Tetratonic scale explained

A tetratonic scale is a musical scale or mode with four notes per octave. This is in contrast to a heptatonic (seven-note) scale such as the major scale and minor scale, or a dodecatonic (chromatic 12-note) scale, both common in modern Western music. Tetratonic scales are not common in modern art music, and are generally associated with prehistoric music.^{[1] [2]}

Distribution

Native American music

Tetratonic scales were common among the Plains Indians, though less common than the pentatonic scale.^[3] Amongst the Arapaho, Blackfoot, Crow, Omaha, Kiowa, Pawnee, and Sioux, as well as some Plateau tribes, especially the Flathead, the tetratonic and pentatonic scales used are anhemitonic (that is, they do not include semitones).^[4] Tetratonic scales have also been noted among the music of the Creek Indians,^[5] and in the Great Basin region among the Washo, Ute, Paiute, and Shoshone.^[6] In the Southwest, the Navajo people also largely used the pentatonic and tetratonic, occasionally also tritonic scales.^[7]

Inuit

Tetratonic music was known among the Inuit, including the Greenlandic peoples.^[8]

Maori

A 1969 study by ethnomusicologist Mervyn McLean noted that tetratonic scales were the second-most common type among the Maori tribes surveyed, accounting for 31% of scales used. The most common were tritonic (3-note) scales at 47%, while the third-most was ditonic (two-note) scales at 17%.^[9]

Oceania

Tetratonic music was noted as common in Polynesia and Melanesia.^[10] On Guadalcanal in particular, anhemitonic pentatonic and tetratonic scales are the predominant types, although the minor second does nevertheless occasionally appear as a melodic interval. The most often used melodic intervals, however, are the major second, minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, and octave.^[11]

Africa

The main instrument in the Lobi area of Ghana is the xylophone, some of which are tuned to a tetratonic scale.^[12] In eastern Uganda, the Gwere use for their six-string harp (called tongoli) a tetratonic scale in which all the intervals are nearly equal, which to Western ears sounds like a chain of minor thirds.^[13]

In South Africa, the San use a tetratonic scale approaching 5 equal temperament, but lacking the second step.^[14]

India

Tetratonic, as well as tritonic scales, were commonly used by the tribal peoples of India, such as the Juang and Bhuyan of Orissa state.^[15]

Russia

The music of the Volga-Finnic Cheremis (Mari people) of central Russia was primarily pentatonic, but used tetratonic scales 20% of the time.^[16]

Western Europe

The second-earliest scales of Scandinavian, German, English, and Scottish folk music are believed to have been pentatonic, themselves developed from an earlier tetratonic scale.^[17] Tetratonic scales, along with pentatonic scales, account for 54% of songs in the traditional joik repertoire of the European Arctic Sami people, where the singing range extends to a tenth or eleventh.^[18]

The predominant style of traditional music from the Peloponnese region of Greece is a mixture of Christian, Albanian, and Vlach. It employs tetratonic, pentachordal, and pentatonic scales, around the notes of which microtonal ornamentation (stolidia/psevtikes) occurs.^[19]

Art music

A rare example of an art-music composition based entirely on a tetratonic scale is the early minimalist work Reed Phase (1966), by Steve Reich, which is based entirely on a single five-note cell, or "basic unit", repeated continually throughout the entire work. Because the note A occurs twice in this pattern, there are only four pitches in all.^[20]

Further reading

• Bartha, Dénes. 1963. "Le développement de la résonance dans les musiques évoluées: Occident au XXe siècle—La musique de Bartók". In La résonance dans les échelles musicales, edited by Édith Weber, 279–90. Colloques Internationaux du CNRS 516. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
• Griffiths, Paul. 2001. "Dusapin, Pascal". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Ho, Allan B. 2001. "Lee, Dai-Keong". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Book: Nettl, Bruno. Bruno Nettl. Music in primitive culture. 1956. Harvard University Press. 9780674590007 .
• Ramón y Rivera, Luis Felipe. 1969. "Formaciones Escalísticas en la Etnomúsica Latinoamericana". Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council 1:200–25.
• Roberts, Shawn M. 2010. "Aztec Musical Styles in Carlos Chávez's Xochipilli: An Imagined Aztec Music and Lou Harrison's The Song of Quetzalcóatl: A Parallel and Comparative Study". DMA thesis. Morgantown: West Virginia University.
• Ulveling, Paul. 2001. "Cigrang, Edmond". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.

Notes and References

1. Book: Anthony Baines. Woodwind Instruments and Their History. third, revised. 22 June 2012. 1967. Faber and Faber. 9780486268859. 176–. (Reprinted, New York: Courier Dover Publications, 1991,).
2. Book: Baidyanath Saraswati . Tribal Thought and Culture: Essays in Honour of Surajit Chandra Sinha. 22 June 2012. 1991. New Delhi. Concept Publishing Company. 978-81-7022-340-5. 131–.
3. Book: Alan P. Merriam. Ethnomusicology of the Flathead Indians. 22 June 2012. 2011. New Brunswick, NJ, and London. Aldine Transaction Publishers. 978-1-4128-4244-0. 325.
4. Bruno Nettl, Victoria Lindsay Levine, and Elaine Keillor (2001), "Amerindian Music", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers, §2(ii).
5. Book: Bruno Nettl. Helen Myers. Folk Music in the United States: An Introduction. 22 June 2012. 1976. Wayne State University Press. 978-0-8143-1557-6. 38–.
6. Bruno Nettl, Victoria Lindsay Levine, and Elaine Keillor (2001), "Amerindian Music", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers, §2(v).
7. Bruno Nettl. North American Indian Musical Styles (sections 3, 4, and 5). Journal of American Folklore. 22 June 2012. 1954. 67. 265 [July–September]. 297–307. 10.2307/536785. 536785. 2027/inu.30000118592447. free. . Citation on 305.
8. Book: Thomas F. Johnston. 1976. Eskimo Music by Region: A Comparative Circumpolar Study (Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper 32). Ottawa. National Museums of Canada. 150, 161.
9. Book: Mervyn McLean. Māori Music. 22 June 2012. 1996. Auckland University Press. 978-1-86940-144-3. 239–.
10. Mervyn McLean. Record Review of Polynesian Songs and Games from Bellona (Mungiki) Solomon Islands, Ethnic Folkways Records FE 4273. Recording, notes and photographs by Jane Mink Rossen (Danish Folklore Archives). The Journal of the Polynesian Society. 22 June 2012. 1978. 87. 2. 144–48. Citation on p. 146.
11. Mervyn McLean. Record Review of Musique de Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, recording, notes and photographs by Hugo Zemp. One 12" 33⅓ disc. Ocora OCR 74 (Paris, Office de Radiodiffusion Television Fransaise [''sic'']). Notes (in French and English) 10pp., map., photos.|journal=The Journal of the Polynesian Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=72kLAAAAIAAJ|access-date=22 June 2012|year=1974|volume=83|issue=4 [December]|pages=490–91. Citation on p. 491.
12. J. H. Kwabena Nketia (2001) "Ghana, Republic of [formerly Gold Coast]", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
13. Sue Carole DeVale (2001) "Harp, §III: Africa", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, London: Macmillan Publishers.
14. Book: Rechberger, Herman. Scales and Modes around the World. 267. 2018. Fennica Gehrman Oy.
15. Book: Sudhibhushan Bhattacharya. Ethno-musicology and India. 22 June 2012. 1968. Indian Publications. 54.
16. Book: Bruno Nettl. Cheremis musical styles. 22 June 2012. 1960. Indiana University Press. 7–. 9780608300689 .
17. Book: Joel Ashmore Nevis. FUSAC '88 ACEFO: Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Finno-Ugric Studies Association of Canada. 22 June 2012. 1989. University Press of America. 978-0-8191-7492-5.
18. György Szomjas-Schiffert. Traditional Singing Style of the Lapps. Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council. 5. 22 June 2012. 1973. 51–61. 10.2307/767494. 767494. Citation on p. 52.
19. Sotirios Chianis and Rudolph M. Brandl (2001) "Greece, §IV: Traditional Music", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, London: Macmillan Publishers.
20. Book: Keith Potter. Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass. 2000. Cambridge and New York. Cambridge University Press. 181. 978-0-521-01501-1.