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Ramsay - Ramsay's Letter-lessons5

notes attracted by proximity are attracted in the direction of the center of the tonic chord, major or minor. But if D in the major is attracted by C, the root of the tonic, then it would be moving away from the center. Two notes which have the ratio of 8:9, as C and D, or two notes which are produced by the same ratio as C and D, or two notes where each of them is either a root or a top, as C and D, never resolve to each other by proximity. It is an invariable order that one of the notes should be the middle of a chord.
     "If it had been the case that D resolved to the root of the major tonic, the resolving notes to the tonic would then have been one upwards and three downwards, instead of two upwards and two downwards, according to the Law of Duality.
     "What we have thus said about the resolving notes to the major tonic has been allowed in the case of the minor. No one ever said that the second of the minor scale resolved to the root of the tonic. Notwithstanding the importance of the tonic notes, the semitonic interval above the second of the scale decided the matter for the Law of Proximity; and no one ever said that D, the root of the subdominant minor, did not resolve to C, the center of the tonic minor, on the same terms that two notes are brought to the center of the tonic major; with this difference, that the semitonic interval is above the center in the major and below it in the minor. The other two notes which resolve into the tonic minor are on the same terms as the major; with this difference, that the semitonic interval is below the root of the tonic major and above the top of the tonic minor. And the small tone ratio 9:10 is above the top of the tonic major and below the root of the tonic minor. If it has been the case that D resolved to the root of the tonic major, then, according to the Law of Duality, there would have been another place where everything would have been the same, only in the inverse order; but, fortunately for itself, the error has no other error to keep it in countenance. This error has not been fallen into by reasoning from analogy.
     "Dividing the octave into twelve semitones is a near approach to the mathematical quantities, and this saves the musical artist from errors in tone - at least to any extent; but it does not save from errors in judgment. In the case of G#, for example, not one of the reasons given for the use of the sharp seventh in the minor scale is a correct one. A touch of nature makes the world akin, and a touch of the Law of Duality balances everything in music."

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     VIOLIN-FINGERING - Whenever the third finger is normally fourth for its own open string, then the passage from the third finger to the next higher open string is always in the ratio of 8:9; and if the key requires that such passage should be a 9:10 interval, it requires to be done by the little finger on the same string, because the next higher open string is a comma too high, as would be the case with the E string in the key of G.
     In the key of C on the violin you cannot play on the open A and E strings; you must pitch all the notes in the scale higher if you want to get

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Created by Dale Pond. Last Modification: Wednesday December 16, 2020 04:34:56 MST by Dale Pond.