[Smt-talk] Scale degrees

[Steve Grazzini]

Dear all,

As Nicolas points out, it's interesting that Campion would have felt
compelled to write out the rule of the octave in every key. Perhaps this
even suggests that French musicians of the period weren't yet accustomed to
thinking in terns of scale degrees. However, Campion does occasionally
describe the bass in terms of ordinal scale degrees. For instance, he says
that the #4 chord is only used on "la quatriéme du ton." At one point he
gives the full rule of the octave in the same terms (1716, 20–21), saying
that in a major key, "la premiere du ton" takes the major third, fifth, and
octave; the "seconde" takes the minor third, fourth, and the major sixth;
and so on, just as in the partimento rules that Nick mentioned in the
original posting.

Similar rules appear in the manuscript "Règles d'acompagnement" of
Clérambault, which are also dated 1716. Here Clérambault sometimes uses the
expression "degré du mode" in roughly the same way that we are using "scale
degree." And although Dandrieu seems to prefer to call the notes of the
scale "finale," "sufinale," and so on, he defines those terms by referring
to the "premiere note d'un mode," etc.

Even if the ordinal names for scale degrees were commonly used in France by
1720, it's worth noting that Gervais (1733) still hasn't quite caught on,
and numbers the descending scale backwards, with 1 for the upper tonic, 2
for the leading tone -- all the way down to 8 for the lower tonic!

With best wishes,

Steve Grazzini
Bloomington, Indiana


On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 6:11 PM, Nicolas Meeùs <nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be>wrote:

>  Dear Nick, Vasili, and all,
>
> Dandrieu indeed gives a figure where the degrees of the C scale are
> numbered 1, b2 (or b9), n2 (or n9), b3 (or #2), n3, 4, #4 (or b5), 5, b6
> (or #5), 6 (or b7 [sic]), b7, n7 and 8 (where 'n' stands for natural). This
> is an isolated and therefore most interesting case in France at this time.
> It is not entirely clear, however, whether these figures possibly refer to
> bass notes (b9, n9 and #2, particularly, are somewhat troublesome in this
> respect).
>
> Dandrieu also appears one of the firsts, probably the first, to use the
> term *soudominante*, which was not very common in the first half of the
> 18th century and which even Fétis did not use more than a century later
> (Fétis said "the 4th degree of the scale"!).
>
> François Campion, describing the règle de l'octave, for which bass numbers
> would have been quite convenient, fell compelled to notate it in twelve
> transpositions, in major and in minor, i.e. two times twelve almost
> identical staves (but for the transposition) and never thought of numbering
> the degrees.
>
> Quirinus Van Blankenburg, who published his *Elementa musica* in Dutch in
> 1739, derided French theory in general and François Campion in particular,
> saying:
>
>
> *zal men de namen der schale nomberen en zeggen met Campion blz. 22 dat N.
> 1 zal hebben een 3 en 5, N. 2 een 6, enz.[?] *Shall one number the
> degrees of the scales and say with Campion p. 22 that n. 1 shall have a 3
> and a 5, n. 2 a 6, etc.?
>
> This, to me, was until now the first clear European reference to a
> numbering of the bass degrees. I did not pay enough attention to the Kayser
> manuscript, as quoted by Lester, and I will do so as soon as possible.
>
>
>
>  Le 15/05/2014 21:34, Vasili Byros a écrit :
>
> Dear Nick,
>
>  The following are just two examples from the first half of the
> century, of French and German provenance respectively:
>
>  1) Dandrieu's *Principes de l'accompagnement du clavecin* from 1719
> (also the first treatise, I believe, to use the term *soudominante *for
> scale degree 4).
> 2) The so-called Kayser copy of the Well-Tempered Clavier (Book I), which
> features analytic annotations of a couple fugues and a prelude; the
> annotations include scale-degree analyses of the bass. For a discussion in
> English, see Lester, *Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century* (1992),
> 82–85. The Kayser manuscript dates from 1722–23.
>
>  Dandrieu uses names (for example, *soufinale* for the leading tone). The
> Kayser uses numbers.
>
>  All best,
> Vasili
>
>        ••••••••••••••••••
>
>  Vasili Byros
> Assistant Professor, Music Theory and Cognition
> Northwestern University
> Bienen School of Music
> 711 Elgin Road
> Evanston, IL 60208
> v-byros at northwestern.edu
>
>
>
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-- 
Steve Grazzini
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