Article
Overtone-sensitive musical intervals - a few examples (en)
* Presenting author
Abstract:
In European folk music there still exist tonal systems that have “survived” the general progression to well temperament or to equal temperament. Examples of chanting in Lithuania or Albania have in common, that the preferably narrow intervals are off the grid of 100 cent multiples. The intervals rather follow the idea of coinciding overtones: 7/6 and 9/8, sometimes also 10/9 and 11/10. This practice questions the established concepts of dissonance in narrow intervals. In Georgian polyphonic chanting overtones match even for intervals above the fifth. This links to the diverse gestalt of intervals in early church modes, e.g. for a sixth, 5/3 Mixolydian, 8/5 Aeolian, 13/8 Phrygian, 12/7 Dorian, 27/16 Ionian. Cases of overtone-fidelity can also be found outside Europe, for instance the Pelog or Slendro scales in Java.