Re: Help? Asciification of musical language

Sally Caves wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----

[snipping lots]
>>
> James elo krespr:
>
>>Again, this is too precisely related to actual pitch/intervals for me.
>>Then again, I imagine that non-musicians would probably find either the
>>letters or solfege easier than numbers.
>
>
> Is "do" related to a specific pitch?  I thought it was relativistic.  My
> objection is that there can be no accidentals, but then again, Rachel may
> not need them.
>
Unfortunately, there are a couple of different methods:
1) Moveable 'do' - where 'do' is the keynote ('tonic' if you will) of
the scale. This is the system you are referring to. Within this system,
there are two ways of creating a scale that is not major, ie., one of
the modes or minor (which is technically a mode...):
      a) begin with whatever syllable happens to occur on the scale
degree (of the major scale) that your mode begins on; or:
      b) just move 'do' to the appropriate starting pitch and then
adjust the syllables as necessary to reflect their relationship to do
('me' for the lowered 3rd 'mi'; 'le' for the lowered 6th 'la', etc.)
2) Fixed 'do', where 'do' is always the same pitch, usually 'C'. So a
scale in F would be: fa sol la te (lowered ti) do re mi fa. A variant of
this has the seven basic solfege syllables unchanged for inflection.
3) Using scale degree numbers exclusively with or without (more common)
inflection (sharps & flats).

Take your pick!
For what I compose, I prefer the numbers 0-11 for the chromatic steps of
the octave. This is not terribly useful for singing diatonic music,
since the major scale would be: 0 2 4 5 7 9 11 0. I suppose it could
work with practice, but in my opinion why bother?

So, for Sylvia's project, I would say, pick whatever method you want,
since I've seen examples of all of the above. My preferences would not
be restricted to an undetermined mode however, but would incorporate the
different sounds of the modes as perhaps different utterance types
(questions, imperatives, decalarations, conjectures, etc.) Anyone who
has heard music in the different modes knows that Lydian is WAY
different in sound than Phrygian or Dorian or ...

--
=============
James Worlton
          "We know by means of our intelligence
          that what the intelligence does not
          comprehend is more real than what it
          does comprehend."
                           --Simone Weil