Editing 2788: Musical Scales
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
| + | {{incomplete|Created by a SEMI-LOG MOUNTAIN. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
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In {{w|Musical_notation#Modern_staff_notation|standard Western musical notation}}, the horizontal position of a note indicates its relative temporal position in the piece, and the vertical position of a note denotes <!-- no pun intended, honest --> its pitch; but the pitch is really a logarithm of the note's frequency (every octave/seven named notes/12 semitones/13 named notes including accidentals equals a doubling of frequency), so it's a semi-log plot of sorts. The comic thus explores what a notation would look like if the horizontal axis behaved this way instead. Likewise, the vertical axis has been rendered linearly by frequency, with the normally equally-set lines on a normal musical staff stretching to compensate for the increasing jumps between pitches. | In {{w|Musical_notation#Modern_staff_notation|standard Western musical notation}}, the horizontal position of a note indicates its relative temporal position in the piece, and the vertical position of a note denotes <!-- no pun intended, honest --> its pitch; but the pitch is really a logarithm of the note's frequency (every octave/seven named notes/12 semitones/13 named notes including accidentals equals a doubling of frequency), so it's a semi-log plot of sorts. The comic thus explores what a notation would look like if the horizontal axis behaved this way instead. Likewise, the vertical axis has been rendered linearly by frequency, with the normally equally-set lines on a normal musical staff stretching to compensate for the increasing jumps between pitches. | ||
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[[Randall]] may have mistakenly assumed that the lines of a music stave represent a linear increase in pitch and thus an exponential increase in frequency. He has thus mapped them onto a logarithmic scale by doubling the space between each successive line of the stave - one space between the bottom two lines, then two spaces, then four, then eight. In fact, the lines and the spaces between them correspond to notes in the C Major scale, which have unequal gaps between them. It is also possible that he is aware of this small inaccuracy and chose to ignore it in the name of humor. | [[Randall]] may have mistakenly assumed that the lines of a music stave represent a linear increase in pitch and thus an exponential increase in frequency. He has thus mapped them onto a logarithmic scale by doubling the space between each successive line of the stave - one space between the bottom two lines, then two spaces, then four, then eight. In fact, the lines and the spaces between them correspond to notes in the C Major scale, which have unequal gaps between them. It is also possible that he is aware of this small inaccuracy and chose to ignore it in the name of humor. | ||
| − | The title text purports to explain how {{w|In the Hall of the Mountain King}}, which progressively increases in tempo/speed and intensity from an initially subtle start into a rapid hustle towards a series of crescendos at the end, was written on {{w|Log–log plot|log-log paper}}, that features nonlinear expansion in ''both'' its axes (in order to render various exponential graphs linear, often for the purposes of ease of understanding). Rather than these features being a deliberate composition decision, this says that they're only the result of how it was written down, or thenceforth read | + | The title text purports to explain how {{w|In the Hall of the Mountain King}}, which progressively increases in tempo/speed and intensity from an initially subtle start into a rapid hustle towards a series of crescendos at the end, was written on {{w|Log–log plot|log-log paper}}, that features nonlinear expansion in ''both'' its axes (in order to render various exponential graphs linear, often for the purposes of ease of understanding). Rather than these features being a deliberate composition decision, this says that they're only the result of how it was written down, or thenceforth read. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
