2:3:4 Harmony within the tritave

In the Pythagorean tuning system, the fifth is used to generate a scale of 12 notes per octave. In this paper, we use the octave to generate a scale of 19 notes per tritave; one can play this scale on a traditional piano. In this system, the octave becomes a proper interval and the 2:3:4 chord a pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Schmidmeier, M. (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor and Francis Ltd. 2019
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Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
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Summary:In the Pythagorean tuning system, the fifth is used to generate a scale of 12 notes per octave. In this paper, we use the octave to generate a scale of 19 notes per tritave; one can play this scale on a traditional piano. In this system, the octave becomes a proper interval and the 2:3:4 chord a proper chord. We study harmonic properties obtained from the 2:3:4 chord, in particular composition elements using dominants, inversions, major and minor chords, and diminished chords. The Tonnetz (array notation) turns out to be an effective tool to visualize the harmonic development in a composition based on these elements. 2:3:4 harmony may sound pure, yet sparse, as we illustrate in a short piece. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
ISBN:17459737 (ISSN)
DOI:10.1080/17459737.2019.1605626