User:Lhearne/Extra-Diatonic Intervals: Difference between revisions

Dating back at least to 1880, after Alexander Ellis and John Land, the interval 7/6 has been associated with the label ''subminor third''. in a generalisation of this idea, 9/7 is most commonly reffered to as a ''supermajor third,'' 12/7 a ''supermajor sixth'', 14/9 a ''subminor sixths,'' 8/7 a ''supermajor second,'' 7/4 a ''subminor seventh'', 27/14 a ''supermajor seventh'' and 28/27 a ''subminor second.'' This system was further generalised by some theorists and musicians such that an interval a bit smaller than a major is referred to as a ''subminor third'', and an interval a bit larger than a minor third as a ''supraminor third''. Notice that 'supra' is used instead of 'super', but 'sub' is still used. Similarly defined are submajor and supraminor seconds, sixths and sevenths. 'Sub' and 'super' prefixes have also seen occasional application to the perfect scale degrees. Like in the case of the submajor 3rd, etc., super and sub unisons, fourths, fifths and octaves are not associated with particular frequency ratio by all or most microtonal musicians and theorists. In the case of seconds, thirds, sixths and sevenths, intervals half way between major and minor are often called 'neutral'. Finally, in limited use are 'intermediates', where an interval in-between a major 3rd and a perfect fourth, for example, is referred to as a 'third-fourth'. There are undoubtedly other interval naming practice that exists that are not as well known to the author, which are likely to be less commonly used. Although all these microtonal interval naming concepts are in common use, there is not yet a complete system that defined them, only complete systems that depart from them.