Dr Faustus of Modern Physics - Department of Speech, Music and ...

Chapter 13
Falls of Music and Physics
The 12 tone technique is a method of composing with twelve tones
which are related only with one another. (Schoenberg)
13.1 First Fall: The Well-tempered Scale
The introduction of the well-tempered musical scale with 12 equal half-tone
intervals over an octave, given as the twelvth root of two, during the Baroque
period and explored by Bach in his Well-Tempered Clavier, represents a
breach or (First) Fall from the heavenly harmonics and keys of Pythagorean
scales of natural numbers, to mathematical scales invariant under change
of key. Before the uniformization of the well-tempered scale different keys
acquired character from their distance to the basic major scale of C of the
white keys of a piano representing light and Enlightenment, arranged by the
circle of 5ths:
• A-minor: a somewhat dark complement to C major,
• G major: happy and benedictory,
• E minor: purgatorial with connection to crucifixion,
• D major: power and glory,
• B minor: pathos, anguish and suffering,
• A major: youth and innocence,
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