Talk:4:5:6
Scale information off-topic? Why?
I recently tried to expand the article by mentioning scale information because I think it's good to know how certain microtonal chords can be used in composition. I fail to see how such information is off-topic. If there's guidelines for what sorts of information to add to these chord pages that I don't know about, then would someone mind explaining that to me? --Aura (talk) 02:48, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
- This page is about a chord. Not about composing with the chord. And especially not about one person's approach to composing with that chord. As I said in my edit comment, the place for that is in a personal viewpoint page, which can be in the mainspace, and which can be linked to from the chord page.
- Where a chord occurs in a specific scale should be discussed on that scale's page. Otherwise, the chord page will get cluttered up with discussing numerous scales, Zarlino, Centaur, Duodene, etc. etc.--TallKite (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
On the consonance or concordance of 3:4:5 over 4:5:6
What reasons are there to conclude that 3:4:5 isn't more consonant than 4:5:6, even if it has less harmonic entropy? And what distinction is there between consonance and concordance? --Eufalesio (talk) 13:47, 11 November 2025 (UTC)
- 4:5:6 is rooted up to octave equivalence; 3:4:5 isn't. 4:5:6 is perfectly stable; 3:4:5 has a perfect fourth on the bass, which contrasts the missing major third and suggests moving towards it. I've mentioned these things in the article.
- Sonance is more contextual than cordance, for a minimalistic answer. You can read more about it in Consonance and dissonance (and the corresponding Wikipedia article).
- I don't see why 4:5:6 would be "perfectly" stable, even more so than 3:4:5. 4:5:6 has the 5/4 before the 3/2, which is a more complex interval, unlike 3:4:5 which has 4/3 before 5/3, which is less numerically complex. It would be reasonable to say that 4:5:6 is more stable than 3:4:5, but that claim would surely come from the Western tradition of harmony/counterpoint.
- Saying that [3:4:5 -> 4:5:6] "the fourth above the root contrasts and therefore wants to move to the missing major third" is a stylistic choice. Just as saying that [3:4:5 -> 2:3:4] "the fourth wants to move to the missing fifth and the sixth rises up to the octave for pure consonance".
- Apart from that, I wonder what your thoughts are for the voicings. I included voicings in the chord articles for completeness and to not obviate compound intervals. After all, 4:5:6 is not the same as 2:3:5 or 2:5:12, even if they are all On 1.
- For one thing, rootedness is a source of stability, but to see this you need to take octave equivalence into consideration. Once you have octave equivalence, you should see 5/4 isn't more complex than 4/3, for example, because 5/4 can be simplified to 5/1, whereas 4/3 is in its simplest form and only gets more complex in open voicings. In fact 4:5:6 is the octave-reduced voicing of 1:3:5 (1–3–5), which as you can see is not only rooted but simpler than 3:4:5 (1–4/3–5/3).
- P4–M3, P4–P5 and M6–P8 all but point to the fact that 3:4:5 is unstable and wants to move somewhere. P4–M3 is especially relevant cuz the perfect fourth is offset from the major third by a semitone, which has greater tension than the whole tone or minor third.
- I like your tables overall, but '3, '5, etc. need explanation. Also root should be closed; root position refers to a rotation, equivalent to your on 1, not a voicing.
- I dissagree that "rootedness" can be a source of stability, because that stability is abstract and does not truly exist, barring my perceived notion that it "feels wrong" to call these chords the same. 4:5:6 being the octave reduced voicing of 1:3:5 is just a mathematical fact, as the two chords are sonically distinct.
- What I agree on is calling a certain octave-reduced rotation of the chord the "root", which represents the "figurehead" of the unique octave-agnostic (or equave-agnostic) combination of integers that make up a chord. Purely arbitrary, just a denomination; due to tradition, due to whatever reason. That way, we have a way of identifying the constituyents of a chord and their voicings across equaves: here, its odd parts. This sense of octave-agnosticism is useful for organizing chords that sound similar, but are not the same.
- The '3 '5 nomenclature is similar to that to what xenpaper does, which is adding octaves. So '3 here means "the voicing where the odd 3 is one octave higher than usual". So for example, 1:3:5 would be a voicing of 4:5:6 ('35).