Scales are patterns
When you hear a melody, it is based on a musical scale, i.e. a number of a few distinct notes which may occur in the melody. In a linear sequence, these tones constitute the scale. Most melodies that can be heard in our cultural area can be traced back to one single scale, the Ionian or major scale, which is made up of seven notes in very specific scale steps.
Thousands of scales
However, there are thousands of different scales. Presumably you are familiar with the minor as well as with major scale and may have heard something about pentatonic scales or about whole tone scales, Lydian and Phrygian scales, Indian ragas, Japanese and African scales. All these scales differ from each other.
As we will see, however, they have some astounding similarities. Why should people all over the world, in all cultures and with all their differences, comply voluntarily and strictly with these similarities? The reasons for this are easy to explain if we don’t merely look at one world, but at the interaction of all three worlds.
In which of the three worlds do the scales exist?
Scales are part of our reality, no matter how we define reality – unless we define reality as that which we call matter. In that case, the scales are not part of matter. They may manifest themselves in the physical world, for instance if a human being sings or plays them, but they have an identity which is independent of the individual way they are performed. In this sense, scales are non-local, as is typically the case with entities of the Platonic world. Between the scale and its performance, there is thus the relationship of an abstract, i.e. Platonic pattern with its material instance. This is always a 1/n relationship, for the pattern is unique but can be the source of any number of instances.
As a pattern, scales are part of the Platonic world, even though they manifest themselves in the material world. Mathematics, in particular, has much to do with the form of scales, which can be demonstrated easily, yet you don’t need to know anything at all about this kind of mathematics in order to recognise the scales correctly or to sing them. Your mental world in which you experience these scales has no need of figures and formulae.
Scales thus exist in all three worlds:
Platonic world: here, a scale exists as an entity, i.e. as a unity and as a whole. Here, every scale exists only once.
Physical world: here, a scale exists as any number of occurrences – whenever melodies are produced on the basis of it.
Mental world: here, i.e. in your head, you recognise the melodies and the scales.
Of course, each world is organised in its very own way. Now, how do the three worlds interact?
This is a text in the series about the theory of the three worlds.
Translation: Tony Häfliger and Vivien Blandford