More About Scales
Historical Tunings
•Ling Lun: a twelve-tone scale dating from 2700 B.C. China.
•Scholar’s Lute: a seven- tone scale dating from 300 B.C. China.
•Greek diatonic genus: a seven-tone scale from ancient Greece.
•Greek chromatic genus: a seven-tone scale from ancient Greece.
•Greek enharmonic genus: a seven-tone scale from ancient Greece.
•Pythagorean: a twelve-tone scale dating from 600 B.C. Greece. This scale is derived by tuning twelve pure perfect fifths upward and adjusting the octaves downward. This leads to some pure intervals and some very impure intervals.
•Just (major chromatic): a twelve-tone scale. Just intonation tunes the most frequently used intervals to be pure (integer ratios in frequency). These tunings depend on the mode (major or minor) and the key. This scale is tuned for major mode.
•Just (minor chromatic): (See Just (major chromatic), above)
•Meantone chrom.: a twelve-tone scale. This tuning is a combination of Pythagorean and Just tunings so that music in a wider variety of keys could be usable.
