reactions to previous Q on consonance of melodic intervals (Piet Vos )


Subject: reactions to previous Q on consonance of melodic intervals
From:    Piet Vos  <vos(at)NICI.KUN.NL>
Date:    Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:28:11 +0200

Allow me also to react quickly to my Q of several weeks or more ago: what's the most correct rankorder of consonance of MELODIC intervals. Most respondents rapidly came to refer to the consonance of HARMONIC, not melodic intervals. It seems that many scientists in this area tacidly assume that the harmonic consonance constraints do also hold for melodic intervals which by definition only entail IMPLICITE harmony. So, I remain reluctant to such equalization, for the following reason: the consonance of melodic intervals may be evaluated by a listener in terms of wellformedness in melodic structure. Thus, an ascending minor 2nd interval is a resolution to the tonic as we know and, for that very reason, might be rated much higher in "consonance" compared to its (harmonic) counterpart. Ultimately, of course, the debate remains open because of the somewhat fuzzy status of "consonance", with its long controversial history, back to Pythagoras => Aristoxenos => Ptolemeus=>... Euler => Leibniz => Schopenhauer .... Plomp&Levelt& vd Geer =>....=> Costa et al (Psychol. of Music, last issue of this year)....=> please, complete the extrapolation yourself! Piet V. -- Piet G. Vos section Perception NICI, U. Nijmegen P.O.Box 9104 6500 HE Nijmegen NL tel: +31 24 36126 31/20; fax: +31 24 361 60 66; vos(at)nici.kun.nl home-page: http://www.nici.kun.nl/~vos "et altissimus humilissimum facere debet"


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