The String Thing
String,
String a Song.
Make it Simple,
To Last Your Whole Life Long.
It seems simple enough to use strings of proportional lengths to create pleasant combinations of tones. And I guess it is.
In order to accomplish this and define these proportions, Pythagoras of Samos (his full proper name) and his followers/students used a device called a monochord – a resonating box with one musical string whose length can be divided by a movable bridge.. similar to the fixed bridge on a violin. By utilizing two or more of these boxes, they were able to calculate the proportions of each string, that, when sounded together, produced a pleasing sound, or consonant chord.
But Pythagoras, being of sound mind, realized that in order for this phenomenon to be of use in making music, a much more detailed, expanded and refined scale (compared to his initial calculations as described in my previous post) was needed to define the frequencies of additional tones – both within the octave as well as those in adjacent octaves.
He began to extrapolate.
The task at hand was to divide the scale (between the octave frequencies) so as to produce a series of tones which, when played together, would produce the greatest number of consonant chords…. creating a subset of frequencies of optimum musical value.
I cannot stress this enough.. because THIS is at the heart of harnessing science and mathematics in order to produce an art form.. the human factor.. the scale is the basic tool in creating music.
It’s really what these discussions are all about.
It was commonly agreed by P & Co., that the note which would come to be known as a “Fifth”, when sounded with the original tone, seemed to be the most pleasing chord to the ear. What they found was when the length of the original string was decreased by 50%, a frequency equal to 1.5 times of the original tone was produced. Again, seems pretty straight forward: the frequency of the first tone, when multiplied by 1.5, produces a frequency that is the exact average of the first and the octave notes, right down the middle…AND…sounds awesome.
Sweet.
This frequency would become the Fifth Note in the Pythagorean Scale.. all important. So important in fact, that this Interval, a representation of the musical proportion between two notes, (in this case between the original tone/first note and this middle tone/fifth note of the scale) would become the foundation for every other note in all octaves in the Pythagorean Scale.
Play it Again, Samos!
