http://www.schillingersystem.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=61&sid=4c168b90846f81c8bb841d6dc01fef51

In reference to the question of intervals, in relative simplicity to complexity, measured by the numbers of the ratio added together
unison 1:1 (2)
octave 2:1 (3)
5th 3:2 (5)
15th 4:1 (5) (a 15th is two octaves, not really a melodic interval)


so far the intervals are very like the lower part of the overtones series, another kind of "measurement" of simplicity to complexity. Lets go on; this is important to music education.

4rth 4:3 (7)
Maj6th 5:3 (8)
Maj3rd 5:4 (9)

Well, what is going on? We still haven't gotten to the minor third, which you say is such a basic instinctive interval! Hang in there, let's see where this takes us.

min3rd 6/5 (11) whew! finally!
min6th 8/5 (13)
Maj2nd 9:8 (17)

so where does this scale instinct come from? Major seconds are relatively complex, hard for the ear to sing in tune, I think. But they come from, I think the comparison of the notes most memorable to the "rational mathmatical sense" of alternating a 4rth and a 5th away from a given note. This "open feeling" or "clarity feeling" of a melody using moving in 4rths and 5ths with a limited number of new notes tends to progress in such a way as to include somewhere a major second or a minor third very soon. examples
C F C G F Bb G F G
C F Bb G
F C F G C F upperC upperC G


http://www.britannica.com/magazine/article?query=interval&id=2

what is this? I don't have time to check it out

http://hucbald.blogspot.com/

Click the link "tuning and temperament"

tuning and temperament




I finally got around to getting this mathmatical information about the ratio of cycles per second which occur in music. The importance of singing as well as other musical activity is this sort of mathmatical play in which the brain engages these intervals. Apparently, whether by singing or learning an instrument or by listening to "classical" music or other kinds of music very early in life, music is food for the developing mind. Each of these musical activities would have a different aspect of development of intelligence. I think each is important, but singing is not sufficiently researched and regarded as important today in child development.

I love this story told by Ali Akbar Khan

http://www.spiritsound.com/sculpt.html

The site says that this traditional Indian Story is told by Ali Akbar Khan. I guess it is the same Indian Musician I am thinking of. By the way, I heard Ali Akbar Khan many years ago when he did a performance at Principia College in Elsah Illinois. Might have been around 1975. My brother had some recordings of his that I heard sometime in the seventies too. They had to fade them in and out on the records because this sort of improvisation goes on for hours, as a kind of meditation.

The Minor Third and Lullabies

The minor third: My thoughts about pitch development revolve around this basic structure. It is not just in minor keys, by the way. Many songs in major employ the descending minor third 5-3 prominently. It is a natural melodic pattern in vocal improvisation, such as occurs in improvised lullabies. I am trying to get some lullabies I wrote recorded and published. These very conciously use minor thirds and surrounding major seconds, teaching pitch structure: 5-3 is 'La-lu' as is 8-6 or 1-lower6 and 9-7 or 2-lower7.

I have a few suggestions about lullabies.

1. Make up melodies with nonsense syllables. Intuitively, this organizes musical material and makes both you as the improvisor and the baby as well more sensitive to musical structures in and of themselves, their logic and syntax as music apart from the logic and syntax of the words. I believe this is one of the currently untapped areas of 'smart baby' musical development practice.

2. Use "lulling" (sleep inducing) syllables like "la-lu" for "long short" rocking patterns. Include another syllable like "lay" for the ends of sections or phrases, to rhyme them:

"La lu la,
La lu la,
La lu la lu lay;
La lu la,
La lu la,
La lu la lu lay."

This 'teaches' (instills) musical form.

3. Alternate word singing with nonsense syllable singing.

4. Include pentatonic scales and even less notes than five. The four note scale in major used in "Ring around the Rosie"- 1-3-5-6, is very good for the singing ear of the child, I believe. Hearing this scale, this "skeletal pitch structure" early on makes for a more firm planting in the mind for clear pitch audiation for later singing of more complicated scales. Melodic patterns found to be sung by children in fairly good tune are the 'basics', which provide the strong 'skeleton' for more sophisticated 'adornment' later. This means that strong audiation or mental hearing of the skeleton will help strengthen audiation or mental hearing of the entire scale related to it as if by 'cell growth' of a musical embryo. Audiation or mental hearing is considered by researcher Edwin Gordon to be the basis of musical aptitude.


http://www.geocities.com/scottmccln/singing.IN.TUNE.html

http://www.geocities.com/scottmccln/Audiation.html

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/essay1.html

The Importance of Singing

The importance of singing on the spiritual level, the emotional level, as well as on the technical level.


http://pjtibayan.wordpress.com/2006/06/27/the-importance-of-singing/


http://www.hvcn.org/info/bethisrael/rabbi.php?page=The+Importance+of+Singing+Out+in+Prayer


http://flat5software.com/ear-training/singing-triads.php


http://www.spiritsound.com/sculpt.html



also, the importance of acoustics to singing:

http://www.jdbsound.com/art/art501.html

and of the arts in general concerning academic development:

http://www.music-for-all.org/documents/critical-evidence.pdf

Business Opportunity

I need an investor to make my music education materials available:

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/index.html

Making Music Teaching and Learning Easier for Everyone

Calling angel investors to help me with my vision for a musical culture. I have written and am continuing to write hundreds of teaching songs. These need to be produced as recordings and printed teaching materials.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/resume.html

What is the 'Da-di Method'?

The Da-di singing and music reading method is a collection of songs that develop the 'singing ear'. The songs are composed with a built-in learning system appropriate to children. They are entirely and organically based on the children's interval, the minor third.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/essay4.html

All I need is several hundred dollars to print up my first and second grade material, and some other material for teaching sight-singing. Then I could make money, modestly, doing what I want to do.

joyous: Kindermusik: Amazing Musical Learning

joyous: Kindermusik: Amazing Musical Learning

A couple of years ago I spent an entire hour, I think, talking on the phone to someone long distance at the headquarters of Kindermusik in Carolina. I am very poor, and now I don't even have a phone. I have something very unique, but I don't want it 'owned' by one of these franchises. On the other hand, I don't want it excluded by them. I would like them all to understand it and use it. I am talking about a whole series of composed songs that develop the ear, and have a learning tool built in to teach note-reading, or sight-singing, as we call it.

Help Parents Develop Musical Kids

I am trying to get parents to try something very simple to teach their toddlers music while playing one of the first five tracks of the CD "Teaching Your Child".
Anyone can give a one minute "mini music lesson"!

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/teachingyourchild.html


I have produced this CD/book with the help of my friend Gail at AW Promotions.