Re: Help? Asciification of musical language

Rachel Klippenstein wrote:
> James Worlton ha tera a:
>
>>>Rachel Klippenstein wrote:
>>
> [...]
>
>
>>>Or I could use the numbers to represent the notes,
>>>with 1 being the first note of the scale, and 7 being the 7th.
>>>Then the above sequence of notes would be written
>>
>>>1 147 1245-47 457-63 1
>>
>>>That looks terribly illegible to me.
>>
>
>>Actually, from my musician viewpoint, this is more
>>intelligible than using letters. To me, the letters would
>>'require' a non-relativistic interpretation (some people
>>say that I have 'perfect pitch'; I don't think it's 'perfect'
>>but rather PDG.) Anyway, the number system lets the scale/pitch
>>element reside in the background more easily for me.
>
>
> Yes, the main advantage of numbers is that they're less closely tied to
> specific intervals or pitches.  Do you prefer starting at 1 and going
> to 7, or starting at 0 and going to 6?
>
In talking about diatonic scales I prefer 1-7 since the numbers
represent scale degrees. Starting with 0 implies a chromatic/atonal
context (courtesy of Allen Forte's _The Structure of Atonal Music_), and
usually involves the entire chromatic set (0-11). The numbers here
relate to the number of semitones away from the beginning pitch -- 0.


--
=============
James Worlton
          "We know by means of our intelligence
          that what the intelligence does not
          comprehend is more real than what it
          does comprehend."
                           --Simone Weil