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

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 === Zarlino and Meantone ===
-[[File:Della proprietà del numero Senario & della sue parti; & come in esse si ritroua ogni consonanze musicale, figura 1.png|thumb|538.976x538.976px|''Le institutioni harmoniche,'' Zarlino, 1558, Cap. 15: Della proprietà del numero Senario & della sue parti; & come in esse si ritroua ogni consonanze musicale, figura 1, pg. 25.]]
+[[File:Della proprietà del numero Senario & della sue parti; & come in esse si ritroua ogni consonanze musicale, figura 1.png|thumb|572.986x572.986px|''Le institutioni harmoniche,'' Zarlino, 1558, Cap. 15: Della proprietà del numero Senario & della sue parti; & come in esse si ritroua ogni consonanze musicale, figura 1, pg. 25.]]
 Intervals were referred to by the Ancient Greek names through the the 18th century, as Latin names. By the Renaissance it had been discovered that a Pythagorean diminished fourth sounded sweet, and approximated the string length ratio 5/4. This just tuning for the major third was sought after, along with the complementary 6/5 tuning for the minor third, and octave complements to both - 8/5 for the minor sixth and 5/3 for the major sixth. Influential Italian music theorist and composer Gioseffo Zarlino put forth that choirs tuned the diatonic scale to the tuning built from this tetrachord, the ''intense diatonic scale'', also known as the ''syntonic or syntonus diatonic scale'' or the ''Ptolemaic sequence'':
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 Music theorist and mathematician Robert Smith provides the diagram and table on the right in his 1749 ''Harmonics, or, The Philosophy of Musical Sounds,'' with the description: <blockquote>'Fig. 2. If a musical string ''CO'' and it's parts ''DO'', ''EO'', ''FO'', ''GO'', ''AO'', ''BO'', ''cO'', be in proportion to one another as the numbers 1, 8/9, 4/5, 3/4, 2/3, 3/5, 8/15, 1/2, their vibrations will exhibit the system of 8 sounds which musicians donate by the letters ''C'', ''D'', ''E'', ''F'', ''G'', ''A'', ''B'', ''c''.</blockquote><blockquote>Fig. 3. And supposing those strings to be ranged like ordinates to a right line ''Cc'', and their distances ''CD'', ''DE'', ''EF'', ''FG'', ''GA'', ''AB'', ''BC'', not to be the differences of their lengths, as in fig. 2. but to be the magnitudes proportional to the intervals of their sounds, the received Names of these intervals are shewn in the following Table; and are taken from the numbers of the strings or sounds in each interval inclusively; as a Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, &c, with the epithet of ''major'' or ''minor'', according as the name or number belongs to a greater of smaller total interval; the difference of which results chiefly from the different magnitudes of the major and minor second, called the Tone and Hemitone.'</blockquote>We note that Smith uses the tuning of the diatonic scale that Zarlino put forward: the Ptolemaic Sequence.
-We may be surprised to see 4:3 here labelled as a minor Fourth, and 3/2 as a major Fifth, but it is obvious that this naming is more consistent than today's. Smith adds that <blockquote>'Any one of the ratios in the third column of the foregoing Table, except 80 to 81, or any one of them compounded once of oftener with the ratio 2 to 1 or 1 to 2, is called a Perfect ratio when reduced to it's least terms. And when the times of the single vibrations of any two sounds have a perfect ratio, the consonance and it's interval too after called Perfect; and is called Imperfect or Tempered when that perfect ratio and interval is a little increased or decreased.'</blockquote><blockquote>'Any small increment of decrement of a perfect interval is called respectively the Sharp or Flat Temperament of the imperfect consonance, and is measured most conveniently by the proportion it bears to the comma'</blockquote>Therefore in this system 3/2 is the ''Perfect major Fifth'' and 5/4 the ''Perfect major Third''. 81/64 might be labelled a ''comma sharp major Third'', 32/27 a ''comma flat minor Third'', and the 1/4-comma Meantone fifth a ''1/4-comma flat major Fifth''. The interval naming scheme Smith describes may be immediately applied to 5-limit microtonal systems.
+We may be surprised to see 4:3 here labelled as a minor Fourth, and 3/2 as a major Fifth, but it is obvious that this naming is more consistent than today's. Smith adds that <blockquote>'Any one of the ratios in the third column of the foregoing Table, except 80 to 81, or any one of them compounded once of oftener with the ratio 2 to 1 or 1 to 2, is called a Perfect ratio when reduced to it's least terms. And when the times of the single vibrations of any two sounds have a perfect ratio, the consonance and it's interval too after called Perfect; and is called Imperfect or Tempered when that perfect ratio and interval is a little increased or decreased.'</blockquote><blockquote>'Any small increment of decrement of a perfect interval is called respectively the Sharp or Flat Temperament of the imperfect consonance, and is measured most conveniently by the proportion it bears to the comma'</blockquote>Therefore in this system 3/2 is the ''Perfect major Fifth'' and 5/4 the ''Perfect major Third''. 81/64 might be labelled a ''comma sharp major Third'', 32/27 a ''comma flat minor Third'', and the 1/4-comma Meantone fifth a ''1/4-comma flat major Fifth''. The interval naming scheme Smith describes may be immediately applied to 5-limit microtonal systems. There is an inconsistency, however, where It seems that 9/8 should be called a ''Perfect major Second,'' but that, while 9/5 be named a ''comma sharp minor Seventh'', it's inverse, 10/9, is a ''Perfect minor Tone.''
+[[File:Helmholtz consonances table.png|thumb|616.997x616.997px|Table describing the influence of the different consonances on one another, up to the 9th partial, from ''On the Sensations of Tone as a Phycological Basis for Theory of Music'', Helmholtz, 1863, Translation by Ellis, 1875, pg. 187]]
 === Helmholtz and Ellis ===
-Names were given also to 7 and 11-limit ratios in the 19th century. In ''Notes on the Observations of Musical Beats'', Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 1880, Alexander Ellis named many just intervals of the 7-limit (including 3 and 5-limit intervals):<blockquote>‘Fifth 3:2, Fourth 4:3, Major Third 5:4, Minor Third 6:5, Major Sixth 5:3, Sub-Fifth 7:5, Super-Fourth 10:7, Super-major Third 9:7, Sub-minor Sixth 14:9, Sub-minor Third 7:6, Super-major Sixth 12:7, Sub-minor or Harmonic Seventh 7:4, Super-major Second 8:7, Major Tone 9:8, Minor Tone 10:9, Small Major Seventh 9:5 and Diatomic (sic.) Semitone 16:15’</blockquote>He later lists ‘The Major Sevenths 16:9 and 15:8’. The labeling of 16:9 as a Major Seventh and 9:5 as a Small Major Seventh is interesting. Given that 9:5 is larger than 16:9, and no Minor Seventh is mentioned, we can assume 16:9 was mislabeled as a Major Seventh and was understood to be a Minor Seventh, as we today understand it, especially given that it is exactly two 4:3 Fourths.
+Through the investigations of Galileo (1638), Newton, Euler (1729), and Bernouilli (1771), theorist Hermann von Helmholtz was aware that ratios governing the lengths of strings existed also for the vibrations of the tones they produced. His investigation of the harmonic series associated with these ratios of vibration led him to the consideration of ratios above the 5-limit. In his seminal ''On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music'', published in German in 1863 and translated into English in 1875 by Alexander Ellis, he listed just intervals as show in the table to the right. It is interesting to note that 8:9 is labelled a 'Second' rather than a 'major Second'. The minor Seventh is shown as 5:9 rather than as 9:16 seemingly because of the 9 partial limit imposed on the table. It is also worth noting that 5:7 is labelled a subminor Fifth. 'Super', indicated in notation with a '+', raises an interval by 35:36, the septimal quarter tone, and 'sub', indicated with a '-' lowers by the same interval with the exception of the Supersecond 7:8, which lies 63:64, the septimal comma above the Second. The subminor fifth is not included in this as no minor Fifth is shown. If we assume that 'sub' lowers an interval 35:36, then the minor Fifth would be 25:25, 80:81 above Smith's 64:45 minor Fifth. If we label 9:10 as a 'major Second', and 7:8 as a 'supermajor Second' then they differ by 35:36, the major Second is the inverse of the minor Seventh, and the supermajor Second is the octave inverse of the subminor Seventh. Perhaps 'major' has been left off name of the major Fifth, and minor off the name of the minor Fourth since the time of Smith. We can add to this table the remaining octave inversions as well as the super Fourth and sub Fifth.
+{| class="wikitable"
+|+Additional Intervals
+!Intervals
+!Notation
+!Ratio
+!Cents in the interval
+|-
+|Major Second
+|D
+|9:10
+|182
+|-
+|Sub Fourth
+|F-
+|16:21
+|471
+|-
+|Supermajor Fourth
+|F#+
+|7:10
+|617
+|-
+|Super Fifth
+|G+
+|21:32
+|729
+|-
+|Subminor Sixth
+|A♭-
+|9:14
+|765
+|-
+|Supermajor Sixth
+|A+
+|7:12
+|933
+|}
+Helmholtz defined the ''perfect consonances'' as the Octave, Twelfth and Double Octave as well as Fourth and Fifth. The major Sixth and major Third are next called ''medial consonances'', considered to in the era of Pythagorean tuning to be ''imperfect consonances'', which Helmholtz defined instead to be the minor Third and the minor Sixth.
+In ''Notes on the Observations of Musical Beats'', Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 1880, Ellis named many just intervals of the 7-limit (including 3 and 5-limit intervals):<blockquote>‘Fifth 3:2, Fourth 4:3, Major Third 5:4, Minor Third 6:5, Major Sixth 5:3, Sub-Fifth 7:5, Super-Fourth 10:7, Super-major Third 9:7, Sub-minor Sixth 14:9, Sub-minor Third 7:6, Super-major Sixth 12:7, Sub-minor or Harmonic Seventh 7:4, Super-major Second 8:7, Major Tone 9:8, Minor Tone 10:9, Small Major Seventh 9:5 and Diatomic (sic.) Semitone 16:15’</blockquote>He later lists ‘The Major Sevenths 16:9 and 15:8’. The labeling of 16:9 as a Major Seventh and 9:5 as a Small Major Seventh is interesting and at odds with Smith's interval names. Given that 9:5 is larger than 16:9, and no Minor Seventh is mentioned, we can assume 16:9 was mislabeled as a Major Seventh and was understood to be a Minor Seventh, as referred to by Smith.
 There is an inconsistency associated with the labeling of 9:5 as a Small Major Seventh also, as it lies a 3:2 Fifth above the 6:5 Minor Third, and we know a fifth and a minor third when added together to give a minor, rather than major seventh.
+Ellis here uses the name for 8:7 we suggested above, Super-major Second, and includes our suggested Sub-minor Sixth and Super-major Sixth, however rather than Subminor Fifth and Supermajor Fourth, 7:5 and 10:7 are labelled Sub-Fifth and Super-Fourth, where in this instance sub and super are seen to raise and lower by 21:20 instead of by 36:35.
 /1, 3/2 and 4/3 were labelled 'perfect' because they were seen to be the perfect consonances. The two sizes of second, third, sixth and seventh in the diatonic scale are labelled ''major'' or ''minor'', the larger sizes of each labelled major. Any perfect or major interval raised by a chromatic semitone (the difference, for e.g. between C and C#) is referred to as 'Augmented' and any minor or perfect interval lowered by a chromatic semitone is referred to as 'diminished'.
+Ellis, in a footnote to his translation also provides names for 11-limit intervals. The interval 22:27, of 355c, introduced by Zalzal, says Ellis was termed a ''neutral Third'' by Herr J. P. N. Land originally in ''Over de Toonladders der Arabische Musiek'' (On the Scales of Arabic Music) in 1880. An interval a fourth higher than this is mentioned, but a ratio is not given, and it is not named. We can ourselves however find it's ratio as 11:18, and guess it's name to be a ''neutral Sixth''. Following a similar process as in our completion of Helmholtz table above, and assuming that the octave inverse of a neutral Third should be a neutral Sixth we may introduce the following 11-limit intervals that see common use among music theorists and microtonal musicians through to today:
+{| class="wikitable"
+|+11-limit intervals
+!Intervals
+!Notation
+!Ratio
+!Cents in the interval
+|-
+|Neutral Second
+|D♭^
+|81:88
+|143
+|-
+|Neutral Second
+|Dv
+|11:12
+|151
+|-
+|Neutral Third
+|E♭^
+|9:11
+|347
+|-
+|Neutral Third
+|Ev
+|22:27
+|355
+|-
+|Neutral Sixth
+|A♭^
+|27:44
+|845
+|-
+|Neutral Sixth
+|Av
+|11:18
+|853
+|-
+|Neutral Seventh
+|B♭^
+|6:11
+|1049
+|-
+|Neutral Seventh
+|Bv
+|44:81
+|1057
+|}
+Each interval name has two sizes that differ by the comma 242:243. The notation included in the table is from HEWM notation, developed as an extension to the Helmholtz-Ellis use of '+' and '-' by Joe Monzo (http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/h/hewm.aspx<nowiki/>).'^' indicates raising 'v' a lowered of 33/32. In HEWM notation '+' and '-' are refined to mean raising and lowering of 81/80 respectively and '>' and '<' are added instead to indicate raising and lowering of 64/63. Letter names correspond instead of the the Ptolemaic sequence, as in Smith's and Helmholtz' descriptions, but to a Pythagorean tuning of the diatonic scale, where '#' and '♭' and respectively raise and lower the apotome, 2187/2048. HEWM notation is not accompanied by an interval naming system.
 === Common microtonal interval names ===
-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 sixth,<!-- plural?!
+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.
-Thanks, fixed -->'' [[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.
 === [[Sagittal notation|Sagittal]] - [http://forum.sagittal.org/viewforum.php?f=9 sagispeak] ===