Not so smart after all

I believe I have mentioned at some point that I learned to to research by studying musicology — that’s the fancy name for “music history”.  Yesterday, Wired gave us “3 Smart Things About Music.”  Unfortunately, at least one of them is wrong.  They said:

1 The pitches in musical scales are likely derived from language. Turns out, aspects of spoken English and Mandarin correlate to the intervals between notes in a chromatic scale (the black and white piano keys in an octave). Is it music we love or the sound of our own voices?

On one hand, this is so simplistic as to be obvious:  the earliest “instruments” were the human voice, and the sound of banging on things (percussion at its most basic).

However, back to the specific scales and languages involved.

Traditional Chinese music does not use the modern chromatic scale, although much of it can be notated using it. Instead, they use a 5 note or pentatonic scale.  The modern chromatic scales has 12 tones.  Furthermore, they have been using that scale since before English was a language. Update:  It is worth noting that although Mandarin is a language where the pitch you use to say something changes the meaning, English is not.  You can speak English sentences in a complete monotone, and English speakers will understand what you are saying.

You may have noticed that I carefully refer to the “modern chromatic scale.”  That scale — based on a system called “Equal Temperament” — did not evolve until after Europe began trying to explore China.  Full use of all 12 tones took several additional centuries beyond that, and many people feel it has “ruined” music.  If you really want to get deep into the issues involved from a modern standpoint, check out the work of Harry Partch, a 20th Century American composer who decided that he would not be limited by a mere 12 pitches.

Twelve tones were an improvement at one point, however.  Back in the 9th century, there were only 7.  Those would be roughly the white keys on a piano or other keyboard.  Do, Re, Mi, and the other solfeggio syllables you may know from ear training or watching The Sound of Music come from a specific Gregorian chant. As the modal harmony of Middle Ages and Renaissance church music evolved into the tonal harmonies of Baroque composers like Bach and Vivaldi, the scales were transposed to other starting pitches, and an interesting problem of physics became apparent.

What we hear as pitch is related to the frequency of the vibrating part(s) of the instrument we are hearing. There is a note we call “A” at 440 hertz, or vibrations per second.  If we double or halve that number, there is another “A” at 220 and 880 hertz. If instead we multiply by 3/2, we find there is a note called “E”, a “perfect fifth” away, at 660.  If we continue multiplying all the way around the circle of fifths, we will end up with a problem at the end:  when we get back to A, it won’t be a multiple of 440, which means it will sound “out of tune”.  A number of  compromise tunings were tried to get around this problem:  Just Temperament;  Mean Temperament;  Well Temperament.  Each had its advantages and drawbacks.

The “modern chromatic scale” is based on Equal Temperament.  Each pitch is exactly the same number of hertz apart. It’s not based on language;  it’s a compromise to get around the laws of physics. Which, Wired should recall, ye canna change.

In closing: somebody noticed that women are using smartphones too; more on John Williams and manipulated economic data; under-insured is just as bad as uninsured; just one reason I don’t support the death penalty; for a moderate, he sure votes like a man who hates women; math and the real world; doesn’t everyone need a planetarium in the bathtub?; and last, Goodbye to Mr. Russert.