Musical Scales of Various Nations 1

Abstract

AT the Society of Arts yesterday, Sir F. Abel, C.B., F.R.S., Chairman of the Council, in the chair, Mr. Alexander J. Ellis, F.R.S., read a paper on “The Musical Scales of Various Nations,” illustrated by playing the scales on his Dichord (a double Monochord, corrected so as to give the true intervals) and five English concertinas, specially tuned by Messrs. Lachenal, which also enabled him to play strains in some of the scales, and by various natrve instruments lent for the purpose by Rajah Ram Pal Singh, Mr, A. J. Hipkins, and Mons. V. Mahillon, The nations represented were chiefly those of ancient Greece, Arabia, India, Java, China, and Japan, with rapid glances at subordinate places. The relation to his former paper on the. History of Musical Pitch was this, that whereas that paper gave the variations in the pitch of the European tuning note, the present endeavoured to discover the system by which different nations tuned. This was obtained when possible by theory, taking as authorities Prof. Helmholtz for ancient Greece; Prof. J. P. N. Land, of Leyden, for Arabia and Persia, and Rajah Sourindro Mohun Tagore for India. When theory was not possible, results were obtained by measuring with his series of 100 tuning-forks the pitch of the notes produced by instruments of fixed tones (as the wood and metal bar harmonicons in Java and elsewhere), or those produced by native players on other instruments (as by Rajah Ram Pal Singh for India, the musicians of the Chinese Court of the Health Exhibition, and of the Japanese village). In obtaining these pitches Mr. Ellis was materially aided by the delicate ear of Mr. A. J. Hipkins, who most kindly cooperated with him in every way. From the pitches thus obtained, the intervals were expressed in hundredths of an equal Semitone (for brevity called cents) of which 1200 make an Octave, 702 a perfect Fifth, 498 a perfect Fourth, 386 and 316 perfect major and minor Thirds. Then these were plotted down on the movable fingerboards of the Dichord, and the scales were made audible. Occasionally forks were constructed of the pitch observed, and from them concertinas were constructed, and thus the most unusual intervals were reproduced to the ear, and their exact relation to those on a well-timed piano rendered sensible to the eye. After rapidly exhibiting the ancient and later Greek scales, Mr. Ellis turned to Arabia, for which Prof. Land had furnished the data in his Gamme Arabe read before the Oriental Congress at Leyden. This showed first the Pythagorean scale, and then its modification by the lutist Zalzal, 1000 years ago, whereby a fret was introduced between those for E flat, 294 cents, and E, 408 cents (supposing the open string to be C), producing the neutral Third of 355 cents, so that the scale became C o, D 204, E neutral 355, F498 cents, followed by the same a Fourth higher, and by a whole tone. This was the system prevalent at the time of the Crusaders, who seem to have brought it to Europe in the shape of the bagpipe, and it is still preserved on good highland bagpipes (as those of Glen and Macdonald) as was proved by taking the scale of one kindly played by Mr. C. Keene, the artist. After the time of the Crusades, Arab theorists, scandalised at giving up the series of Fourths to produce the neutral Thirds and Sixths, carried on the system of Fourths to 17 notes, using 384 and 882 cents for Zalzal's 355 and 853 cents, but preserving his name. So came about the mediæval Arabic system of 17 notes to the Octave, from which 12 scales were constructed, of which Mr. Ellis was able to play 10 on one of his concertinas. But Zalzal's system did not die out, and in 1849 Eli Smith, an American Missionary at Damascus, translated a treatise by Mesháqah, a learned contemporary musician, showing that it led to the division of the Octave into 24 Quarter-tones, with the normal scale of 0, 200, 350, 500, 700, 850, 1000, and 1200 cents, while the player was allowed, in certain cases, to increase or diminish the interval by 50 cents, or a Quarter-tone. Eli Smith gives 95 Arabic airs in this system, of which a few were played on a special concertina. The two important points of Arabic music were the introduction of the neutral Third and Sixth, and the variation of normal notes by a Quarter-tone, both thoroughly inharmonic.