Re: The Music Lesson

Brendan Frost (Brendan_Frost@cch.com)
Tue, 11 Aug 1998 09:06:01 -0500

>If they represent
>the whole tone scale (C-D-E-F#-G#-A#-C) then what is the relevance
>or significance of grouping these scales like this?

That mystified me too. It leaves out that you can add up 4 successive minor
thirds (a whole+a half tone) to make up an octave, and also 3 successive
major 3rds (two whole tones). Which undoubtedly, if included, would result
in even more amazing coincidences, as it has been pointed out to tedium
on this list that numerological messages, of whatever type one pleases,
can be found in whatever text or system one pleases.

Maybe including the whole tone scale (the whole stoned tale?) allows for
the introduction of "diabolus in musica" (the interval of a flatted fifth,
C-F#
or equivalent, feared by mediaeval monk-composers) as a kind of
daemonic-parody subtext. We'll have to get Vernon's input.

Brendan Frost