Talk:Semitone

message: I was quite surprised that vandalism had corrupted this article on Nov. 28/06.  An attempt was made to recover the page, but somehow the Minor Second (item 1 of the Contents) had vanished!  I have tried to restore it, using "copy and paste" from the History. I hope this has not caused any unnecessary problems. (Future edits were preserved). 
Please, when ANYONE (especially those anonymous IP editors) want to make edits to any article, it would be appreciated if you'd leave a note on the Discussion Page, mentioning your reasons for change. Some of us invest a great deal of time, effort, research, discussion, and scrutiny...to arrive at the most complete and accurate articles possible.  Prof.rick 10:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Prof Rick. I completely missed the vandalism, probably because it was an accident. It looks like  was reverting other vandalism which replaced the section with jibberish and forgot to replace the original material there, so I guess I thought the vandalism had been taken care of, but it hadn't. Anyhow, it looks fine now. Thanks for correcting that. - Rainwarrior 05:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Minor Second is back! 

message: Hi Rain,
Hope you don't mind...I have edited out your use of diatonic semitones to notate a chromatic passage:  e.g. C, Db, Ebb, Fbb, Gbbb, etc.  I feel this particular point is irrelevant...it may suggest that the chromatic semitone is a "necessary compromise".  (How often have you come across a triple-flat?) Obviously, both composers and readers prefer the most direct route, e.g. C, C#, D, D#, E, and think in such terms.  I don't believe the use of chromatic semitones needs to be justified. (Of course, if you disagree, you can restore your example.)  Best, Prof.rick 07:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing augmented unisons 

message: i'm no harmonic scholar, but it seems that the tritone is always dissonant, whereas the semitone is only sometimes dissonant. to my ears the tritone always sounds far more difficult.67.172.61.222 22:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Taken out of context (a musical context) it seems hard to say what is more dissonant.  In any case, the article's opening statement of the semitone being "the smallest interval commonly used in Western music, and is considered the most dissonant" -- it would be nice to have a reference (ie, who says it is the most dissonant?), and/or some kind of note about what method of measuring dissonance results in the semitone being the most.  The dissonance pages makes it clear that the term is used variously, with differing ways of measuring. Pfly 02:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: The tritone appears in every dominant seventh chord; it is extremely common. The minor second on the other hand is used quite sparingly, harmonically. This speaks to its relative dissonance in a way. The simplest just ratio for a tritone is 7/4 whereas it is 16/15 for the semitone, which is a more complicated ratio, which is one way to quantify dissonance. There are other arguments though, you could make the argument that the tritone has a greater implication for resolution than the minor second (because of its place in the dominant seventh chord), and if your definition of dissonance is a tension that leads to resolution (which is a different way of qualifying dissonance), it's could be reasonable to say that the tritone is more dissonant. All in all, I'd say statements like "most dissonant" aren't terribly useful anyway, given how various the definitions of dissonance are, but by most usages, the minor second is the more dissonant. - Rainwarrior 05:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: a dominant seventh chord sounds, without any surrounding context, fairly dissonant to my ears, at least quite tense. i think the best measure of dissonance, as a totally subjective concept, is the ability of an interval to sound "natural", which the tritone, quite simply, never does. listen to "From the Morning" by Nick Drake if you want a good example of a semitone used as an interval. if you try to write a piece on any instrument that includes a tritone, good luck making it sound that melodic. by a more meaningful measure of dissonance, a tritone divides the octave exactly in half, creating a lack of a tonal center in just two notes. lastly, just play a semitone as two individual notes, and then do the same for a tritone. you'll find that going from E to F sounds much different than E to A#. 67.172.61.222 00:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dissonance is subjective, dependent on harmonic context, context of the individual piece of music, and cultural music experience of the listener.  And to give a global perspective, if you open up other tunings, such as non-Western tunings, or microtonal equally tempered scales, there are numerous intervals that are considered more dissonant in some settings. Cazort (talk) 15:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  i thought the tritone was the most dissonant interval 

message: The article uses the terms "diatonic" and "chromatic" without adequate explanation. These terms cause serious uncertainties at several other Wikipedia articles, and in the broader literature. This is amply demonstrated in discussion above, and in the archived discussion. For example, some take the term "diatonic scale" to include all of the minor scales, and they have justification for this usage in published sources. One example will suffice. User Prof.rick writes, in Talk:Semitone/Archive_2:
The problem with referring to "diatonic steps" could present a possible source of confusion to first-level theory students. (What does "diatonic" mean? Which kind of diatonic scale? Major? Natural minor? Harmonic minor? Melodic minor?) This seems to be an easier way to define a minor interval, in terms the average first-level theory student can readily grasp.
This is not an aberrant or isolated understanding of the term "diatonic" by any means, but it is inconsistent with the article Diatonic scale; and that article itself comes close to being internally inconsistent. It certainly would be misleading to the reader seeking clear and current definitions.
Some of us thought that both "diatonic" and "chromatic" needed special coverage, so we started up a new article: Diatonic and chromatic. Why not have a look, and join the discussion? Be ready to have comfortable assumptions challenged!
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 22:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Diatonic and chromatic

message: To Dicklyon:
No, you will not find the Phi semitone described directly at the references I provided. However, at the "Elliott Sharp" page, check the discography. Find "String Quartets 1986-1996 (2003)". Read the CD insert. Would you like it mentioned in the article?  If you're not satisfied, feel free to remove the Phi semitone, by all means.
Your aggressive approach could certainly be used at "Mathematical Coincidence", which still has a ton of garbage. I corrected the expression of 1/81.  Rather than removing it, I've called for discussion.  Also, "Golden Ratio" still has a lot of it, too.  Prof.rick (talk) 01:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I'll take it out then.  I agree the 1/81 should go, but I saw you were headed that way, so didn't see a need to get involved.  As for golden ratio, I do keep after junk there; feel free to point out any you notice that I missed, or fix it yourself. Dicklyon (talk) 03:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

text: No problem.  While we're waiting, why not go ahead and add a citation to that CD insert, with a quote, so we'll know what it says. Dicklyon (talk) 07:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phi Semitone 

message: I came to this page hoping to understand how the musical notes are assigned to various frequencies. For instance, if A = 440 Hz, and every octave represents a doubling in frequency, then there must be some way to calculate the exact frequencies for each note in the diatonic scale. I did not find that information on this page but I eventually worked out on my own that with twelve semitones per octave, a semitone must represent an increase in pitch of 2^{\frac{1}{12}}-1=5.95%. Is there some reason not to include this information on this page? Ronnotel (talk) 01:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks, I see it now. Ronnotel (talk) 18:04, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematical equation? 

message: Seems to be a questionable term.  Reply at talk:Diminished unison for now.  Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 23:32, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments on [[Diminished unison]] would be appreciated

message: I suggest that Diminished unison is not a viable article as it stands.  The content should be merged into Semitone.  Augmented unison, which would be an alternative,  redirects to Semitone anyway (as does Minor second).  Perhaps Diminished third should also be merged here, too?  (I fully recognise the fact that equal temperament "irons" all these out, it just seems better to get them all under one wing for now to help citations and style etc.)--Jubilee♫clipman 02:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Why isn't the current "diminished unison" article viable? Hyacinth (talk) 06:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There's nothing more to say about the interval than what's already there, without duplicating the content of semitone.  I agree with clipman, although I don't know about diminished third.  Powers T 15:14, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It was proposed on the article talk page that the concept was inconceivable and the term didn't even exist. This was then shown not to be true. Hyacinth (talk) 15:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I read the talk page but couldn't see where any of that was contradicted per se.  Regardless, my point stands even so.  Powers T 15:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Talk page proves that Augmented unison is a widely used term and makes sense.  OTOH, Deskford calls the term Diminished unison a paradox and a joke; Opus33 asks for confirmation that the term is taken seriously and suggests explaining the rare usage (and actually recommends deletion if none of this can be done); Melodia simply points out that Augmented unison is a redirect (and implies that diminished unison should also be a redirect); I was trying to make sense of it all; no one there actually questions the existence of the term nor attempts to prove that it exists.  The main problem I can see with the article is that it basically says: This interval is smaller than the smallest [pseudo-]interval. Most theorists reject the term though some use it when referring to the inversion of the augmented 8va. It then quotes an indecipherable statement about flat being augmented and sharp being diminished - or should that be the other way around?  The only fact that actually makes sense here is that augmented inverts to diminished therefore logically aug 8va inverts to dim unison (while dim 8va inverts to aug unison).  All of this could just as easily be in the main article on semitone or in an article on the augmented unison.  If we created articles on Augmented unison and Minor second then this article could either stay and be expanded, or be merged to aug unison and expanded (given that the article suggests these are in effect the same interval; expand explaining why aug -> dim and vice versa, pointing out that the term is often used in jest, and that it is rare to find the term being used seriously).  (BTW, the interval is not actually a second, so it cannot be called a minor second. I have removed the following stricken through words etc from the article: it might perhaps be better called an augmented unison or minor second: C to C is the same as C/B to C<)  Diminished third is actually a tone so scrub that: I got confused there! I actually meant the theoretical double diminished third: C -e.  --Jubilee♫clipman 17:52, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

text: I've just expanded Template:intervals.  Originally, I only meant to add the wolf interval but then found several others...  I found List of musical intervals today, too, while doing this work!  So, yes perhaps keep this article.  Perversely, though, many of the more common intervals lack their own articles:  Minor second (redirect), Augmented unison (redirect), Augmented third (red link), Augmented fourth (redirect), Diminished fifth (redirect), and Diminished sixth (red link) and even augmented octave (red link).  These should all be created.  (Note: aug4 and dim5 are not necessarily the same!) Augmented seventh redirected to Augmented seventh chord but I corrected that by creating an article for it.  --Jubilee♫clipman 02:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge Diminished unison

message: Why, how, and where does this article need additional citations for verification? Hyacinth (talk) 15:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Tag removed. Hyacinth (talk) 04:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Additional citations

message: The current version singles out 15:14 (119 cents) and 17:16 (105) as primary examples of semitone. This is odd, since they are part of a 7 and 17-limit tuning, whereas a 5-limit tuning is more noteworthy. The logic in the article suffers. A standard 5-limit 12 tone scale contains semitones of 25:24 (71 cents), 135:128 (92 cents) and 16:15 (112 cents). −Woodstone (talk) 03:42, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: How does the current version do so? Hyacinth (talk) 12:42, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

text: What about http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ASemitone&action=historysubmit&diff=360446036&oldid=347099039 ? Hyacinth (talk) 09:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course I saw that also. That's why it's a mystery. I have seen it happening occasionally real time as well. Sometimes (by great exception) an edit is attributed to the wrong editor. −Woodstone (talk) 15:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semitone by tuning system 

message: I suggest that Minor second be merged into this article as it is a stub with 1) duplicate or 2) overlapping content (WP:Merging). Hyacinth (talk) 08:09, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: "Minor second" seems like a strange term to me, since no minor scale has a semitone interval between the first note and the second.  So it seems like a misnomer.  But how about instead merging Minor second into Augmented unison?  I think of semitone as an atomic concept used in the descriptions of all intervals that are integer numbers of semitones, "minor second" (aka "augmented unison") being an interval whose size happens to be one semitone.CountMacula (talk) 05:20, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that a scale doesn't start with this interval isn't relevant to the concept as described in the article.  But how about merge both into here?  Both articles are tiny.  Actually, we already have sections on them, longer than the articles, so a merge should be pretty trivial.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: "The fact that a scale doesn't start with this interval isn't relevant to the concept as described in the article."  The concept of semitone doesn't depend on any of the concepts of named intervals (augmented unison, major second, perfect fourth, etc.).  It is the other way around.  Concepts of named intervals depend on the concept of semitone, and are more complex than the concept of semitone.  IMO there should be at least thirteen articles for named intervals, at least one for each of the integer lengths 0-12, I guess exactly thirteen, plus the present article for the independent atomic concept of semitone.CountMacula (talk) 16:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

text: Yes, Dicklyon is absolutely correct. If the interval between scale-degrees 1 and 2 were the determining factor, there would be no difference between what we call major and minor scales. Furthermore, major and minor scales are just a couple of jumped-up, johnny-come-latelies, by comparison to the semitone or minor second, both concepts which had been around for nearly two millennia before those scales reared their ugly heads. Also, where does all this stuff about there being only thirteen "integer-lengths" come from? If you are going to go that route, you will need separate articles for a minimum of 72 "integer lengths", before even getting out of the octave, and probably a lot more than that, once you have cast off equal temperament and understood how tuning actually works when not confined to the mechanical workings of a piano (even more of a johnny-come-lately than the major-minor scale system).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:40, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I discovered a previous discussion above in this talk page about merging Augmented unison into here. I read it and I changed my mind. I think we should keep separate articles for minor second and Augmented unison. Even though there is certainly a lot of overlapping with this article, they may be useful. Paolo.dL (talk) 10:36, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge: [[Minor second]]

message: How is it that a semitone is called a "minor second"?  It is not the interval from the tonic of a minor scale to the second scale degree.  Then in what sense is it minor and in what sense is it a second?  And what is the history of the term?  The answer to these questions should go in the article near the first use of the term "minor second".  Thank you if you can clear this up.CountMacula (talk) 20:13, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: We will explain ASAP. If you are curious, you can find everything about this weird (but widely used) terminology in Interval (music)#Interval number and quality. Paolo.dL (talk) 19:09, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whence the term "minor second"? 

message: Dicklyon proposed above to merge both Augmented unison (A1) and Minor second (m2)into this article (05:35, 22 July 2012). A discussion about this is useful. However, the discussion should have a broader scope, as a similar problem concerns the articles Whole tone, and Tritone. I believe we should open a "multi-article" discussion, somewhere, about:
# merging A1 and m2 into Semitone
# merging M2 and d3 into Whole tone (which now redirects to M2!)
# keeping A4 and d5 merged into Tritone (currently, there are no separate articles about A4 and d5).
As you can see, we currently deal with these three similar problems with maximum inconsistency: for each of them we used a different approach (the most questionable one being the absence of a separate article about Whole tone!). 
Where can we discuss about a consistent strategy to deal with these problems, so that we can obtain consensus by as many editors as possible? Perhaps in Talk:Interval (music)? Paolo.dL (talk) 10:26, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: We might also add to this list the separate article for Ditone, which (apart from the distinction occasionally made in specialized articles on tuning theory) is synonymous with Major third. I'm not sure I am advocating such a merger, but I think it at least ought to be discussed in this context. After all, Semiditone redirects to Minor third.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:19, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, Ditone is nothing but a synonym for major third; I don't care much which title we choose, but I agree they should merge, and that we should do more or less as Paolo suggests with the others.  Dicklyon (talk) 20:51, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ok, where is the best page to discuss this? Is there a way to attract contributions? Dicklyon, I did not mean to suggest a merge. I only meant to start a discussion about that. Paolo.dL (talk) 20:56, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Talk page for the Music Theory Project is the most logical place, I should think.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:58, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you. OK, I'll start a discussion there in a few days, as soon as I can. Dicklyon and Jerome, please feel free to start it yourself, if you wish. Paolo.dL (talk) 21:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposing "multi-article" discussion about [[Semitone]]s, [[Whole tone]]s, [[Tritone]]s 

message: I'm too lazy to do a full calculation check, but the ratio between A and B♭ (5/3 and 16/9) is still 16/15.
Somebody'd better delete that "S4" stuff. 2001:B011:C000:3A70:56BC:1380:82BC:A552 (talk) 19:33, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  I'm pretty sure there's no such a thing as "S4 = 27/25" in 5-limit tuning