source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 12:20:25 +0200 Subject: Thai scales From: John Chalmers Re Thai Scales: Graham Breed raised a question about Thai scales and 7-tone ET in TD 1104. I looked up the scale he posted in Helmholtz (p.518 of the Dover edition) and noticed that Ellis himself was somewhat dubious about it. Ellis (on p. 556 ) says that the King of Siam (sic) sent over his Court Band with their instruments to the London Inventions Exhibition of 1885 and the he and Hipkins were allowed to "determine the musical scale." A Prince Prisdang said "the intention was to divide the octave into 7 equal intervals." However, Ellis said he found considerable deviation from the ideal. Ellis went on to say that the Ranat_s were tuned with lumps of wax containing a heavy material and that all of them had been removed from #85 (p. 518) in his tables and "hence it was entirely out of tune." Furthermore he stated that only 21 of 52 measured intervals were between 160 and 179 cents (nominally 171). Some "octaves" measured by Ellis: Ranat Ek, wooden "harmonicon", 3 octaves, last incomplete 0 208 326 537 698 883 1048 1208 0 200 359 537 711 883 1057 1222 0 193 347 549 698 -- -- (two notes too high to measure) Ranat t'hong (brass harmonicon) 0 200 340 537 699 881 1043 1207 Ranat lek (steel harmonicon) 3 octaves 0 -- 327 519 679 856 1075 1202 (2nd bar missing) 0 150 299 447 614 743 960 1179 0 90 222 430 609 (incomplete octave) Tak'hay (crocodile, 3 string instrument with high frets) 0 198 362 528 720 890 1080 1250 Theoretical 7-tet 0 171 343 514 686 857 1029 1200 0 129 277 508 726 771 1029 1254 (#85, p. 518) As I recall, Thai music selects out 5 tone subscales from the 7-tone gamut so the actual scales may be something quite far from 7-tet. There seems to a tendency to stretch the octave, sharpen the fifth and possibly the first interval as well. --John Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 17 Jun 1997 13:28 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA04264; Tue, 17 Jun 1997 13:28:32 +0200 Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 13:28:32 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA04267 Received: (qmail 4359 invoked from network); 17 Jun 1997 11:27:59 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 17 Jun 1997 11:27:59 -0000 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu