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Microtonality is the use in music of microtones — intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals".It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal intervals per octave.
A semitone is thus made of two steps, and three steps make a three-quarter tone or neutral second, half of a minor third. The 8-TET scale is composed of three-quarter tones. Four steps make a whole tone. Quarter tones and intervals close to them also occur in a number of other equally tempered tuning systems.
Unlike much western music, Arabic music includes quarter tones halfway between notes, often through the use of stringed instruments (like the oud) or the human voice. Further distinguishing characteristics of Middle Eastern and North African music include very complex rhythmic structures, generally tense vocal tone, and a monophonic texture .
The earliest use I have found so far of the word "microtone" is in 1912 (two years before the earliest citation in the OED), but the article disparages the "widespread use" of the word. This suggests that, amongst ethnomusicologists at least, by 1912 "microtonal" and/or "microtonality" had already been in use for some time.
Eugene Jancourt compared the use of vibrato on the bassoon to that of singers, and Luigi Orselli wrote that the bassoon blended well with human voice. [2] He also noted the function of the bassoon in the French orchestra at the time, which served to support the sound of the viola, reinforce staccato sound, and double the bass, clarinet, flute ...
The tones of the chromatic scale (unlike those of the major or minor scale) are all the same distance apart, one half step. The word chromatic comes from the Greek chroma, color; and the traditional function of the chromatic scale is to color or embellish the tones of the major and minor scales. It does not define a key, but it gives a sense of ...
12-tone equal temperament chromatic scale on C, one full octave ascending, notated only with sharps. Play ascending and descending ⓘ. 12 equal temperament (12-ET) [a] is the musical system that divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equally tempered (equally spaced) on a logarithmic scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 (≈ 1.05946).
Just intervals (and chords created by combining them) consist of tones from a single harmonic series of an implied fundamental. For example, in the diagram, if the notes G3 and C4 (labelled 3 and 4) are tuned as members of the harmonic series of the lowest C, their frequencies will be 3 and 4 times the fundamental frequency.