[Smt-talk] Altered pitch, preserved contour

[Dave Headlam]

Richard:  take a look at Bartok's discussion of the expansion of intervals
in the theme of the Music for Strings, Percussion, Celeste, which moves from
a chromatic context of a filled in P5 to an "acoustic scale" context in the
final movement:  from A-E to C-C

A-Bb-B-C-C#-D-D#-E
C-D-E-F#-G-A-Bb-C

A-Bb-C#-C etc.
C-D-G-F#  etc.

Bartok described it (Harvard Lectures) as "interval expansion" I believe.

Dave Headlam


On 5/20/09 6:23 AM, "Richard Lewis" <richardlewis at fastmail.co.uk> wrote:

> Can anyone think if there's an accepted term to describe the
> phenomenon where some musical material is stretched in pitch (making
> the intervals bigger but preserving the contour). The first thing that
> comes to mind is 'augmentation', but this is usually only applied to
> rhythmic alteration.
> 
> I suspect that, as this phenomenon is not common in the Western canon,
> it may have escaped categorisation by the early C20th arbiters of
> music theory. Though I'd be happy to be proved wrong.
> 
> Best wishes,
> Richard

-- 

 Dave Headlam
 Professor of Music Theory
 Joint Professor of Electrical Engineering
 
 Eastman School of Music
 26 Gibbs St
 Rochester, NY 14604
 (585) 274-1568 office
 dheadlam at esm.rochester.edu
 http://theory.esm.rochester.edu/dave_headlam