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Comment by rspeer | Hacker News Reader

This is exactly what I'm telling you. Why are you being condescending to me about it? You're the one claiming that the semitones of the 12-tone scale are some sort of fundamental axiom.

Why didn't you know where minor thirds come from?

Why do you seem to be denying that simple harmonic ratios are where harmony comes from? (EDIT: he's not, it's fine)

Why are you promoting a theory of music with absurd axioms, which manage to explain the octatonic scale (which almost nobody uses) better than the pentatonic scale (which almost everybody uses)? That's not a sign of a good theory.

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Please read the part of the article starting with "The twelfth root of two may be irrational, but it turns out to almost create several nice ratios". The author excludes minor third from the set of "nice ratios". I referred to this while calling it a voodoo.

Dude, if you can't hear it, it doesn't matter. You'll never listen to Coletrane's "Night Train" and have your head explode when you realize he's jumping from Dorian to Mixolodian to whatever the fuck was that!?

A simplified explanation is not voodoo.

Yes, he chose to list only the intervals in the major scale. Showing the intervals in the major and minor scale at the same time would have been very confusing.

I understand now that you weren't trying to say that minor thirds were a hole in the theory he presented, but that they were a hole in the way he presented it. I took issue when I thought you were criticizing the theory itself, because what he presented is a simplified view of generally accepted foundations of harmony. I apologize for mis-characterizing your position there.

There is more that could have been said -- and it sounds like we agree on what could have been said -- but I think it's not necessary to go into all the details of the construction of scales, including temperament, just to write a blog post. Describing temperament accurately, without handwaving, requires a book.

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