The major scale

yeah, but it's seems like we're just about plum out of ideas unless there's an expert out there roaming the forums, where's NoteBoat? I refuse to believe he doesn't have anything to add

Agreed. I think Tom is out there just waiting for the right time to put down his thoughts. My thought today (actually for days) “the Locrian scale is stupid.” I'll never get over that!

My best friend digs the minor chords and I don't get it. Yet he loves horror movies and I hate them.

One supports the other - both dark sounds.
“the Locrian scale is stupid.”

Very true - the cuckoo in the modal nest.

Ok Snoogans, I'll put in my two cents... but you've already got the answer. Your Thai student wasn't comfortable with cadences, and comfort is key - we tend towards the familiar in every aspect of our lives.

We like the major scale not because it's magic in itself, but because that's what we've heard all our lives. We can trace it back through Gregorian chant to the Greek modes (which we've never talked about - they're a little different from the Church modes). We've got a couple of thousand years of major scales in our music, so that's where our comfort level lies.

Pythagoras tried to explain music in mathematical terms, looking for a natural basis for the major scale. Although his work was very important, it raised as many questions as it answered, and we have to remember it was based on the music he was familiar with - the Greek modes.

Folks in Indonesia will be more comfortable with Pelog than major... it's what they know.

That's not to say that people don't try to break new ground and challenge the rules... but as another thread aptly states, popular music is popular, and the unfamiliar stuff like atonalism and quartal harmony hasn't exactly taken the world by storm.

Alex's point that a child would think the major scale sounds best is prejudiced by his own experience, I think - if there's one universal 'best' scale, it's more likely the pentatonic.

I'd imagine there are books in the library where professors have experimented with this. Like taking a child (say American) and exposing her to Indonesian music for ten year and then testing “which one sounds better?” I'd tend to believe it's all in the socialization. If I grew up in a vastly different culture I'd be a vastly different person. Just a theory.

yeah, maybe next time I'm introducing someone to western music, I'll play Harry Kartch, he's always referred to as the creator of a purely american music anyway

purely american music anyway

I think that would be more likely to be people like the Apache, Arapahoe, Commanche, Pince Nez, etc. 8)

yeah, maybe next time I'm introducing someone to western music, I'll play Harry Kartch, he's always referred to as the creator of a purely american music anyway
You mean Partch?

purely american music anyway

I think that would be more likely to be people like the Apache, Arapahoe, Commanche, Pince Nez, etc. 8)

lol im slow. I JUST got that.

"but that's not music, the focal point is rythm!" (someone said that about rap once, i forget where i heard it. some comedy show , i think.)