The Ideal Scale: Its Ætiology, Lysis and Sequelæ

Extract

Just intonation an arithmetical abstraction. Impossibility of using it when there is modulation. Flexible scale. Mean tone tuning. Question of the minor mode. Modern keyboard, and notation. Key Character. “Theory” of Harmony.

When the Mathematician told the Historian that he had better let bygones be bygones, he meant that History was of no value; and it is of no value unless it can guide us in the present or future. There may be some guidance for us to gain from a retrospect of the old scales, though in one sense there is nothing new to be said. Most musicians have never heard even a single justly tuned chord, and have quite vague ideas as to what the ideal scale is, or sounds like. There is a loose general idea that quartet players, and unaccompanied singers drop into just intonation, as Wegg dropped into poetry, and that the result is very beautiful.