Re: Some ideas for a completely tonal conlang

> Well, the most obvious question here: does this language use some kind
> of scales (like our twelve chromatic tones, or perhaps 31 or 54 or
> 1200...)?
On a tangent: The Ottoman Turks, and my fictional Techians, see the musical
octave as a succession of 53 quasi-equal steps rather than 12 equal steps as
the modern Westerner does. This is based on a more precise "circle of
fifths". This means that one starts at a certain note (like middle C or
A=440, but it can be any note), goes up 53 consecutive fifths and back down
31 consecutive octaves, the resulting note is only 3.615 cents (hundredths
of a 12-equal semitone) sharp of the original note, an interval known as
Mercator's comma. Compare to 23.460 cents for 12 fifths up and 7 octaves
down, the Pythagorean comma or one step in 53-tone.

53-tone equal is little different than 53-tone Pythagorean (all notes
derived from perfect fifths, i.e. 3:2 ratio), and an excellent approximation
of 5-limit JI (just intonation), so scale degrees 0-17-31 make a major
chord. All Arabic maqamat, Turkish makamlar, Iranian dastgahha and Indian
thats/melas (all mean "modes") can be performed using a subset of this
scale; the Byzantine genoi (modes) can be accommodated with some
adjustments.

If you want an adaptation of 12-tone equal temperament, I recommend 36-tone
over 24-tone, since it's more natural (36-tone also creates better
approximations of the natural seventh, 7:4), and it's usable for Iranian and
Byzantine modes.

> Well, yes and no. The tritone is musical and should be used in music. Yet
> the underlying reason why the tritone was "forbidden" in some historic
> contexts remains, namely that it is relatively disharmonic. People who
> listen to a lot of music usually learn to like disharmony to a certain
> level, but for example infants (who have not yet been culturally
> "brain-washed") always prefer the simplest and most harmonic chords.
In 53-tone, there is no mathematical "tritone", since half of 53 is a
non-whole number. But the two JI tritones would be notes 26 (1024:729 or
45:32) and 27 (729:512 or 64:45).

And remember a tritone is either an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth,
and a note in both the Lydian and Locrian modes, so it can represent elation
and melancholy equally well.

~Danny~

Four out of five dentists hate their fathers too.