Music by Aliens

[sleigh]

Our usual 12 tone diatonic musical scale runs in octaves: a scale starts with a note, and proceeds by twelve even intervals to a final note played at twice the frequency -- one octave higher. That what most Western music is built upon.

But it's not the only way. The Boston Globe has an article about the Bohlen-Pierce scale, which doesn't contain an octave. Instead, it's based on a "tritave", a note three times the frequency of the starting note (an octave and a half), and the notes between the tritaves are divided into thirteen equal steps, so that there are no octaves.

The Bohlen-Pierce scale was created (independently, supposedly) by three people in 1984: Heinz Bohlen, Kees van Prooijen, and John R. Pierce. Why Prooijen doesn't have his name attached to this, we'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

The result is some strange sounding music -- yet it seems almost 'right.' Here's Pachelbel's Canon transposed into the Bohlen-Pierce scale. Of course, a real instrument has to be restructured to play in this scale -- you can't just pick up a guitar and start to play chords based on the Bohlen=Pierce scale...

But it's interesting...

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

As you know, sleigh-Bob, John R. Pierce is One of Us, author of a number of Analog stories under the name "J.J. Coupling" and father of sf critic John J. Pierce.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Actually, I didn't know that!

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

That's really fascinating!

Having played him at weddings and stuff, Pachelbel is very familiar to me. Even with that familiarity and being told in advance, it took me about 1/3 of the song before I could "hear" it. There's definitely that "uncanny valley" thing going on, but I'm wondering now what this would sound like on a non-electronic instrument. Synths and midis and the like put me into uncanny valley territory even with more regular tunings and familiar scales. I'm wondering if the instrument in this case is making it seem even more uncanny to me than it would if it were played on an acoustic guitar or a cello or something.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Like you, I don't like the synth -- and I think you're right; I have to first get past the mediocre and limited sound quality of the instrument. But you can't use a 'real' instrument to play in this scale, since the tuning isn't that of the 12 tone diatonic scale -- and thus any 'standard' instrument would necessarily play 'out of tune' in this scale. Evidently (according to the article) there are some limited instruments being manufactured to the scale (the clarinet the musician is playing in the video is one of them).

You theoretically should be able to use a cello or violin (probably with string tune to different notes) to play this since there aren't any frets to interfere with playing notes we'd consider to be 'in-between', but the cellist/violinist would have to learn entirely new fingering. That'd be tough, but not impossible.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

Supposedly there are tunings to accommodate quartertones and the like on fretted instruments, but my guitar theory is pretty weak. I've no idea if one could get an accurate enough tuning for something this complex. Considering my friends' difficulties in getting their guitars to hold regular tunings, probably not. :P I wonder if one could use any of the traditional Chinese or Asian stringed instruments, especially since a lot of traditional Asian music is full of quartertones and quavers. Perhaps the internet will eventually burp up an acoustic example for us.