source file: m1538.txt
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 11:38:41 EDT

Subject: Re: Neutral Third

From: DFinnamore@aol.com

Thanks to Johnny Reinhard for the fascinating historical and etymological info
on the lute and the neutral third!

Johnny, could you please clarify this intriguing statement:

>One special characteristic of the neutral third is that no matter what
>kind of 5th there is in a system, the neutral third is always in the same
>place logarithmically.  

Do you mean that neutral thirds have the same relationship to the tonic
regardless of how the 5th is tuned, or that the pitch of the 3rd rises and
falls in logarithmic proportion to the height of the 5th, or...?  Is this a
function of Arabic theory, something that you have observed universally,
something stated by someone else in a referencable document, ...?

David J. Finnamore