Re: Music-conlangs & music

James W. wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Jul 2006 20:40:33 +0100, "R A Brown"
> <ray@...> said:
[snip]
>>Yep - the subject line explicitly refers to 'music-conlangs'. I thought
>>I had made it clear that I was referring to those conlangs that use
>>whole ranges of a musical scale of some sort or other. AFAIK there are
>>_no_ natlangs that do this.
>
> Do you mean particular modes (like Major, Minor, Dorian, Locrian, etc.)?
Yes.

> Given the different 'absolute' pitch ranges of everyone's voices, esp.
> between male and female, I think this would be the most effective way to
> go about it--since the quality of the scale/mode can be produced on
> *any*
> tonic.
I agree. The 'Mercurian' language used the Major scale.

> Otherwise, you would have to deal with absolute pitch, and that
> would exclude most of the population.
I agree also. I have a feeling that Solresol did deal with absolute
pitch. Although the literature refers to 'do, re, me...' etc, I have a
feeling that in 19th century France it meant, C, D, E.... etc.

Bruce Koestner's Eaiea seems also to deal with absolute pitch, thus:
{quote}
Eaiea letter       Musical pitch
a                        A
b                        A#/Bb
c                        B
d                        C
e                        C#/Db
f                        D
g                        D#/Eb
h                        E
i                        F
j                        F#/Gb
k                        G
l                        G#/Ab
{/quote}

But I am skeptical about the practicality of this for ordinary mortals.

> OTOH, if everyone in the society
> had absolute pitch, (and the same vocal range...), your group of
> phonemes
> would be quite a bit larger, assuming a vocal range of two and a half
> octaves.
This would work in a fictitious setting where we have creatures all
endowed with absolute pitch; but I agree with you that most of us
earthlings are not so endowed.

> --------
> James W.
> The composer on the list who has no desire whatsoever to create a
> musical conlang.
You wouldn't even find it just a teensy weensy bit interesting?   ;)

--
Ray
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http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun."
J.G. Hamann, 1760

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