Alexander J. Ellis - On The Musical Scales Of Various Nations (journal Of The Society Of Arts For March 27, 1885, Vol. Xxxiii)

Transcript

This is the famous paper presented by Alexander J. Ellis at the Society of Arts' Sixteenth Ordinary Meeting, wednesday 25 march 1885 and published in the Society's Journal two days after. "On the Musical Scales of Various Nations" is quoted by its author in his translation of Helmholtz's "On the sensation of tone" and also by many other music pioneers like Kathleen Schlesinger and Harry Partch. ”The strangeness of the intervals identified by the analysis of records of Oriental and other exotic scales gave the impression that they consisted of equal intervals, five to the octave in the case of the Sléndro of Java, Indonesia and Melanesia, or of seven to the octave for the Pélog scales. The protagonist in the inception of this theory—which has proved to be an erroneous diagnosis—was Alexander John Ellis (formerly Sharpe, 1814-90), who published it in a paper on the 'Scales of all Nations'.* * Original title 'Tonometrical Observations on Existing Non-Harmonic Scales', Proceedings of Roy. Soc., 1884; republished with extensive additions in Jour. of the Soc. of Arts, 1885, No. 1688, Vol. xxxiii, March 27th.” Kathleen Schlesinger — The Greek Aulos [1939/1970], page 310