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Yet Another Button Diagram For The Ec Treble


Don Taylor

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I can and do read music from the tonic-solfa on a Hayden Duet, however I have never pushed this as it is not universally used. In addition (unlike the standard music notation), by itself it only gives the (relative) pitches of the notes and not the individual length of each note. For this you need in addition the "Tafetefe" notation which I was also taught along with the tonic-solfa at Primary School, but have never found in any music book which also gave the tune in tonic-solfa.

Inventor.

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I have never seen tonic sol fa notation, but in a sense, hearing a tune in your head (if you don't have perfect pitch) is analogous. You hear the intervals rather than the actual notes, and it is easily translated to finger action on a Hayden button layout.

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I have never seen tonic sol fa notation, but in a sense, hearing a tune in your head (if you don't have perfect pitch) is analogous. You hear the intervals rather than the actual notes, and it is easily translated to finger action on a Hayden button layout.

This brings the topic back to where I started out. I want a set of names for intervals so that when I hear a tune in my head I can say "ah, that is a <some term for an interval>" and then find it on my box.

 

I now know that my initial offering was wrong, but I have no real idea what to put there instead. Maybe something movable Solfege-based would be better?

 

Should I write "Soh Me" instead of minor third? This is what Pauline de Snoo is teaching on her new set of EC lessons:

 

I am not sure how this would work for a complete table of intervals

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@sjm: unfortunately, in solfege, names corespond to degrees of diatonic scale - not to intervals. So you could name intervals by pairs of notes, but this would raise same argument as whether D# and Eb is the same note, some kind of unison or some kind of a second etc... The problem with named intervals is inherent to diatonic theory of music. You're trying to do something I used to do - use just fixed names for any given number of semitones, regardless of notes involved. Unfortunately, in western music theory any given number of semitones has exactly two names depending on notes involved.

 

And the problem whether D# and Eb is the same note becomes clear when you're trying to understand harmonics while not looking on piano keyboard or traditional staff but on any of isomorphic layouts.

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I now know that my initial offering was wrong, but I have no real idea what to put there instead. Maybe something movable Solfege-based would be better?

 

I would stick with what you have. It's fine. It's not exactly correct, but we're arguing about breadcrumbs here.

In poking around the web this morning reading about tonic sol fa, I found this quote:

 

"our present universal notation has 'grown up' rather than been designed, and that, moreover, its main features were fixed at a period when music was merely melodic and in other respects enormously simpler than at present. Musicians generally are so accustomed to it that they do note stop to reflect upon its defects…"

 

This forum is not even going to change the awkwardness in how people talk about concertinas, let alone how people talk about music.

 

[edited for formatting]

Edited by David Barnert
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David,

that quoute is so true to most musicians... I've done some reading today on different scales and what strikes me most, is that concepts like whole-note scale are discussed using terms that evolved based on diatonic approach to music. They are analysed based on structures build around diatonic scales. One can imagine, that if whole-note scale came first, music history and naming would be completely different. I now understand, why jazz and blues were invented outside of western diatonic tradition...

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I don't mean, that your circle is complicated - just that it's an artificial tool designed for a specific purpose - easier to use than a table or a list of possible combinations, but as I understand, it's an "automated translator". What Brian Hayden invented (and what any other hexagonal isomorphic layout is) is (from mathematical point of view) just one hex with named intervals attached to sides of it. Rest of properties emerges from this. It is simpler in mathematical sense... That said, I am very courious on how your disc looks like - can you post a photo or an illustration of it?

 

Lukasz,

 

You're quite right - my disc is a tool for a purpose, an "automated translator" as you put it. It's not for playing music or for defining a keyboard layout, not even for plotting notes on a specific keyboard; it's an aid to transcribing (or translating) from one notation to another. The aim is to enable someone who has learned to sight read staff notation to obtain a usable score from a sol-fa source. I attach a picture of it, set for the key of B. Note the "#" in the window under "doh", which indicates that the sharped form of the enharmonics is to be used. This is important for staff notation. (D# and Eb may be on the same key or button or fret of an instrument, but they're not on the same line or space of the stave.)

 

As to sol-fa for duets: the Scottish Psalm book I mentioned has the tunes in 4-part harmony (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). This is good for choral music, but instrumental music that sometimes has less, sometimes more notes sounding simultaneously could be a bit awkward.

Interesting that you learn sol-fa in primary school in Poland - I learned it in my Scottish primary school, too!

 

Cheers,

John

post-6581-0-87205300-1368475936_thumb.jpg

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I can and do read music from the tonic-solfa on a Hayden Duet, however I have never pushed this as it is not universally used. In addition (unlike the standard music notation), by itself it only gives the (relative) pitches of the notes and not the individual length of each note. For this you need in addition the "Tafetefe" notation which I was also taught along with the tonic-solfa at Primary School, but have never found in any music book which also gave the tune in tonic-solfa.

Inventor.

Actually there are many choral works from as late as the 1930s that contain tonic sol fa and the related rhythmic notation. There is even a Beethoven symphony score around in tonic sol fa. It is a very flexible musical language, but perhaps best used on pieces within a single key signature. Yeah I know about the modulation techniques, but they can get problematic.

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And yes both of your examples are minor seconds. Same I think as what I mentioned... Where's the difference??

There had been some confusion which had been clarified (see above).

 

What Jim meant (in accord with Don's chart) was the following:

 

It's C-C# and Db-D that I think should also be considered "minor seconds".

 

I think my comment preceded Jim's C-C# and Db-D comment, but it appears much further down the thread, so perhaps I just didn't read carefully. I was, though referring to his earlier message where he did refer to C-Db etc.

 

As to the C-C# kind of thing: Intervals are defined by counting the distance between the note names so the C-D is going to be some kind of second etc. I mentioned that above so no need to go through it again. But following that rule there is nothing to count between C and C#. So it is a "1," that is to say a unison, but an augmented one.

 

One thing I think we've all been missing on this discussion is the difference between naming the SOUND of an interval and naming the NOTES ON THE PAPER. I think what I've been talking about is the names of the notes on paper. What Jim has been talking about is the sound of the notes. He's spot on when he says that, forgetting for the moment about non-equal tempered scales, there is no difference in the SOUND of C-C#, C-Db, Db-D etc. etc. So, when one talks about the sound use of the term minor second for all of those differently notated things is perfectly correct. The notes on paper differentiations become important when one is looking at the musical content from an analytical view, and much less so when one talks about what one hears.

 

You run into this general sort of issue all the time in musical nomenclature. For example what chord is E-G-B-D ? is it the same chord as G-B-D-E? Well clearly the same notes, but assuming the different root tones the use of those two chords might be either an Em7 or a G6. And, it is likely that the jazz player will hear and name G6 while the classical musician may well say 1st inversion Em7. Neither is wrong, but we can talk all day about why it should be one of the other. In fact, theorists have nearly come to blows about proper analytical terms for complex sets of notes. That's the reason we should stick to playing :) .

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The notes on paper differentiations become important when one is looking at the musical content from an analytical view, and much less so when one talks about what one hears.

 

You run into this general sort of issue all the time in musical nomenclature. For example what chord is E-G-B-D ? is it the same chord as G-B-D-E? Well clearly the same notes, but assuming the different root tones the use of those two chords might be either an Em7 or a G6. And, it is likely that the jazz player will hear and name G6 while the classical musician may well say 1st inversion Em7. Neither is wrong, but we can talk all day about why it should be one of the other. In fact, theorists have nearly come to blows about proper analytical terms for complex sets of notes.

Well, I believe they have, and I (having abandoned early plans of studying music at the conservatory which I don't regret in terms of making a living with completely different kind of work) would really like to be more accomplished in that matter. There is analysis of musical context (just starting with concepts of "secondary dominant" and the likes), but of course you are very well justified insisting on playing and listening having the final words.

 

Let me add one point: Frankly, I hadn't been aware of the fact that the naming of intervals simply derives from counting staff positions (or white keys, or EC middle row buttons). Prior to taking part in this current discussion I had been of the opinion that the difference of, for instance, an augmented unisone and a minor second would be one regarding the diatonic function, i.e.: that F# to G would have to be regarded as minor second just as part of a Gmaj scale (or one of the relatives). Now I have learned, that the basic concept is not just diatonic based, but more specific upon the single "world" of Cmaj/Amin/Ddor/Gmix a.s.f. and not be transferred to other keys.

 

And regarding the starting point of the topic: Since Don is dealing with the EC it might be helpful to emphasise the above-mentioned relation of both interval naming and EC layout to conventional staff notation. Any number of an interval can apparently be derived directly trom the number of staff positions (i.e. lines and spaces) it comprises.

 

OTOH his chart is limited to natural tones, single flats and single sharps (without enharmonic ambiguity). This limits the complications he'd have to deal with significantly (albeit he would have to add the count of "0", with two separate notes engaged, which would always mean a diminished 2nd between two "enharmonic" notes then).

 

Further on one would have to include the alternative of either sticking to one side of the EC or switching from one to another. I havn't found time to work this out for all the intervals as yet, but my latest guess is, that the interval name has just to be increased or reduced with switching beteen left and right depending on its even or uneven number.

 

... we should stick to playing :) .

That's true in any event!

 

(edit: typo corrected)

Edited by blue eyed sailor
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I can and do read music from the tonic-solfa on a Hayden Duet, however I have never pushed this as it is not universally used. In addition (unlike the standard music notation), by itself it only gives the (relative) pitches of the notes and not the individual length of each note. For this you need in addition the "Tafetefe" notation which I was also taught along with the tonic-solfa at Primary School, but have never found in any music book which also gave the tune in tonic-solfa.

Inventor.

Inventor,

Interesting to hear that you yourself use tonic sol-fa for the Hayden duet!

 

I'm a bit surprised at your proviso that the note lengths are not given. Sol-fa has bar-lines, and each bar is divided up into crotchets my intermediate bar-lines and colons, the crotchets bein further divided into quavers by full-stops. Minims and semibrieves are shown by hyphens in the following crotchet spaces, (Basically, the notation is as text-processing friendly as ABC!) So the time values are there!

 

At primary school, we also used "tafetefe" to analyse the rhythmic structure of a sol-fa tune, adding the pitches later, but we could read the "tafetefe" unambiguously straight from the sol-fa.

And by the way, I have quite a few song books with tonic sol-fa notation. They're mostly older editions for voice and piano in staff notation, with the vocal line in tonic sol-fa printed above the staff vocal stave (where the guitar chords are printed nowadays).

 

In case anyone would like to see four-part harmony noted in tonic sol-fa, I'm attaching a scan of my Psalm book. The text page is opened at Ps. 100 (1st version), and the tune page is opened at Tune 15, which is the tune usually sung to this Psalm. Any questions?

 

BTW, the pages are split, so you can turn to any tune with any Psalm. The Scottish Psalms (with very few exceptions) were translated into three basic verse forms: short metre, common metre and long metre, and the tunes were composed/selected accordingly. So it is theoretically possible to sing (and thus memorise) practically all the Psalms after learning only three tunes! Tune 15, "Old 100th", is a long-metre tune, hence the "(L. M.)" after the name.

 

Cheers,

John

post-6581-0-93186000-1368515662_thumb.jpg

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Unfortunately, in western music theory....

 

Ah, there's the problem.

All this time I've been trying to play (and sing) music, rather than music theory. :D

 

 

Like it or not, music and music theory are as inseparable as swimming (or any other activity) and physics.

 

 

 

"...they do note stop..."

Lovely typo... in the original, I presume. :)

 

On the web page where I found it. Not likely in the original source, which was from the 1960s, when it would have been very difficult to produce text the typos of which could be perpetuated by copying and pasting. And the web site had no knowing "[sic]" notation.

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Let me add one point: Frankly, I hadn't been aware of the fact that the naming of intervals simply derives from counting staff positions (or white keys, or EC middle row buttons). Prior to taking part in this current discussion I had been of the opinion that the difference of, for instance, an augmented unisone and a minor second would be one regarding the diatonic function, i.e.: that F# to G would have to be regarded as minor second just as part of a Gmaj scale (or one of the relatives). Now I have learned, that the basic concept is not just diatonic based, but more specific upon the single "world" of Cmaj/Amin/Ddor/Gmix a.s.f. and not be transferred to other keys.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. Are they not both true? What meaning does counting letters have if not in a diatonic context? F#-G and Gb-G sound the same out of context. The intervals have different names because of how they are used (and the expectations that they create in the listener) in the context of the diatonic scale.

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This discussion inspired me to do some reading on "common practice period", scales different than diatonic, interval functions etc.. and now I finally understand why different degrees of diatonic scale, as David said: "create expectations in the listener". And why listening to jazz is so different than listening to classical and folk music. I think about diatonic scales now as "unstable" or "unbalanced" (as oposed by whole-tone or twelve tone scales, which are symmetrical - "stable") - "unstable" in a positive way.. I don't know how to put it in words.. in a way that forces brain of the listener to overcome this unstability, to wait for "sweet spots" and melodic "rest points".

 

 

Seriously, this thread became one of the most significant music lessons for me - it has "sorted out" so much in my head...

 

@JimLucas: one does not need to understand gravity to build houses or throw a spear into a target, but being able to solve gravity equations made moon landing posible. I was singing for 15 years without almost any musical knowlege - just by ear and heart and I think that true music comes from such approach. But when I started playing concertina, I had to learn some basics and I found that music theory is a vast area of human knowledge I had no clue about. And I just don't like to don't know :)

 

@John: thank you for posting the disc, I can see now, how it does it's job. I must say, that I have always had a hard time understanding all of the circular diagrams used to explain different things in music - circle of fifths, different scale modes etc, mostly because sharps and flats being the same while not being the same at the same time when put in a such context.

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I think that this is related to Lukasz's and David's postings, or maybe I just have a tin ear, but ...

 

One thing I have noticed when playing with interval training software is that the trick that they use to teach you to learn an interval's sound/feel is to relate it to the first two notes of a well-known (diatonic) song or tune. Then they fire off more or less random pairs of notes for you to name the intervals. Most of the time this mapping is obvious, but sometimes it simply does not sound right to me - even after I get them to replay the correct answer.

 

I wonder if this is because the previous sounds have established some sort of mental expectation of what parts of a scale should sound like - and then the actual sound does not match this expectation.

 

Or, as I say, maybe I have a tin ear.

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I think that this is related to Lukasz's and David's postings, or maybe I just have a tin ear, but ...

 

One thing I have noticed when playing with interval training software is that the trick that they use to teach you to learn an interval's sound/feel is to relate it to the first two notes of a well-known (diatonic) song or tune. Then they fire off more or less random pairs of notes for you to name the intervals. Most of the time this mapping is obvious, but sometimes it simply does not sound right to me - even after I get them to replay the correct answer.

 

I wonder if this is because the previous sounds have established some sort of mental expectation of what parts of a scale should sound like - and then the actual sound does not match this expectation.

 

Or, as I say, maybe I have a tin ear.

OH MY YES! Not that you have a tin ear, but that it does affect things.

 

We all have some sort of tonal memory and previously played intervals can interfere greatly with hearing the present one. Tonal memory varies with the person. I had a college prof who did not have perfect pitch at all, but had very long term tonal memory. I remember when we was discussing a piece played about 90 minutes earlier and he sang several example spot on in the key they had been played. I almost left the field.... I also know of an advanced ear training class where the teacher would play the same interval over and over (say a major third) as he went around the room asking people to identify the interval played. When he finally changed the interval it would throw everyone...and this was in a graduate class (which I was happy not to be in!)

 

There is a certain amount of difference of opinion about whether the teaching of separate individual intervals is really useful. Some folks feel hearing melodies and attempting to deal with them on a phrase by phrase basis is a much better way to improve the ability to hear things. Since that is what most of us do when learning by ear I tend to agree with this latter view.

 

The best thing about this thread for me is to see how well folks can express what they mean. Many of the posts did a much better job of explaining what they were getting at than I ever could have. Thanks to all.

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