h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are other very interesting scales out there besides the western one, so for a guide to Earth which h2g2 is, your title should be more specific. 'A musical scale'.

Even if you were not to treat blues, jegog, gamelan, raga, pentatonic, or any other natural human musical scale in this entry, they should have been mentioned. Once you get to an unnatural scale like whole tone, you could run microtonal too.

Just FYI, there is now a special project underway to add more information about musical scales.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A432587

Would like to see more information about microtonality. I have found out plenty of the theory but have yet to put it into practice. Maybe I could submit some of the things I have found out about.

Is that the kind of scale which includes notes like a "super-flat" etc? Like the Note in between F sharp and G natural, for example?

I never knew it was called Microtonality..

As far as I know it's only eastern music they're used in.. I don't think there's a western instrument that can play them! (Except maybe a trombone, what with its "portamento" method of playing - I expect it could reach those minute notes)

Hey there, aka. Yep, microtonality is the word. And experimental Western music does use it, especially classical postmodernists like John Cage.

I remember reading about one fellow who developed and composed in a 15-note scale of his own device. Can't recall his name, though. And you also see it in digital music, since synthesizers can reproduce any tone, half-tone, quarter-tone, or whatever else we can imagine.

PS: Most windblown instruments can manage microtonality by utilizing the same methods they use to adjust their pitch on the fly to be "in tune" with other players. This includes flutes, trumpets, clarinets, saxaphones, and any number of other instruments.

Guitarists can also do it by "bending" notes on the frets. The style of guitar may limit the amount they can do this, though.

Throught so.. My vocabulary's now one word expanded (Hardly a noticable change, though )

Yeah - That's what I meant by "Portamento" on Guitars and Wind instruments

Good to see you again, btw - You less busy these days, Fragilis?