Frazz by Jef Mallett for October 25, 2024

LOL

If you include the sharps and flats (the black keys), there are 12 notes in an octave. There is a style of music called “Twelve Tone” based on this.

I was in the middle of one of those meandering discussions one time when the question arose if you had to lose one of your fingers, which one would you choose? the first thought that occurred to me was that you never use your left thumb when typing, so I said I could part company with that one. My friends looked at me in amazement. The first one who could actually articulate the cause of their astonishment asked you’d give up the opposable thumb on your dominant hand? in retrospect that did seem like a pretty dumb thing to do.

Toùche!

The sitar must then accommodate multi-dactyls!

Glen Campbell played an 18 string guitar (and beautifully I might add). Still only ten fingers.

When asked about his 5-string guitar setup and playing style, Keith Richards said, “it takes 5 strings, 4 fingers, 3 chords and 1 a$$hole.”

This is like pondering the hot dog/bun distribution via packaging problem. Except that involves marketing/sales and every engineer knows where that answer leads.

exactly!

An "octave” is actually two tones that have a frequency ratio of 2. The starting point is an option.

The number and and size of the steps in between varies by convention and convenience and may be adjusted to allow for shifting a piece of music to another key. Western music (not “country”) is not original nor global.

It’s an octave because it has eight notes. If it had ten notes it would be a decave.

Okay, now we are into music theory… my head hurts.

I’m told physics, with its mathematics is involved. But just saying ‘semitone’ makes me sound smarter than I am.

Because early European musicians felt that certain sounds seem to work well together. The heptatonic and pentatonic scales both came from this experimentation.

Hmmm, I play guitar and use nine fingers. The left thumb is the only one that doesn’t get used, and it still helps to hold the neck.

Phil Keaggy, “due to his complex and virtuosic playing, is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of all time” (Wikipedia), plays with a missing finger due to a childhood accident.

Music has been in existence long before we had pianos.

You were politely and cleverly corrected son. (Eight fingers two thumbs)

The pentatonic scale has only five notes. Just about right.

If we had more or less than 8 octaves, it wouldn’t be an octave. So there!

The notes are from the circle of fifths, which is a result of the harmonic series. Unfortunately, there is a hole in reality that Pythagoras discovered that makes all possible scales out of tune. This was the central secret in the Pythagorean mysteries.

Why 8 notes in an octave? Because we listen with our ears (1 or 2) and the 8th note gives us a sense of satisfaction and completion of a sequence. It’s the sounds that matter, not the number of strings or fingers.

Touche, Mrs Olsen

Mrs Olson shows qualities only the substitution teacher has in this strip otherwise. (Can’t remember his name, referred as something like the „Term-inator“)

If it has twelve tones, it’s a duodecimave, not an octave.

Nice little comeback by Mrs. Olsen!