Re: Why the music is music and the noise is noise? (John Culling )


Subject: Re: Why the music is music and the noise is noise?
From:    John Culling  <jfc(at)BRENTWOOD.PSYC.CF.AC.UK>
Date:    Fri, 27 Apr 2001 16:42:33 +0100

>I doubt that this is due to cultural experience with >polyphonic music having shaped our tastes, since the pentatonic scale >is so popular in what we may (presumptuously) call "simpler" music >cultures that probably evolved with monophonic instruments. Probably someone has looked into this in more detail, but just to say that the argument isn't that simple - you can make polyphonic music without a polyphonic instrument - look at the instruments that make up most orchestras. In simpler cultural times, multiple voices, flutes and so on would have benefitted from a pentatonic scale. John.


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