Ramsay
That some of the elements of the Chromatic System were known 200 years ago, but have been known so long without being formed into a system, shows that what was known and in use of chromatic chords had been found out from experience, and not from any knowledge of the laws which generate and constitute them. Without the knowledge of these laws they could not be explained; and this accounts for the entire want of order in everything which relates to them, and for the names which been applied to those which are in use, such as "the minor ninth," "the diminished seventh," "the extreme sharp second," etc. One chromatic chord has all these things in it, but it does [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 51]
not follow that these are their proper names. In the first chromatic chords, in its major form, B, D, F, A?, G is supposed to be the root; and accordingly the interval from G to A? has been called "a minor ninth;" from B to A? "a diminished seventh;" and from A? to B "an extreme sharp second." These names will vanish like mist of the morning when the intervals so named are seen in the system to which they belong. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 52]
given to this scale, as the D of A minor would be a comma too low; it would make a 9-comma interval between D and E, the seventh and eighth, where the minor mode has an 8-comma one. So its two new notes are thus found in the relative and sub-relative majors. This is the way of their mutual providing in the region of the #s; the # seventh of the major is given to be the # second of the minor, and the comma-higher second of the sub-relative becomes the seventh of the minor; and then we have a true written representation of what Nature has done. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 113]
See Also