso separate what is defined from what is not, and so Reinhard's description of microtonality would superficially appear useless. If all music is microtonal, then microtonal music has no distinguishing features. But if we look closer, we catch sight of a deeper meaning in Reinhard's gnostic oxymoron. What Johnny is probably getting at is the fact that while all music adheres in theory to a rigid set of restricted pitches, in actual practice real musicians in the real world typically bend these pitches for expressive purposes. A fine example can be found in Sinead O'Connor's song "Nothing Compares 2 U," in which she unmistakably intones melodic intervals much smaller than a semitone. This adds great plangency and pathos to the music, and she is obviously not signing in the conventional Western tuning. Or again, consider the Javanese gamelan. One gamelan is likely to use narrower pitches where another gamelan uses wider ones -- yet both gamelans ostensibly use the same tuning. Once again, we have an example in which pitch is warped for expressive purposes, yet not recognized on paper as doing so. This reminds to avoid the error of scriptism: i.e., concentrating on how music is notated, rather than how it sounds.

Line 54:

Line 52:

We must take care (when defining microtonality) not to indulge in the vulgar delusion that the Western world represents the aesthetic center of the universe. By calling "microtonal" all that which is non-Western, we subtly marginalize all musical culture other than Euro-North American musical culture. Not only is this unjust and unreasonable, it's stupid and ignorant. As sales of world music continue to skyrocket, it becomes ever clearer to music lovers in Europe and North America that the Western music tradition represents only a tiny fraction of the world's musical panorama. Non-western music offers vast beauties and amazing musical treasures, but we ought not to try to pigeonhole it as something defined by its opposition to Euro-American culture...since, after all, Western music remains by far the minority usage throughout the world. After all, well over 80% of the world's indigenous musical cultures politely refuse to use western tertian triadic harmony, decline to adhere to the Western belief in the harmonic series as the alleged basis of music, and pointedly rebut any application of mathematics or theory to their music. Indeed, as Jon Appleton has pointed out, most musical cultures throughout the world feel no need to explain or theorize about their music. Thus, many of the practices we Westerners consider essential to our music are not even found in the musical cultures of most other societies throughout the earth.

~~<tt></tt>~~

== Other terms used instead of "microtonal", or in addition to it ==

Because of the slipperiness of the term "microtonal", other terms have been deployed to describe this great big teeming mass of adventurously different-sounding music. One such term is "'''macrotonal'''". Macrotonal music only uses intervals which are larger than the semitone (but not necessarily multiples of it). Dividing the octave eight equal ways, for example, is a macrotonal tuning. The Javanese slendro tuning, with 5 unequal (but not justly tuned) pitches in a stretched octave, represents another example of a macrotonal tuning. Non-octave tunings like a Pythagorean JI tuning of 19 just perfect fifths in the 3:1 also presents us with an instance of a macrotonal tuning.

=Other terms used instead of "microtonal," or in addition to it=

Because of the slipperiness of the term "microtonal," other terms have been deployed to describe this great big teeming mass of adventurously different-sounding music. One such term is '''"macrotonal."''' Macrotonal music only uses intervals which are larger than the semitone (but not necessarily multiples of it). Dividing the octave eight equal ways, for example, is a macrotonal tuning. The Javanese slendro tuning, with 5 unequal (but not justly tuned) pitches in a stretched octave, represents another example of a macrotonal tuning. Non-octave tunings like a Pythagorean JI tuning of 19 just perfect fifths in the 3:1 also presents us with an instance of a macrotonal tuning.

Perhaps the most popular term other than "microtonal" is "xenharmonic."

Perhaps the most popular term other than "microtonal" is "xenharmonic".

==What is xenharmonic music?==

=== What is xenharmonic music? ===

'''Xenharmonic''' is a term coined by the late Ivor Darreg, from Greek ''xenos'' "strange, foreign" + ''harmonikos'' "sound, harmonic" to classify music in tunings that are definitely aurally distinct from the typical twelve tone equal tuning.

Unfortunately, "microtonal" implies that you're using tiny intervals when you may not be, and "xenharmonic" has been called "so...negative." However, we must recall that in the original Greek, ''xenos'' can also mean "hospitable" -- a fact of which Ivor never tired of reminding those who objected to the term "xenharmonic." He pointed out "xenharmonic can also mean `hospitable to different tones.'" Ivor also suggested the term '''"neoteric"''' music earlier on, circa the late 1950s. One objection to this term is that it means "recent in origin," while many audibly microtonal tunings, like the Greek enharmonic genus, are anything BUT recent in origin!

Unfortunately, "microtonal" implies that you're using tiny intervals when you may not be, and "xenharmonic" has been called "so...negative." However, we must recall that in the original Greek, ''xenos'' can also mean "hospitable" -- a fact of which Ivor never tired of reminding those who objected to the term "xenharmonic." He pointed out "xenharmonic can also mean `hospitable to different tones.'" Ivor also suggested the term "'''neoteric'''" music earlier on, circa the late 1950s. One objection to this term is that it means "recent in origin," while many audibly microtonal tunings, like the Greek enharmonic genus, are anything BUT recent in origin!

'''"Non-Western"''' sometimes proves a popular sobriquet. It has, as mentioned above, the drawback of implicitly defining modern conventional Western tuning as a universal standard. Since the conventional Western tuning of 12 equal semitones per octave did not even come into wide usage until roughly 300 years ago, and now seems to be going the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon as more and more young composers use laptops and softsynths to generate music in tunings far outside anything inconventional western music, it becomes inadvisable to declare as a universal bedrock that which seems more like quicksand. As the history of all musical cultures shows, music changes, and often quite radically. The granite monuments deemed absolute for eternity in one musical era often vanish like smoke in the desert, leaving behind hardly a trace of their existence -- as the transformation of Western music proves. Western music started as an entirely melodic monophonic choral form based on pairs of conjoined ''tetraktys'' (sets of 4 notes) based on the number 4, and not recognizing triads as musical structures. In the early middle ages, Western music changed to a Pythagorean diatonic 7 note system based on the number 3 with occasional dyads involving perfect fifths, perfect fourths, and octaves (''fauxbourdon''). During the later middle ages, Western music changed yet again to a 12 note system of medieval modes in which the vertical perfect fourth became recognized as a point of musical stasis, while the major third was used as a musical dissonance but the major second was allowed as semi-consonance (Gothic era of Perotinus and Longinus). During the Renaissance period, these rules turned upside down, and tertian triadic harmony was employed for the first time, along with prohibitions against using the fourth as the final cadence because it was now judged a musical dissonance, while the major third became a musical consonance. Such radical transformations in Western musical usage over the years have continued to the present day, when such innovations as tone clusters, synthesizers, xenharmonic tunings, algorithmic composition, extended performance techniques, homebuilt instruments and sonification of non-musical datasets (as in ''The Earth's Magnetic Field'' by Charles Dodge) have in the 21st century become commonplace. Given the fact of such transilient change in Western music, it seems unwise to declare one particular aspect of Western music as a universal standard by which all other musics everywhere on the planet ought to be measured.

"'''Non-Western'''" sometimes proves a popular sobriquet. It has, as mentioned above, the drawback of implicitly defining modern conventional Western tuning as a universal standard. Since the conventional Western tuning of 12 equal semitones per octave did not even come into wide usage until roughly 300 years ago, and now seems to be going the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon as more and more young composers use laptops and softsynths to generate music in tunings far outside anything inconventional western music, it becomes inadvisable to declare as a universal bedrock that which seems more like quicksand. As the history of all musical cultures shows, music changes, and often quite radically. The granite monuments deemed absolute for eternity in one musical era often vanish like smoke in the desert, leaving behind hardly a trace of their existence -- as the transformation of Western music proves. Western music started as an entirely melodic monophonic choral form based on pairs of conjoined ''tetraktys'' (sets of 4 notes) based on the number 4, and not recognizing triads as musical structures. In the early middle ages, Western music changed to a Pythagorean diatonic 7 note system based on the number 3 with occasional dyads involving perfect fifths, perfect fourths, and octaves (''fauxbourdon''). During the later middle ages, Western music changed yet again to a 12 note system of medieval modes in which the vertical perfect fourth became recognized as a point of musical stasis, while the major third was used as a musical dissonance but the major second was allowed as semi-consonance (Gothic era of Perotinus and Longinus). During the Renaissance period, these rules turned upside down, and tertian triadic harmony was employed for the first time, along with prohibitions against using the fourth as the final cadence because it was now judged a musical dissonance, while the major third became a musical consonance. Such radical transformations in Western musical usage over the years have continued to the present day, when such innovations as tone clusters, synthesizers, xenharmonic tunings, algorithmic composition, extended performance techniques, homebuilt instruments and sonification of non-musical datasets (as in ''The Earth's Magnetic Field'' by Charles Dodge) have in the 21st century become commonplace. Given the fact of such transilient change in Western music, it seems unwise to declare one particular aspect of Western music as a universal standard by which all other musics everywhere on the planet ought to be measured.

Another popular term is '''"alternative tuning."''' The problem with calling a tuning "alternative" of course is that it immediately raises the question "alternative to ''what?''" Our conventional western tuning of 12 semitones to the octave is, arguably, an alternative tuning -- an alternative to the 7 tone equal tuning used by the Are-Are people of the Solomon Islands. Now, it's easy enough to object that the musical culture of the Are-Are people ought not to be held up as the universal standard for every other musical throughout the world... But isn't that what we Euro-Americans do when we dismissively describe non-12-equal tunings as "alternative"?

Another popular term is "'''alternative tuning'''". The problem with calling a tuning "alternative" of course is that it immediately raises the question "alternative to ''what?''" Our conventional western tuning of 12 semitones to the octave is, arguably, an alternative tuning -- an alternative to the 7 tone equal tuning used by the Are-Are people of the Solomon Islands. Now, it's easy enough to object that the musical culture of the Are-Are people ought not to be held up as the universal standard for every other musical throughout the world... But isn't that what we Euro-Americans do when we dismissively describe non-12-equal tunings as "alternative"?

Toward the end of his life, Ivor Darreg coined yet another term -- '''"metachromatic."''' ''Meta'' means "above" or "beyond," while ''chromatic'' refers to the individual step of our musical scale. Some objection has been raised to this neologism as "excessively high-flown" and "too Greekified," but it has the distinct advantage of conveying the sense that the tuning sounds suitably different from conventional 12-equal without being specific on whether the scale-steps are smaller or larger than those in conventional Western music.

Toward the end of his life, Ivor Darreg coined yet another term -- "'''metachromatic'''". ''Meta'' means "above" or "beyond," while ''chromatic'' refers to the individual step of our musical scale. Some objection has been raised to this neologism as "excessively high-flown" and "too Greekified," but it has the distinct advantage of conveying the sense that the tuning sounds suitably different from conventional 12-equal without being specific on whether the scale-steps are smaller or larger than those in conventional Western music.

[mclaren 10/25/2006]

Yet another term is '''"ekmelic"''' - this one is used by the [http://www.ekmelic-music.org/ International Ekmelic Music Society] in Austria. The term comes from the Greek music theory: "ek Melos" is translated "out of range" - that is what pitches that were not included in the ancient Greek sound system were called. In the same meaning, the term can be used today for music that contains sounds that are outside of our traditional, [http://youtu.be/ztV8ONIMgmo 12-tone equal tempered system.]

Yet another term is "'''ekmelic'''" - this one is used by the [http://www.ekmelic-music.org/ International Ekmelic Music Society] in Austria. The term comes from the Greek music theory: "ek Melos" is translated "out of range" - that is what pitches that were not included in the ancient Greek sound system were called. In the same meaning, the term can be used today for music that contains sounds that are outside of our traditional, [http://youtu.be/ztV8ONIMgmo 12-tone equal tempered system.]

~~[[Category:general]]~~

[[~~Category~~:~~what_is~~]]

[[Categories:Overview]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-__FORCETOC__
+{{Wikipedia|Microtonal music}}
-=What is microtonal music?=
 While microtonal music may not be easy to define, most people know it when they hear it.
-Conventional Western music uses 12 logarithmically equal semitones in the <span style="">octave</span> (the octave is a frequency ratio of 2:1 in Western music, or 1200 cents. A "cent" is defined as 1/100 of a semitone.)
+Conventional Western music uses 12 logarithmically equal semitones in the octave (the octave is a frequency ratio of 2:1 in Western music, or 1200 cents. A "cent" is defined as 1/100 of a semitone.)
-The difficulty in defining exactly what microtonal <span style="">music</span> '''''is''''' arises from the long history of Western music. Definitions of music have changed enormously over the past 2500 years of Western history, and as a result the very definition of what is and is not standard practice in Western has transformed beyond all recognition.
+The difficulty in defining exactly what microtonal music '''''is''''' arises from the long history of Western music. Definitions of music have changed enormously over the past 2500 years of Western history, and as a result the very definition of what is and is not standard practice in Western has transformed beyond all recognition.
 Let's take a look at several popular definitions of microtonality to see what's involved:
-"All the world's music is microtonal." -- [[Johnny_Reinhard|Johnny Reinhard]]
+: "All the world's music is microtonal." -- [[Johnny Reinhard]]
-"Microtonal music is music which sounds audibly different from the standard Western tuning, and may include individual scale-steps which are either larger or smaller than the conventional semitone of Western music -- or both." -- [[Ivor_Darreg|Ivor Darreg]]
+: "Microtonal music is music which sounds audibly different from the standard Western tuning, and may include individual scale-steps which are either larger or smaller than the conventional semitone of Western music -- or both." -- [[Ivor Darreg]]
-"Microtonal music means music whose individual steps are smaller than the standard Western semitone." -- Grove's Dictionary Of Music and Musicians
+: "Microtonal music means music whose individual steps are smaller than the standard Western semitone." -- Grove's Dictionary Of Music and Musicians
-"It is not sufficient merely that a scale be numerically different from the conventional tuning in order to call is microtonal. It must sound audibly different." -- [[Ezra_Sims|Ezra Sims]]
+: "It is not sufficient merely that a scale be numerically different from the conventional tuning in order to call is microtonal. It must sound audibly different." -- [[Ezra Sims]]
-"These well temperaments are what we might call paper tunings: fine in theory, but in practice indistinguishable from the modern twelve tone equal temperament." -- J. Murray Barbour
+: "These well temperaments are what we might call paper tunings: fine in theory, but in practice indistinguishable from the modern twelve tone equal temperament." -- J. Murray Barbour
 By holding each of these definitions in our hand and turning it over in the light, we can see each separate facet of what makes music microtonal. The first definition, by Johnny Reinhard, seems as first glance entirely inadequate, since it does not define. A definition must eo ipso separate what is defined from what is not, and so Reinhard's description of microtonality would superficially appear useless. If all music is microtonal, then microtonal music has no distinguishing features. But if we look closer, we catch sight of a deeper meaning in Reinhard's gnostic oxymoron. What Johnny is probably getting at is the fact that while all music adheres in theory to a rigid set of restricted pitches, in actual practice real musicians in the real world typically bend these pitches for expressive purposes. A fine example can be found in Sinead O'Connor's song "Nothing Compares 2 U," in which she unmistakably intones melodic intervals much smaller than a semitone. This adds great plangency and pathos to the music, and she is obviously not signing in the conventional Western tuning. Or again, consider the Javanese gamelan. One gamelan is likely to use narrower pitches where another gamelan uses wider ones -- yet both gamelans ostensibly use the same tuning. Once again, we have an example in which pitch is warped for expressive purposes, yet not recognized on paper as doing so. This reminds to avoid the error of scriptism: i.e., concentrating on how music is notated, rather than how it sounds.
@@ Line 54: / Line 52: @@
 We must take care (when defining microtonality) not to indulge in the vulgar delusion that the Western world represents the aesthetic center of the universe. By calling "microtonal" all that which is non-Western, we subtly marginalize all musical culture other than Euro-North American musical culture. Not only is this unjust and unreasonable, it's stupid and ignorant. As sales of world music continue to skyrocket, it becomes ever clearer to music lovers in Europe and North America that the Western music tradition represents only a tiny fraction of the world's musical panorama. Non-western music offers vast beauties and amazing musical treasures, but we ought not to try to pigeonhole it as something defined by its opposition to Euro-American culture...since, after all, Western music remains by far the minority usage throughout the world. After all, well over 80% of the world's indigenous musical cultures politely refuse to use western tertian triadic harmony, decline to adhere to the Western belief in the harmonic series as the alleged basis of music, and pointedly rebut any application of mathematics or theory to their music. Indeed, as Jon Appleton has pointed out, most musical cultures throughout the world feel no need to explain or theorize about their music. Thus, many of the practices we Westerners consider essential to our music are not even found in the musical cultures of most other societies throughout the earth.
-<tt></tt>
+== Other terms used instead of "microtonal", or in addition to it ==
+Because of the slipperiness of the term "microtonal", other terms have been deployed to describe this great big teeming mass of adventurously different-sounding music. One such term is "'''macrotonal'''". Macrotonal music only uses intervals which are larger than the semitone (but not necessarily multiples of it). Dividing the octave eight equal ways, for example, is a macrotonal tuning. The Javanese slendro tuning, with 5 unequal (but not justly tuned) pitches in a stretched octave, represents another example of a macrotonal tuning. Non-octave tunings like a Pythagorean JI tuning of 19 just perfect fifths in the 3:1 also presents us with an instance of a macrotonal tuning.
-=Other terms used instead of "microtonal," or in addition to it=
-Because of the slipperiness of the term "microtonal," other terms have been deployed to describe this great big teeming mass of adventurously different-sounding music. One such term is '''"macrotonal."''' Macrotonal music only uses intervals which are larger than the semitone (but not necessarily multiples of it). Dividing the octave eight equal ways, for example, is a macrotonal tuning. The Javanese slendro tuning, with 5 unequal (but not justly tuned) pitches in a stretched octave, represents another example of a macrotonal tuning. Non-octave tunings like a Pythagorean JI tuning of 19 just perfect fifths in the 3:1 also presents us with an instance of a macrotonal tuning.
-Perhaps the most popular term other than "microtonal" is "xenharmonic."
+Perhaps the most popular term other than "microtonal" is "xenharmonic".
-==What is xenharmonic music?==
+=== What is xenharmonic music? ===
 '''Xenharmonic''' is a term coined by the late Ivor Darreg, from Greek ''xenos'' "strange, foreign" + ''harmonikos'' "sound, harmonic" to classify music in tunings that are definitely aurally distinct from the typical twelve tone equal tuning.
-Unfortunately, "microtonal" implies that you're using tiny intervals when you may not be, and "xenharmonic" has been called "so...negative." However, we must recall that in the original Greek, ''xenos'' can also mean "hospitable" -- a fact of which Ivor never tired of reminding those who objected to the term "xenharmonic." He pointed out "xenharmonic can also mean `hospitable to different tones.'" Ivor also suggested the term '''"neoteric"''' music earlier on, circa the late 1950s. One objection to this term is that it means "recent in origin," while many audibly microtonal tunings, like the Greek enharmonic genus, are anything BUT recent in origin!
+Unfortunately, "microtonal" implies that you're using tiny intervals when you may not be, and "xenharmonic" has been called "so...negative." However, we must recall that in the original Greek, ''xenos'' can also mean "hospitable" -- a fact of which Ivor never tired of reminding those who objected to the term "xenharmonic." He pointed out "xenharmonic can also mean `hospitable to different tones.'" Ivor also suggested the term "'''neoteric'''" music earlier on, circa the late 1950s. One objection to this term is that it means "recent in origin," while many audibly microtonal tunings, like the Greek enharmonic genus, are anything BUT recent in origin!
-'''"Non-Western"''' sometimes proves a popular sobriquet. It has, as mentioned above, the drawback of implicitly defining modern conventional Western tuning as a universal standard. Since the conventional Western tuning of 12 equal semitones per octave did not even come into wide usage until roughly 300 years ago, and now seems to be going the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon as more and more young composers use laptops and softsynths to generate music in tunings far outside anything inconventional western music, it becomes inadvisable to declare as a universal bedrock that which seems more like quicksand. As the history of all musical cultures shows, music changes, and often quite radically. The granite monuments deemed absolute for eternity in one musical era often vanish like smoke in the desert, leaving behind hardly a trace of their existence -- as the transformation of Western music proves. Western music started as an entirely melodic monophonic choral form based on pairs of conjoined ''tetraktys'' (sets of 4 notes) based on the number 4, and not recognizing triads as musical structures. In the early middle ages, Western music changed to a Pythagorean diatonic 7 note system based on the number 3 with occasional dyads involving perfect fifths, perfect fourths, and octaves (''fauxbourdon''). During the later middle ages, Western music changed yet again to a 12 note system of medieval modes in which the vertical perfect fourth became recognized as a point of musical stasis, while the major third was used as a musical dissonance but the major second was allowed as semi-consonance (Gothic era of Perotinus and Longinus). During the Renaissance period, these rules turned upside down, and tertian triadic harmony was employed for the first time, along with prohibitions against using the fourth as the final cadence because it was now judged a musical dissonance, while the major third became a musical consonance. Such radical transformations in Western musical usage over the years have continued to the present day, when such innovations as tone clusters, synthesizers, xenharmonic tunings, algorithmic composition, extended performance techniques, homebuilt instruments and sonification of non-musical datasets (as in ''The Earth's Magnetic Field'' by Charles Dodge) have in the 21st century become commonplace. Given the fact of such transilient change in Western music, it seems unwise to declare one particular aspect of Western music as a universal standard by which all other musics everywhere on the planet ought to be measured.
+"'''Non-Western'''" sometimes proves a popular sobriquet. It has, as mentioned above, the drawback of implicitly defining modern conventional Western tuning as a universal standard. Since the conventional Western tuning of 12 equal semitones per octave did not even come into wide usage until roughly 300 years ago, and now seems to be going the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon as more and more young composers use laptops and softsynths to generate music in tunings far outside anything inconventional western music, it becomes inadvisable to declare as a universal bedrock that which seems more like quicksand. As the history of all musical cultures shows, music changes, and often quite radically. The granite monuments deemed absolute for eternity in one musical era often vanish like smoke in the desert, leaving behind hardly a trace of their existence -- as the transformation of Western music proves. Western music started as an entirely melodic monophonic choral form based on pairs of conjoined ''tetraktys'' (sets of 4 notes) based on the number 4, and not recognizing triads as musical structures. In the early middle ages, Western music changed to a Pythagorean diatonic 7 note system based on the number 3 with occasional dyads involving perfect fifths, perfect fourths, and octaves (''fauxbourdon''). During the later middle ages, Western music changed yet again to a 12 note system of medieval modes in which the vertical perfect fourth became recognized as a point of musical stasis, while the major third was used as a musical dissonance but the major second was allowed as semi-consonance (Gothic era of Perotinus and Longinus). During the Renaissance period, these rules turned upside down, and tertian triadic harmony was employed for the first time, along with prohibitions against using the fourth as the final cadence because it was now judged a musical dissonance, while the major third became a musical consonance. Such radical transformations in Western musical usage over the years have continued to the present day, when such innovations as tone clusters, synthesizers, xenharmonic tunings, algorithmic composition, extended performance techniques, homebuilt instruments and sonification of non-musical datasets (as in ''The Earth's Magnetic Field'' by Charles Dodge) have in the 21st century become commonplace. Given the fact of such transilient change in Western music, it seems unwise to declare one particular aspect of Western music as a universal standard by which all other musics everywhere on the planet ought to be measured.
-Another popular term is '''"alternative tuning."''' The problem with calling a tuning "alternative" of course is that it immediately raises the question "alternative to ''what?''" Our conventional western tuning of 12 semitones to the octave is, arguably, an alternative tuning -- an alternative to the 7 tone equal tuning used by the Are-Are people of the Solomon Islands. Now, it's easy enough to object that the musical culture of the Are-Are people ought not to be held up as the universal standard for every other musical throughout the world... But isn't that what we Euro-Americans do when we dismissively describe non-12-equal tunings as "alternative"?
+Another popular term is "'''alternative tuning'''". The problem with calling a tuning "alternative" of course is that it immediately raises the question "alternative to ''what?''" Our conventional western tuning of 12 semitones to the octave is, arguably, an alternative tuning -- an alternative to the 7 tone equal tuning used by the Are-Are people of the Solomon Islands. Now, it's easy enough to object that the musical culture of the Are-Are people ought not to be held up as the universal standard for every other musical throughout the world... But isn't that what we Euro-Americans do when we dismissively describe non-12-equal tunings as "alternative"?
-Toward the end of his life, Ivor Darreg coined yet another term -- '''"metachromatic."''' ''Meta'' means "above" or "beyond," while ''chromatic'' refers to the individual step of our musical scale. Some objection has been raised to this neologism as "excessively high-flown" and "too Greekified," but it has the distinct advantage of conveying the sense that the tuning sounds suitably different from conventional 12-equal without being specific on whether the scale-steps are smaller or larger than those in conventional Western music.
+Toward the end of his life, Ivor Darreg coined yet another term -- "'''metachromatic'''". ''Meta'' means "above" or "beyond," while ''chromatic'' refers to the individual step of our musical scale. Some objection has been raised to this neologism as "excessively high-flown" and "too Greekified," but it has the distinct advantage of conveying the sense that the tuning sounds suitably different from conventional 12-equal without being specific on whether the scale-steps are smaller or larger than those in conventional Western music.
 [mclaren 10/25/2006]
-Yet another term is '''"ekmelic"''' - this one is used by the [http://www.ekmelic-music.org/ International Ekmelic Music Society] in Austria. The term comes from the Greek music theory: "ek Melos" is translated "out of range" - that is what pitches that were not included in the ancient Greek sound system were called. In the same meaning, the term can be used today for music that contains sounds that are outside of our traditional, [http://youtu.be/ztV8ONIMgmo 12-tone equal tempered system.]
+Yet another term is "'''ekmelic'''" - this one is used by the [http://www.ekmelic-music.org/ International Ekmelic Music Society] in Austria. The term comes from the Greek music theory: "ek Melos" is translated "out of range" - that is what pitches that were not included in the ancient Greek sound system were called. In the same meaning, the term can be used today for music that contains sounds that are outside of our traditional, [http://youtu.be/ztV8ONIMgmo 12-tone equal tempered system.]
-[[Category:general]]
-[[Category:what_is]]
+[[Categories:Overview]]