Subject: Re: Minor third From: Brian Gygi <bgygi(at)EBIRE.ORG> Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 01:31:59 -0800This is from a friend of mine who is a music educator as well as a fine musician. I thought his reply was very illuminating. >Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 19:58:56 -0800 >To: Brian Gygi <bgygi(at)ebire.org> >From: Bill Polits <billpolits(at)comcast.net> >Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Minor third > >Bri, > >Since we discussed the Music Together curriculum today, the songs that >begin and end every class have as their opening interval the minor third. >The "Hello Song" has an ascending, the "Goodbye song" has descending. > >In my MT teacher training it was presented that scientific data shows >infants begin to vocalize in response to music on the 5th of any given >scale more often than other notes. My angle would be to suggest that it's >not just the interval of a minor third that's important but that it's the >fact that the m3 is the closest consonant interval down from the 5th >that's important (the lower note of "na na na na na, na" never sounds like >the 1st note of the scale, always the major 3rd). The point is, the >primacy of the m3 comes not from that particular ratio but more from its >relation to the scale. > >To the 2 reasons given by the writer at the bottom I would add that yard >calls need to be heard and hence must use the vocal apparatus efficiently. >Wide jumps aren't easy to get the power curve of the voice to project. Us >commoners have a very narrow power band.