Re: [ARSCLIST] Temperament--was: Are we at the end of the road musically??

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 09/10/06, Steven Barr wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Don Cox" <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Each of the 12 steps is 1.059 times the one below, in equal
>> temperament. Any seven of the steps can be used to make a 7-note
>> scale (or key), but some sets of seven are commonly used and others
>> are rare.
>> 
> Were these sets of "7 out of 12" what the ancient Greeks called
> "modes?" (at least some of the sets, anyway...I used to know how to
> calculate the different ways that one could take seven items out of a
> full set of twelve, where the values had to be in ascending order...)

A mode is a set of scales  which share the same pattern of
tone-and-semitone steps, while starting on different notes.

Major, minor, Lydian, etc.

So there should be 12 scales in each mode. Hence the sets of 24 Preludes
- 12 in a major scale and 12 in a minor. Major and minor being the only
modes now in common use.

The paperback "Introducing Music" by Otto Karolyi is good on this stuff. 

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx