Miyako-bushi (都節), the hemitonic pentatonic of Japanese urban art music —
shamisen and koto song: offsets {0,1,5,7,8}.
Two miyako-bushi tetrachords a fourth apart, in the terms of Koizumi's
tetrachord theory: between the two nuclear tones of each tetrachord sits a
note a semitone above the lower one.
The mask fixes the pitch classes and nothing else: the repertoire's
intonation is not twelve-tone equal temperament, and the scale is a pair of
tetrachords around nuclear tones rather than a ladder of degrees above a
tonic. Cents and non-12 temperaments are the tuning module's business.
Miyako-bushi (都節), the hemitonic pentatonic of Japanese urban art music — shamisen and koto song: offsets {0,1,5,7,8}.
Two miyako-bushi tetrachords a fourth apart, in the terms of Koizumi's tetrachord theory: between the two nuclear tones of each tetrachord sits a note a semitone above the lower one.
The mask fixes the pitch classes and nothing else: the repertoire's intonation is not twelve-tone equal temperament, and the scale is a pair of tetrachords around nuclear tones rather than a ladder of degrees above a tonic. Cents and non-12 temperaments are the tuning module's business.