Creative Writing VI

Today I feel like writing about some of the music theory that I learned the otherday while I was sitting in on a college class. The class was called Music Theory I but it is actually the second music theory class. The most interesting part was towards the end of the class when he was talking about overtones. Essentially he was talking about how notes came about. Each note is a frequency based off of the sequence 1/n. The first note has a fraction of 1/1. This could be any not which you please(depending on the frequency of the waves for the notes). So you could start on a lower A, which starts as a frequency of 55. The next fraction in the sequence is 1/2. So you would multiply the frequency by two, so the new frequency is 110. This frequency is one octave above the lower A, so the first step in the overtone series is an octave jump. The next fraction is 1/3. So the next frequency would be 165. This frequency would result in a new note, E. This is a major 5th about the A (the fifth note in the A scale). The next note would be the fraction 1/4. 1/4 is half the frequency of 1/2, so it would be one octave about the 1/2 frequency fraction, which was an A, so the new note would be an A at frequency 220. The next fraction would be 1/5. This would yeild a frequency of 275, which is the note C#. This jump would be a major third (third note in the A major scale). The next note in the series is the fraction 1/6. This is half the frequency of 1/3, so it would be an octave about the note with the fraciton of 1/3, which would yeild the frequency of 330, which is the note E. The next fraciton in the series is 1/7, which is frequency 385. This note doesn't exist on a piano. The reason is because a piano is tuned to play all the keys in music, not just one. So, the next step for the 385 frequency or a 1/7th fraction is a step size that is greater than a minor 2nd and less than a major third. In other words a note between F# and G, one a piano. Just an interesting face, that a piano cannot play all the notes, unless the piano was tuned to just one key. Then we would beable to play all the notes in the overtone series, which is what defines a note. The first people to use the fraction 1/n to define notes was the greeks. ANd essentially this is how the piano/guitar was made, based off of mathmatics. So, all the music you hear today is really just some mathmatical relationship in harmonics and waves vibrating to create a sound in which you hear. Kind of interesting eh??? Well thats all i remember from the class. Continuing onto music, I would have to say it is one of those things in which you must be super outstanding in, and yet have a hard time making a living out of it. Unlike the buisness world and other markets, it takes a lot of practice and detication to beable to make a decent living as a musician, and takes a lot of talent. With that said, other markets do take a lot of talent to make a living in, and they are talented people. Especially those who compete in the olympics. The atheltic ability and the way they push their bodies is insane. Who could think someone would jump over something eight feet tall. Well thats it.