Golden Master

Earlier I posted here about using pythagorean tuning in my music.  Many other Greek philosophers had ideas about tuning instruments, however.  A book I have, “Tuning and Temperament, a Historical Survey” by  J. Murray Barbour, had a good list of Greek tunings in it.  I didn’t find the book very interesting, because it focuses more on Temperaments than Just Intonation, and the author, like many others, approaches the subject with the idea that modern Equal Temperament is the pinnacle of all musical systems.  But, hey, there are some good scales in there!  I’ll share them here, to save you all some time :).

I have also been using Scala, a scale editor and librarian application, which has a ridiculously comprehensive listing of different scales, which I believe also encompasses the scales that I’ve put into this reaktor macro.  The problem with Scala, i’ve found, is that there are just too many damn scales, and variations on scales, to even know where to begin.  This doesn’t work for me. I am just taking things one step at a time, and finding little areas within microtonal and just intonation, and exploring them individually.

 

Thanks for the scales ptolemy! We're one step closer to the music of the spheres.

I took a micro tuning macro that I snagged from the Reaktor User Library a while back, and put these scales into it.  I dont’ remember who made this macro, so if anyone knows, please speak up, and i’ll give the original author credit!  Anyhow, the scales I found were from Ptolemy (more famous as an astronomer), Erastothenes, Archytas, and Didymus.  

Greeks made scales out of groups of tetrachords, which are just basically small scales spanning the interval of a perfect fourth.  These Greek scales all have a similar flavor, because they are built in the same way: two tetrachords, separated by a major second (the ratio of 9/8) in the center.  Because of this, every scale here has the intervals of the perfect fourth and a perfect fifth.  Also, these scales are all somewhat “phrygian” in character because they generally all start with a small step much like a half step, and finish with one of the many variations on a  minor seventh that is found in just intonation.  I really love how these scales are all unified by a similar method of construction, but all have their own different characters!  That is what I was talking about earlier: finding an area, and exploring it.  Systems like this are very interesting to work with.

I have set these scales up (since they are all made of 7 notes) to play on all the white keys of the keyboard.  But if you play through the different modes of these scales, you can get even more different flavors! 

Here is the Reaktor macro:

Greek Scales Reaktor Macro