The Great Book of Music

Page 11

As for the second part, he divided it into three sections original: "funun," branches of science or major divisions.. He dedicated the first section to the principles of the craft, naming it The Elements of the Craft of Music elements: "stuqusat," a term derived from the Greek "stoicheia," meaning fundamental principles or the basic building blocks of a science., and organized it into two treatises:

The first: on the occurrence of notes notes: "al-nagham," individual musical tones or pitches defined by their clarity and duration. and sounds, the causes of high and low pitch literally "sharpness and heaviness" within them, and the definition of musical intervals, their ratios, and their numerical values through composition, addition, halving, and division. The author used larger numbers in his ordering to represent the lower, heavier notes, based on the lengths of the strings that produce those notes. However, the editor's commentary on this point explains that it is necessary for smaller numbers in a sequence of notes to represent the heavier ones if the frequency of the string vibrations is taken as the basis for the relationship between notes, rather than the difference in string lengths being the primary basis for the comparison.

Then, the author enumerated the ranks of the successive tetrachords tetrachords: "al-ajnas," sets of four notes that serve as the primary building blocks for scales in Middle Eastern and Ancient Greek music. consisting of four notes, mentioned their various types, and organized them into tables where their numerical values are relative to a hypothetical fixed string length.

The second: an investigation into the varieties of complete systems complete systems: "al-jama'at al-tamma," equivalent to the Greek "systema teleion," referring to a full two-octave scale that encompasses all the primary notes of a musical mode. which contain harmonious notes across two octaves literally "two cycles", and the names of the notes associated with each system. The author listed these names in English original: "al-Yunaniyya" (Greek) alongside their corresponding Arabic designations.

He then defined "similar intervals"—those that are equal in ratio but differ in the pitch extensions of their notes—and explained the starting points of these extensions within the complete system. By "starting points," he means the initial notes from which one transitions through the scale. Next, he dedicated a chapter to the blending and mixing of notes, intervals, tetrachords, and systems. He also enumerated the types of rhythmic modes, categorized as either continuous or disjunctive. Finally, he followed this with a description of an instrument that was used in ancient times to test consonant and dissonant notes within various tetrachords and systems; this instrument somewhat resembles the shape of the Qanun Qanun: a flat, trapezoidal stringed instrument or zither, widely used in Middle Eastern music, played by plucking the strings with plectrums..