Hello Joesph Maurer! <snip> When I fly by the seat of my pants, I like to have a model or direction-finder for where I am going. As a singer, I prefer the model of the musical octave Do, Re, Mi_Fa, Sol, La, Ti_Do for evolution. The thing about the octave is that there are two naturally occurring intervals Mi_Fa, Ti_Do, at which any mechanical schema breaks down. If a pitch is going to double in vibrations the last note of seven is shocked, and looks to the mi_fa interval for support.
Hi Joe, May I call you that? I am fascinated by this. Daddy bought a cheap Yamaha guitar from Sears & Roebuck sometime in the late 1960's and started teaching himself to play. He drove us crazy (Mother and me) playing "Wildwood Flower" over and over again for years. I think he worked on it so hard because it required you to learn pulling off and hammering on. Anyway, when I was about 10 he showed me 3 chords (you know you can play any country-western song ever written in 3 chords), and I was off and running. Later on he showed me the circle of fifths. I don't understand why it works, but I do know you can use it to transpose a song from one chord to another. My problem with music is that I was a smart-ass. I absolutely do not have perfect pitch. I can't tell you a true C from a true G to this day. Perhaps a lot of that has to do with the fact that I never had anything to tune my guitar to. But I can sure tune it to itself. All I strive for is to get the strings to not be too tight or too loose, then go from there. E A D G B E, or so they tell me. When I was 6 my mother started me in piano lessons. Ha. I never did learn to read music, but if I heard something once or twice I could pick it out. No problem. This is also known I believe as cheating. Same with Clarinet. I was in the band at school and spent a lot of time vieing with this other girl, whose name I can't remember, for first chair. Thing is, I couldn't read music then either. I'd just pretend to play through the first cold run-through of anything new, then pick it up for real on the next go-around. I guess my point is (and I hope it's not on the top of my head :) ) that I have had a life-long love of singing and playing guitar, but have no understanding at all of what I am doing. I just hear music and it is right or it is wrong. Is this evidence of Mary having a Dynamic Quality experience? Same with rhythm. The drums are so easy as to be ridiculous. I once remember being in a drumming circle with some other heathen women friends of mine. I brought the whole thing to a halt. Each woman would take turns drumming whatever she felt. When it got to me I took off on some kind of jazz-like thing with extreme syncopation (which to me is emphasizing the counter-beat, but I could be totally wrong about what syncopation actually means). Anyway, I was off into some frenzied drumming that was so - I don't know - complicated??? it brought the whole thing to a halt. So what's with that? Where on Earth does this come from? To this day I can't stand to listen to a certain Aerosmith live album because they are off beat on certain songs. I think they are either too drunk or too high to stay with it. IMHO. After this long tirade (can you tell you've struck a "chord" so to speak?), the question I wanted to ask you is I've heard that the 8 note octave we westerners use is not the only one. I haven't Googled this yet, but I seem to recall that some Asian or Indian music uses a 12 (?) note scale. Is this true? What on Earth? I can't even imagine what that would sound like. Do they have notes that don't exist in Western music? This profoundly bothers me because I can't imagine any music with any other notes between the ones I know of. I mean, when I'm having a bad day and singing off key, those are other notes, but that just means I'm not in control of my voice, and they are BAD. Can you explain this? I have no idea how any of this relates to the MoQ, but you brought it up, after all, and I'm beginning to think that is DOES. Why do we see Quality in music constructed using the Western octave? Is this a learned response or a fundamental TRUTH of the Universe? What's up with music anyway? Why do we respond so profoundly to it? Where did it come from? Is it something of the Biological Level? I think it must be because it is so universal; but, if so, what's the deal with these different scales? Why are there scales at all? Why does a certain chord progression evoke such an emotional response in us, but not other chord progressions? They say music is mathematics. Yes, even my gut level understanding of music agrees with that. Is music the language of the Universe? If so, what scale does it use? 8 notes or 12? Is a Sitar player more in tune with the Universe than me? And do you notice how we use the phrase "in tune"? There is much wisdom in language that goes unnoticed. I have a book somewhere about word origins. It is fascinating. Those that came before us were not dumb. In a previous post I alluded to the fact that I used serious drugs for a number of years. Tomorrow (January 3rd) is the 3rd anniversary of my disuse. I have had the time since to ponder the nature of this. I am of the opinion that drug use is maligned in our culture because it is akin to cheating. I agree. Using mind-altering drugs to attain a different state is CHEATING. This, I believe, is why most straight people's unexamined gut reaction is negative. We should use the equipment we've got, and not attempt to enhance it. I would love to know what the MoQ has to say about that. Mary The most important thing you will ever make is a realization. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
