This is a very interesting question for me and I’ve been pondering it for a while. Doesn’t the existence of only seven basic musical notes indicate non random order in the Universe and the possibility that the Universe was ordered deliberatly by a Creator.
It is a good question to put to atheists if there are any reading on this board!
AP Quinn
Not really. The thing is, the seven-note, then twelve-note divisions of the octave were not “invented”, but evolved. In the cases of Western music, it seems like the ancient Greeks messed around with tatrachords (four-note melodic units), which little by little formed seven note modes.
Then, there is the pentatonic influence (present in ‘primitive’ musics throughout the world). The interestion of the juxtaposition of tetrachordal formations, and the introduction of ‘passing’ notes into primitive pentatonic melodies resulted in the seven note scale.
In fact, the chromatic scale on the piano (with black note seeming to ‘fill in’ the spaces between some of the diatonic notes) is not perfectly in accord with the theoretical ratios. For example, C sharp is not (in theory) of exactly the same frequency as D flat (this can be demonstrated mathematically).
In principle, if someone was to create a scale which divided the octave into a different number of notes (such as the six-note whole tone scale) we could get used to it. Any arrangement of tonal resources could form the basis of a ‘music’.
True- the music would have a different feel, and maybe suggest a different understanding of the universe, even a different axiology.
But no- there is no reason (apart from conventions) that we have to have seven notes in the scale.
One might object that we ‘need’ the perfect fifth somewhere half along the scale- but the Locrian mode lacks this. And the blues scale often plays the fifth and fourth out of tune.
Could viable music be composed in the Locrian mode (aside from mere ‘compositional exercises’)?
Does the blues scale imply a different metaphysics?
I leave this for others to answer?
