In the fourth video in our Elements Of Music series, Music Wizard founder Chris Salter shares how the number 12 reveals interesting ways to look at and listen to music, and the correlation of music and math.
a) Western classical harmony, especially since Bach, uses the number 12 to create a circular interrelated harmonic system and subdivide the scales, and keys into related and distant tonalities so music can drift near and far yet always find a way "home".
You can think very usefully of the music system as being in "base 12" and suddenly the chromatic scale, with an ever rising spiral of tones gives understanding to the circle of fifths and concepts like modulation (moving from one key to another) with rhyme and reason.
b) African and other complex rhythms use the number 12 as a common denominator to subdivide rhythms into 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 note patterns and interlocking and contrasting cycles of 2 against 3, or 3 against 4.
c) 12 is actually a very early and useful number for subdividing and sharing things, hence its prevalence in our culture in the clock, months of the year, the unit "dozen", the inches in a foot, etc.
These circular cyclical aspects of the clock and months of the year as well as the ability to subdivide easily like with a dozen donuts makes music less mysterious to understand when these concepts are brought in as analogies and tools. 12 doubled is 24 (hours), tripled is 36, then each of those divided by ten gives us 360 degrees of the circle.
12 works with circles and cycles to divide and recombine more easily and music becomes richer and more diverse when it is leveraged, and so the combinations of European and African traditions (US, Brazil, South and West Africa, Caribbean) are amongst the most popular in the world.
[et_bloom_inline optin_id="optin_5"]
