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IN SEVEN-TONE COLLECTIONS
Jay Rahn
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rv v I v7V V Ir IV I V7/IV
vi I IV
7-34 d) 7-34 e)
7-35 7-35 7-32 7-32
Example 1
V I i V V42I i----- I i iv VI
1 i I I1 1
V I f IV V42 I i ----- i iv V I
odJd
"I ,do .!
' ' g"
.
, ti
Example 1 (Continued)
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(w) x y (z)
collection: ambiguities:
a) C D E F# G# A# B A#-C vs. C-D, D-E, E-F#, F#-G#,
GO-A#
G#-C and A#-D vs. C-E, D-F#,
E-G#, F#-A#
F)-C, G#-D and A#-E vs. C-F),
D-G# and E-A#
etc.
b) CDE F# G# A# none
Figure 10. Consequences of interpretingC D E F# G# A# collection in
terms of a) seven scale degrees (from seven-tone collection
C D E F# GOA# B[ = 7-32]) and b) six scale degrees (from
six-tone collection C D E F# G# A# [=6-35]).
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One can recognize as even more privileged any collection that man-
ifests a sort of cycling in approximatehalf octaves that was suggested
in my 1977 article. According to this formulation,every tone would be
a member of a set or bunch of tones comprisingtwo approximatehalf
octaves (e.g., C-G-D). Further, every tone in the bunch would belong
to three such triples, and all the tones in such triples would belong to
a triple of triples that comes "full circle" (e.g., for C D E F G A B,
a tone corresponding to D might belong to C-G-D, G-D-A and
D-A-E; E might belong to D-A-E, A-E-B and E-B-F; and F might
belong to E-B-F, B-F-C and F-C-G, where F-triples link up with
D-triples by way of C and G). Only eleven of the thirty-eightcollec-
tions appear to be privileged in this way (see Figure 13, and on the
empirical predominance of these eleven in South Indian music, de-
spite the "artificial"formulation of the mela system, see Jay Rahn
1981).
Within this overall picture, one could also recognize the partial or-
dering of privilege with regard to contradiction, ambiguityand differ-
ence that was described at the outset of this paper (see Figure 4); and
one could cite as a very special set of cases the four non-contradictory
collections dealt with earlier, and in particularthe diatonic collection.
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1. Of the various moduli listed in Figure 14, 3, mod-3 is strange insofar as all in-
terval classes mod-3 are halves of themselves; that is, in a sense, every unor-
dered interval class is its own "offspring" or "parent," since 1 mod-3 is half of
2 mod-3, which is really both 1 mod-3 and half of 1 mod-3. One can also note
a world-wide tendency for five-tone scales to constitute subsets of seven-tone
scales such that they comprise the following pattern of seven-tone scale-degree
intervals: 1112 1 2 (e.g., C D E G A) or some cyclic equivalent (e.g., 1 2 1 1
2, as in C D F G A). This is true of the anhemitonic (or atritonic) pentatonic,
the Japanese in-scale, and five-tone versions of equiheptatonic (found in Thai-
land and the South Seas-cf. Zemp and Schwarz 1973) and pilog. In a 1112 1
2 arrangement, the number of glitches is minimized in comparison with the
most glitch-free alternative (having the pattern 1 1 1 2 2-even more "five-tone
vs. seven-tone" glitches are found in the only remaining possibility, 1 1 1 3).
By way of illustration, one can observe that in C D E G A there are a) 2
x 3 = 6 five-versus-seven differences (between E-G and A-C on the one hand
and C-D, D-E and G-A on the other hand) plus 4 x 1 = 4 such differences (be-
tween D-G, E-A, G-C and A-D, and C-E, respectively), etc., for a total of 20
differences; and b) (1 x 2) + (1 x 2) = 4 ambiguities (between C-E, and E-G
and A-C, respectively, and between E-C, and G-E and C-A, respectively). By
contrast, the pattern 1 1112 2 (as in C D E F A) gives rise to a) 2 x 3 = 6 plus
(1 x 2) + (1 x 2) + (2 x 2) = 8 total of 28 differences, and b)
(2 x 2) + (1 x 2) + (2 x 1) + (2 ...--a
x 1) + (2 x 2) = 14 ambiguities. Further,
while neither of these five-tone subsets of seven-tone collections contain con-
tradictions between the five- and seven-tone quantizations, the only other five-
seven pattern, namely, 1 1 1 1 3 (as in C D E F G), comprises
(1 x 3) + (2 x 2) + (2 x 1) = 9 contradictions, as well as 20 differences and
4 ambiguities-cf. the parallel situation for 7-1 and 7-35 with regard to twelve-
versus-seven quantizations. The simplicity of five-seven quantization in 1 1 2 1
2 sets would seem to underlie their use throughout the world as independent
entities, both alone and in conjunction with their relatively "chromatic," seven-
tone counterparts. Again, there appears to be a link with Myhill's Property (on
which, see again Clough and Myerson, loc. cit.).
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