![]() ![]() The image below shows the first thirteen harmonics of C. These are integer multiples of C’s frequency, which we can octave normalize (divide by two enough times to bring them within the same octave). We’ll start building our blues scale using the natural harmonics of middle C. (Middle C’s actual frequency is 261.626 Hz.) If you double the frequency of middle C, you get another C an octave higher, and that is also at 12 o’clock on the circle. Let’s call our starting note middle C, and say that it has a frequency of 1 Hz. The circle below represents one octave, which both starts and ends at the 12 o’clock position. In this post, I use MTS-ESP, Oddsound’s amazing microtonal tuning plugin, to visualize the possible harmonic basis of the blues. ![]() Whether the blues comes from just intonation, or just intonation happens to sound like the blues, this is a rich and promising avenue of inquiry, both for understanding the blues and for creating new music inspired by it. Does the harmony of the blues come from the natural overtone series? Is it a just intonation system that later got shoehorned into Western twelve-tone equal temperament? ![]()
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