Musical Cents
From “The ‘Semi´ and ‘Detune´ Knob on Our Synth¨ in Music Theory for Electronic Music Producers
Note
Unless distinct keys on the standard Western classical piano keyboard instead represented a smaller sonic distance (i.e., change in auditory frequency) than they do now, in which case cents would be the smallest musical distance one could move instead. This points to the relationship between keys and the “frequency distances¨ they represent being a conventional one.
Eureka
Since our musical alphabet and their accidentals, concretely, are primarily used as the labels and symbols of keys (this is obviously true insofar as this is how we dictate navigation around the given instrument), but the relationship between a sound’s frequency and the key that produced it is contingent on mechanical implementation, it is perhaps more accurate to view the musical alphabet and its accidentals as instead having normative meaning that bares on exactly that relationship between sound frequency and key. It thus fuels the standardization or specification of that relationship.
We see the lack of inherent relationship between a key, considered abstractly, and the frequency of its sound with the Semi knob: 20240901101954-Oscillator_Semi_Knob.
Question
How, then, could one define or explain the musical alphabet and its accidentals without demonstration by, or reference to, concrete keys of the standard Western classical piano keyboard?
music music_theory standardization specifications causality mechanism normativity aesthetics philosophy conventionalism musical_alphabet musicology contingency
bibliography
- “The ‘Semi’ and ‘Detune’ Knob on Our Synth.” In Music Theory for Electronic Music Producers: The Producer’s Guide to Harmony, Chord Progressions, and Song Structure in the MIDI Grid., 1st ed., 27. Minneapolis, MN: Slam Academy, 2018.