What does it mean for a note to be microtonal?
What does it mean for a note to be microtonal?
microtonal music, music using tones in intervals that differ from the standard semitones (half steps) of a tuning system or scale. There are thus 12 equal semitones, or 1,200 cents, to the octave; these in sequence constitute the chromatic scale.
What culture uses microtones?
Microtonal variation of intervals is standard practice in the African-American musical forms of spirituals, blues and jazz. Many microtonal equal divisions of the octave have been proposed, usually (but not always) in order to achieve approximation to the intervals of just intonation.
Who invented the microtone?
Even though microtonal music has existed since the times of ancient Greece, the word microtone was coined at the very beginning of the 20th century. The first known attempt to build a microtone keyboard was made by the Renaissance theorist Nicola Vicentino who created the archicembalo with 31 keys for each octave.
How is microtonal notated?
The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines microtonal music as: music using tones in intervals that differ from the standard semitones (half steps) of a tuning system or scale. Similarly, for Wikipedia microtonality is: the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called “microintervals”.
What are microtonal instruments?
Microtonal instruments
- mallet keyboards: vibraphone, xylophone, marimba, glockenspiel, crotales, lithophone, etc.
- tuned drums: timpani, rototoms, pat waing.
- bells: carillon, conic bellophone, tubulong, amglocken, handbells, zoomoozophone, sound tower/sound cube.
- lamellophones: kalimba (mbira), marimbula.
What is a diatonic scale in music?
A diatonic scale is a type of music scale with seven notes (also called a heptonic scale ). Diatonic scales must have two semitone intervals (half steps) and five tone intervals (whole steps) within one octave. The two semitone intervals should be separated by two and three tones.
What does a diatonic SCAE steps mean?
What are chords in diatonic harmony?
Chords in diatonic harmony are generated from the major and minor scales by constructing triadson each of the diatonic scale degrees. Scale degrees and triads are identified by the same names, and triads may be represented by roman numerals.
Are church modes diatonic scales?
The church modes may be regarded as older diatonic variants of the major-minor system. Certainly diatonic scales occur well beyond the confines of Western art music, including in European and American folk monophony (unaccompanied music with a single melodic line), as well as in some types of African and Asian music.
