Non-Western Scales
In Western music, scale notes are often separated by equally tempered tones or semitones, creating 12 pitches per octave. Many other musical traditions use scales that include other intervals or a different number of pitches. These scales originate within the derivation of the harmonic series. Musical intervals are complementary values of the harmonic overtones series. Many musical scales in the world are based on this system, except most of the musical scales from Indonesia and the Indochina Peninsulae, which are based on inharmonic resonance of the dominant metalophone and xylophone instruments. A common scale in Eastern music is the pentatonic scale, consisting of five tones. In the Middle Eastern Hejaz scale, there are some intervals of three semitones. Gamelan music uses a small variety of scales including Pélog and Sléndro, none including equally tempered nor harmonic intervals. Indian classical music uses a moveable seven-note scale. Indian Rāgas often use intervals smaller than a semitone. Arabic music maqamat may use quarter tone intervals. In both rāgas and maqamat, the distance between a note and an inflection (e.g., śruti) of that same note may be less than a semitone.
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Famous quotes containing the word scales:
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)