[Smt-talk] Scale degrees

[Bériachvili Georges]

Dear Nick,
Rameau, in
his Traité d’Harmonie (1722) uses numbers and names for scale degrees :
“Tonic
note, second note, mediante, fourth note, dominant tonic (sic), sixth note,
« note sensible », octave” (Orig. French ed. p.199). It’s interesting
that he calls them exactly “degrees of the scale”. But on theoretical level he
makes very few use of this. And there is of course, nothing resembling to
functional principle. We can consider it at best like an embrion of future
degree system.
Best wishes
 
Georges Bériachvili
Pianist,
musicologist,
Paris,
France
 
 De : "nick at baragwanath.com" <nick at baragwanath.com>
À : smt-talk Talk <smt-talk at societymusictheory.org> 
Envoyé le : Jeudi 15 mai 2014 16h11
Objet : [Smt-talk] Scale degrees
  


 
Dear List,

does anyone know who was the first theorist to number the scale (especially in the bass) from 1 to 7? 

This is a mainstay of partimento rules, as in ‘add a 3rd and a 5th to the FIRSTof the scale, add a 3rd and a 6th to the SECONDof the scale, etc.’  It remains fundamental to modern approaches to tonality. 

Although a seven-note scale is implicit in the modal system, in counting intervals in counterpoint, and in the French seven-note solfa system, I have not been able to find any occurrences earlier than about 1750. Numbered scales are commonly found in late 18th-century sources, such as Fenaroli
(1775), Paisiello (1782), Azopardi (1786), and of course Vogler. But neither A. Scarlatti nor Durante numbered the notes of the scale. They used a Guidonian system which is incompatible with the notion of seven scale degrees. 

Could scale degrees be a late 18th-century invention? 
Private responses are welcome. 

Nick Baragwanath
Associate Professor in Music
University of Nottingham
University Park,
Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK
nicholas.baragwanath at nottingham.ac.uk



   
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