Talk:Augmented unison

Dimished unison merge
Merging should be much more straightforward than deletion; that page would then become a redirect. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:44, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - Anything to get rid of Diminished unison. And some of the material there could probably be incorporated here (as a note that some use the term to describe a kind of augmented unison). —Mahlerlover1 (converse) 00:51, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Any reasons? Hyacinth (talk) 02:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * See here. — Mahlerlover1 ( converse ) 05:27, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Both articles appear to be stubs (or a stub and a fairly short article), which indicates they could/should be merged. Hyacinth (talk) 05:46, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll quietly support a merge, when in actuality, the Diminished unison should be deleted. — Devin.chaloux (chat) 16:39, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * What's the difference? Hyacinth (talk) 20:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I find spreading misinformation a bad idea. There is no such thing as a diminished unison. — Devin.chaloux (chat) 11:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Merging the two articles at "Augmented unison" would mean that there is no article at "Diminished unison" and that the term diminished unison would be clearly documented as unused. Wouldn't that be a good thing? Hyacinth (talk) 01:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion following merge
OK, I went ahead and merged what seemed to me the rescuable bits of Diminished unison here. I see that Hyacinth has, with admirable energy, added a lot more stuff, but I'm not clear that those additions are necessarily an improvement. Here are some points for discussion: Or have I got all this wrong? Does anyone have a source that treats the inversion of intervals greater than an octave? Because if we accept the "diminished unison" as the inversion of the augmented octave, what is the inversion of a twelfth? A minus fifth? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Why is Ninth in the see also? Does it have some particular relevance here?
 * Do we need the quote from Sembos? It is (a) practically meaningless and (b) wrong. He has got his intervals back to front: on page 50 he shows (correctly in my view) rising intervals and their complements, but for some reason on page 51 he reverses the order. Each note pair in his first notated example on that page needs to be reversed for consistency. Once this is done, his statement becomes nonsense; the complement of the (rising) diminished octave C - Cb is the augmented unison Cb - C, in which the second note is, as expected, sharper than the first and not flatter as Sembos appears to imply. I suggest removing the quote, as it adds nothing to the understanding of the topic, and indeed serves to confuse it. Sembos is probably not a very good source - his arithmetic is not that great either (octave + unison should be 8 + 1 = 9, not 8 + 0 as he gives).
 * The image Hyacinth has added shows a falling augmented octave and an augmented unison. What is the relevance of the augmented octave here? Why is it falling? I suggest removing the image, or replacing it with one that shows the augmented unison only. And changing the caption to match.
 * I also suggest removing the quote from Brian Blood that I brought here, as that isn't really correct either. Dyadic intervals aren't named from either the upper or the lower note, they are named for the distance between them. A fourth is a fourth whether it rises or falls, and there's no reason for a chromatic semitone to be treated any differently.
 * Thanks for trying to clear this up. As I pointed out earlier (about two years earlier!), Sembos appears to be self-published and so not necessarily reliable. I would prefer to see Sembos removed entirely as a source. Any statements that cannot be backed up by another source should be removed too. --Deskford (talk) 13:23, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, that was my impression also. As far as I can see that leaves the falling augmented octave/augmented unison image and its apparently unrelated caption without any reference; I removed it yesterday for that reason, but see it is back today, together with some new unreferenced text which I suggest also be removed. I also don't understand why we need two references for the caption to the augmented unison image, "Augmented unison on C"; is that so likely to be challenged? Could we perhaps discuss what further changes are needed here now? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:57, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The only real problem I see now is that the unreferenced text Hyacinth added to the Diminished unison section (including the caption to the augmented octave image) seems to me a little too argumentative against the term. Other than that, good work. — Mahlerlover1 ( converse ) 02:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * What I mean is, it would be better to let our sources say that. Maybe incorporate some of the quotes in the footnotes into the main text? — Mahlerlover1 ( converse ) 02:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Removed: Diminished unison

 * It may be seen that this interval is impossible:
 * 1) It may be considered the 'complement' to the augmented unison/minor second. If this is C-C♯/D♭ then the other interval would be C-C♭/B, however this does not invert
 * 2) It may be considered the inversion of the augmented octave, however this is 'larger'
 * [[Image:Diminished unison.png|thumb|center|350px|Augmented octave inverts to the diminished unison. [Octave inverts to unison, augmented interval inverts to diminished] This is contradictory, however, for this 'diminished unison' is essentially equivalent to the augmented unison. ]]

I removed the above as uncited and too argumentative. Hyacinth (talk) 05:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, the article works much better without it. — Mahlerlover1 ( converse ) 05:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Not sure how an empty assertion is less argumentative than explanation. Hyacinth (talk) 09:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)


 * How about this (what I have just added in bold): "Many sources reject the possibility or utility of the interval on the grounds that any alteration to the unison increases its size, thus augmenting rather than diminishing it."?
 * Incorporating one or more of the quotes in the footnotes into the main body is also an option, as I suggested above. — Mahlerlover1 ( converse ) 10:34, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * That's correct. I like it. — Devin.chaloux (chat) 13:02, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmmm...I'm thinking maybe it should be "Many sources reject the possibility or utility of the diminished unison" (instead of "interval"). A minor tweak, but any thoughts? — Mahlerlover1 ( converse ) 07:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Better! Much clearer and I think resolves the issue, no? — Devin.chaloux (chat) 20:13, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ No complaints on the article as is from me. — Mahlerlover1 ( converse ) 06:08, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This wasn't being used, so I'm pasting it here: BassHistory (talk) 07:31, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

No, there is no diminished unison because a distance between pitches cannot equal less than zero. That would just mean overlapping written notes, and when written notes overlap, neither one would be seriously legible. Cbsteffen (talk) 00:02, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Notating an augmented unison
I do not think the example shown is correct: it has two semibreves on the same position, preceded by "natural-sharp". But this is standard notation for "remove the flat/double sharp/etc then apply a sharp". I do not think it is possible to notate different accidentals on two coincident notes this way. Here is a real example, from Prokofiev's first piano sonata: the stem of the note is split to allow the different accidentals. [] (Sorry this is a link to an image I just made from an old edition. According to imslp, this is in copyright jail for ever, more or less, but I imagine this would be fair use. Or someone can create a version from this.) In any event, a real example would I think be useful. Imaginatorium (talk) 13:13, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Nice example. There's no need for the fair use though, when Chopin's Op.10 No.11 étude already provides an example in bar 2 (A♮ and A♭). Now I'm wondering how the split-stem notation is done for semibreves, because they don't have stems. Is there a style guide somewhere that mentions this? Double sharp (talk) 12:39, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Diminished unison section
There is no need for a section for this. The section never will be expanded. It's one or two sentences (which I argue shouldn't be here anyway).BassHistory (talk) 00:01, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * While we are on the subject (and to make things perfectly clear, the subject is the construction of a theory), there are theorists who hold that there is no such thing as an augmented unison, only augmented primes. A diminished second (in equal temperament, for example, is just as much a unison as a perfect prime, so long as a unison is defined as two notes with identical sounding pitch. By this definition a trebly diminished third is also a unison, provided only that we allow treble diminution.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:25, 6 November 2014 (UTC)


 * So, by your logic, since they are all half steps, we should just erase everything about augmented unisons and diminished unisons all together. That would be fine with me.BassHistory (talk) 05:06, 6 November 2014 (UTC)


 * No, that is not what I said at all. Please pay attention: The particular theoretical construct determines what is consistent within that construct. In music theory, there is no absolute "truth". If you define "interval" as the physical difference between two frequencies, and "diminution" as decreasing such an interval by a distance of a semitone, then of course there can be no such thing as a diminished unison. However, under the same definitions, and defining "augmentation" as the converse of diminution (increasing the distance between two sounding frequencies by a semitone) there is no difference between an augmented unison and a minor second. (This is an objection raised by every bright freshman in first-year theory classes, and if you have not yet had to explain the difference, then now is as good a time as any to start working out how to do it, because the viability of this article depends on it.) If on the other hand, intervals are defined as a difference between notes, everything changes. In mathematics, there is such a thing as a negative number. In some theories of music, this is also the case. If you accept negative intervals, then "low" and "high" are not defined by vibrating frequencies, but by what you stick the labels on. These are the definitions by which White's theory works. It may be minority view, but it cannot be proved wrong, within the definitions he uses.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)


 * A minor second and an augmented unison are not the same thing. The fact that you would even argue this is a problem. White didn't have some deep new theory; he just used an unfortunate misnomer. A contemporaneous source even called him out on it.BassHistory (talk) 07:43, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

William White
There is no place in this article for mentioning William White. This is completely irrelevant to the topic: Augmented unison.BassHistory (talk) 00:09, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Why is a reliable source, supporting a simple matter of fact concerning the topic of this article, "irrelevant"?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:13, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I have reverted this change. The book is referred to in the quotation given, so it seems apppropriate to give a full reference for that book.  DGG ( talk ) 01:15, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The White source is not reliable in any way. The very fact that he believes in diminished unisons, makes him unreliable. Another contemporaneous source actually discredits him directly. Some people are meant to be forgotten over time. There is a clear consensus among modern sources. Just because one lone quack managed to get published 100+ years ago, doesn't mean we have to illuminate his viewpoint in a stub article.BassHistory (talk) 05:07, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The White source is perfectly reliable as a reference for White's theoretical construct. How can you possibly think it is not?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:30, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * White is not reliable in his description of these intervals, only as a primary source to illustrate his own error. We don't need to show his error, and we shouldn't even mention it. There is a consensus among all contemporary sources. No controversy here.BassHistory (talk) 05:44, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Why do you think White's logic is faulty? Please go into detail, with page citations, please.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:47, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Further, White is a primary source on White's use of "diminished unison". Therefore, to say the "term" is "occasionally used", is actually original synthesis. There is no source that says "the term is occasionally used", only a source that uses it.BassHistory (talk) 05:51, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * All sources for this need to be in english, and they need to say "diminished unison". This is about semantics, so a music theory treatise in another language is not appropriate. I strongly disagree with both of your pushing to introduce more confusing terminology to readers. You have both reverted me without introducing strong arguments. All that readers need to know, is that this term is not used, period. Anything else is tangential to the article.BassHistory (talk) 00:27, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Language is full of confusions -- "cheap at half the price" being a well-known example (it "actually" means cheap at twice the price); WP is here to record significant things, including significant confusions. White didn't "believe" in something that doesn't exist, he simply used rather confused terminology, and I guess this was all driven by the faulty argument: "The inverse of an augmented interval (n) is a diminished (9-n) (but never expressed quite that clearly); thus the inverse of an augmented octave (8) is a diminished (9-8), or "diminished unison/prime". (Well, if you can do modular arithmetic, this is sort of correct, because a "diminished unison" is equal to -1 semitones, and in Z/12Z this is the same as 11, which of course is a "diminished octave" in normalised notation.) Given the number of references to White's term, this deserves a mention, and should be sorted out, not hidden. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:18, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Not to mention the fact that primary sources are not excluded by Wikipedia guidelines. However, if it will be of any help, I can cite half a dozen more sources that accept the term "diminished unison" (and a few others that deny that "unison" is an interval, but "prime" is). Unfortunately, they will blow right out of the water the claim that White was the first to use this term. It appears that this distinction may fall to Rameau (and we all know what a troublemaker he was!).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:10, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Currently, there is no single source that uses the term "diminished unison" to describe a musical interval. As it turns out, the term is not used in the William White book (I just read the whole book, it's not in there). Please do not re-insert the claim that this term is used, without a source! Remember, self-published web pages and the like are not appropriate sources when conflicting information given in Kostka and Payne, for example.BassHistory (talk) 01:14, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed. And, BTW, there is no prohibition of non-English sources in the Wikipedia guidelines.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:50, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Of course there are sources that use the term. Here are a few, found in a couple of minutes: 1834; 1967; 1986; 1989; 2010; 2014; I make no comment on reliability, but have omitted Sembos (2006). What is needed here is not to establish whether the term has ever been used, but to establish how we are going to present it in the article. That is most definitely not going to be achieved by total denial or by edit-warring. I provisionally suggest the following as a full and complete account of all that needs to be said on the subject:
 * If that could be agreed, it would then leave the relatively minor obstacles of determining who actually was the first author to use the term, and deciding on a couple of fully reliable sources that reject it (because having a great WP:LAUNDRY list of dubious references makes us look incompetent and stupid). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 02:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't really agree with this "many sources" line. In normal terminology, "diminished union" is a mistake; we see this because we have Reason in addition to "Sources" -- the distance between two notes cannot be "-1 semitones". BassHistory is of course right about this: the problem is that he wants to rewrite history as though no-one ever made the mistake. Since there are many references where writers explicitly point out the confusion in the terminology it is helpful to quote one or two (far too many at present): we can surely say "Many writers have pointed out [statement of truth]", so it is not a mere weighing of numbers. Similarly, (above) I do not believe it is helpful to say that authors "deny that a unison is an interval"; there is no contradiction between what they and others say, it is just that they use more specific terminology. Imaginatorium (talk) 03:18, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Nobody is trying to rewrite history. I was just unaware of this trivia, so I asked for a source. These kind of facts don't really have a place in this type of article, imo. Maybe we can't explicitly state that no one has ever used the misnomer, but we don't have to mention that they did either. This just creates confusion.BassHistory (talk) 04:24, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

"POV pushing"
Again, there is no such thing as a "diminished unison". This is not my POV. This is stated directly in the Kostka and Payne. Jerome Kohl, where is the POV pushing?BassHistory (talk) 05:22, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Read what I said above.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:27, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

No single source for "diminished unison"
No single source uses the term "diminished unison". I am removing this claim. Don't revert me. Find a source.BassHistory (talk) 00:50, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Sadly, I was only able to find multiple sources using this term, rather than a single one. You really ought to try a little harder yourself, before proclaiming an absence of sources.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:52, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Article should reflect modern consensus
OK, so unfortunately there are some old sources that use the term "diminished unison" or "diminished prime". The lede of the section should make it clear that this term is: A) currently not in use, and B) considered to be incorrect in contemporary reference material. As it is, the paragraph does little to inform the reader that this is definitely not a thing.BassHistory (talk) 02:38, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * One of those "old sources" was published in 2005, another in 2008, still another in 2013. How recent a source do you want? On the other hand, it may come as a shock to you, but music and music theory were not invented in the 1950s by Elvis.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:46, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Let's not get personal, old chap (swing and a miss, btw, I'm not a fan). How do you suggest, then, that we reconcile this with the fact that the standard resources agree that there is no such thing? Clearly, the weight of the section (if there has to be a section) needs to be on the side of… There is no such thing. The way you have it now, the reader is pummeled with factoids before getting the gist that maybe this nomenclature is not so standard.BassHistory (talk) 05:55, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem seems to be that your definition of "the standard sources" boils down to "the ones that reinforce my prejudices". Do you actually know who Daniel Gottlob Türk was? Have you bothered to look at Eytan Agmon's Languages of Western Tonality? These are hardly "nonstandard resources". As I said before, we are dealing here with theoretical constructs, and the notion of altered unisons is not restricted to just one narrow form of music theory. The "standard resources" to which you refer are clearly keyboard-theory oriented, and under these circumstances you would expect the objection to arise first in figured-bass theory. Indeed Marpurg (whom you previously overlooked when compiling your list of objectors) fulfills this expectation in the sources from 1757 and 1762 which I added, but then why does Türk not do so in 1800, Albrechtsberger in 1830/38, or even Kolbe in 1872? There are now four sources without that keyboard bias, which explain the concept as essentialy a melodic vs harmonic idea, but the most interesting explanation is surely Courvoisier's (a pupil of Joseph Joachim, not himself notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article, evidently). Try thinking like a violinist instead of a piano player, and your music theory will turn out very differently. Try thinking like a singer or in terms of modal-contrapuntal composing, and your theory will be yet something else. Try thinking in terms of tone lattices and their computational modelling, and you might just realize why a "sextuply diminished ascending fourth" (Agmon 2008, p. 64) might actually mean something. Whether this will help you to play the violin better—or pass your first-year theory final exam—is another matter. But this goes straight to the question of who we think this article is meant to serve: the readers who find "Music Theory for Dummies" too difficult to understand, or those with some broader curiosity about the subject (and, if the latter, just how broad). Personally, I don't see why it cannot serve both purposes, but it will require some care in presentation and layout.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:30, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Gene Henry Anderson source
Please provide a quote from (or a link to) the Anderson dissertation where he mentions Rameau's use of "diminished unison".BassHistory (talk) 04:30, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Happy to: "UNISSON DIMINUÉ. The interval of a diminished unison or a diminished prime. The interval and term are apparently rare in the 18th century; even Brassard and J. -J. Rousseau fail to mention it. Rameau provides only one example in the Traite and no discussion." (Anderson 1981, p. 196).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:46, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * OK. Nice find, that dissertation. So, your basically source says "this is not really a thing". Now, let's make the article reflect what the source is telling us.BassHistory (talk) 05:58, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Where in that quotation do you see "this is not really a thing"? I might add that, in the larger context of his dissertation (which amounts to an annotated glossary of all the terms used by Rameau), Anderson makes the point that most of the terms have got a history. "Augmented unison" is a rare exception. If you have read Rameau, you will know that he himself cites many earlier authors, back at least to Gioseffo Zarlino, who is a particular favourite. Anderson does not pinpoint earlier examples of the term "diminished unison", but it is significant that he does say "augmented unison" has no precedent. I have not as yet checked Zarlino for this term, nor the vast expanse of theoretical writings stretching back to Archytas, or thereabouts. I may be gone some time.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:18, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Are we reading the same quote? He says that Rameau doesn't even discuss it. Other theorists fail to mention it altogether. This is a misnomer who's usage was waning even back in the 18th century. By 2014, all the major resources are claiming there is no such thing. The article should reflect that.BassHistory (talk) 07:26, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You are once again simply ignoring all the resources that disagree with your prejudice. Many "other theorist" mention the diminished unison, as I have demonstrated at some length. Ignoring them altogether or classifying Türk, Agmon, Choron, Courvoisier, and others as "minor" sources (which is just an excuse for ignoring them) is not good science, and also violates Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:39, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Jerome, I'm not saying it was in bad faith, but I really feel like your use of that dissertation ended up as original synthesis. I don't have time to go to the library with all twenty sources that you included, but I have a feeling that most of them have similar flaws in your presentation. I would just ask you:
 * What do you feel should be the point of this article? Do you have some stake in insisting that people believe in the "diminished unison"?
 * Who do you feel will be reading this? Do you feel that your version serves those readers well? Because I don't.
 * I'm not saying we need to delete everything, but I really don't feel like anyone has been willing to work with me at all for the last 4 years that I have been dealing with this issue. This whole thing is honestly pretty surreal. You seem like a reasonable guy, and I can't imagine why you are arguing this thing, unless this is all some elaborate prank.BassHistory (talk) 20:38, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * All right, those are fair questions. Let me take them one at a time:
 * I don't see how a citation of a glossary entry can involve synthesis of any sort. Either Rameau used the term (as Anderson asserts that he did) or he didn't. To be perfectly honest, I am having some difficulty finding the place in the Traité where the term occurs, so it may be a slip on Anderson's part (he does not specify the location), and Rameau actually used the expression in one of his other writings instead.
 * I think the article should first address the rudimentary question of how the term "augmented unison" is used in basic music theory. However, it should not ignore the fact that this is only a classroom-exercise level, and that serious music theorists have broader perspectives against which a more ample understanding of the implications of the term should be gauged. Further, it needs to be made plain that, as in many other aspects of music theory, there is no one "correct answer" (as mathematicians often demand of music theory, without understanding the reasons why this is like asking for the correct answer to a problem in economics). This in turn leads to the need to explain different contexts and assumptions—whether or not we allow negative values, for example, but more importantly, what do we use as our reference point for measuring intervals?
 * I believe people of many different backgrounds will be reading this article, and it should be written to anticipate this diversity: beginning music students, mathematicians, performing musicians, music historians, and even professional music theorists. I don't believe that I have "a version"—certainly not yet. I have simply thrown in a lot of data that contradicts what I believe to be a misrepresentation of the facts. This misrepresentation in turn gives the false impression that there is one and only one correct way to understand the term which is the subject of this article. I think that all of this raw data needs some considerable work before it will be useful to the readers we may expect to consult the article. Simply in terms of appearance, those long chains of blue reference numbers have got to go, not only because of referential overkill, but because they are ugly and off-putting.
 * I hope your final question is answered by what I have said about the previous ones.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, yes. One further thing: you shouldn't have to go to a library to consult most of the sources I have cited, because they are nearly all freely available online (the Anderson dissertion is probably the sole exception). I have provided some links to GoogleBooks in the citations, and a similar link to Eytan Agmon's book in the discussion further up this page. Others can be found by Googling the titles. The text of Rameau's Traité can be found from the external links in the Wikipedia article on it, and similar links exist for the historical items by Marpurg, Türk, and others.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:12, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism
I reverted the last two edits by Basshistory as vandalism. (If this does not exactly coincide with some WP Official definition of "Vandalism", please replace by whatever word is appropriate.

I am not happy at all with the current page, but in an extended sort-of argument BH has repeatedly tried to replace the encyclopaedic description of verified history with his view of what music students should be taught. There is nothing (much) wrong with teaching them this way, but WP is not here to be a teaching resource, it is here to record the many confusions of history (amongst other things). I ask BH to stop disruptive editing, but by all means to continue in the discussion (if he can find something new to say). Imaginatorium (talk) 05:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Please direct me to where it says that Wikipedia "is here to record the many confusions of history". Part of editing is removing things that aren't needed. As it stands, the article is quite cluttered. Please go back in the page history and look at what you reverted, with an open mind. I think you will agree that it is much more clear and concise, if nothing else.
 * As for your various complaints against me, try to find a way to work with other editors without making wild accusations every time you don't like one of their edits.BassHistory (talk) 05:35, 7 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It is true that there is a certain conflict between WP:NOTEVERYTHING on the one hand and WP:SOAP on the other, and it is also true that some editors are deletionist and others inclusionists. It looks to me like BassHistory is a deletionist ("removing things that aren't needed"), while Imaginatorium may be more of an inclusionist (as I may be also). That said, there is also the wise Wikipedia guideline of assuming good faith, and accusing another editor of vandalism without plain evidence of malicious intent is neither acceptable nor advisable, if we are to make any progress. I have already been too much involved in editing this article to serve as a mediator in this case, and I hope formal mediation will not prove necessary. Please try to keep a cool head, and show a little respect for opposing points of view. Now, what exactly are the points at issue here, and what are our options for resolving them?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:57, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * BTW, I see that User:Double sharp has made a contribution with an edit summary suggesting an opinion relevant to this debate. What say you, Double sharp?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:12, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * (I didn't see this when you posted it: oh well, better late than never.) In my opinion, if 33 sources can be bothered to mention this term, then it's certainly a notable term, and it should be discussed. Even if "diminished unison" is thought of as irrelevant to "augmented unison" (even if those who reject the former do so by claiming they're the same), then that is surely instead an argument for them to receive separate articles, given the wealth of info on "diminished unison". It may be a mistake, but it's a mistake that's been made and discussed by so many reliable sources, so it should not be excluded. Double sharp (talk) 05:07, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Just interval claim(s)
A long while back, this listed the interval ratio as "15:16; 24:25 (and others)". This of course makes it extremely variable, since 24:25 is only about 70% of a chromatic semitone, but nonetheless in some sense the 25th harmonic (physics terminology; =24th overtone) might be said to be an augmented prime about the 24th, if that's what you think an augmented triad is. But I wonder if there really is any consensus about just intonation at this level? And surely an *augmented* unison would more likely mean 17:16. There is also some variation in writing frequency ratios: should the larger number be first, or the smaller? Anyway, the claim is unreferenced: does anyone know if this is really supportable? Imaginatorium (talk) 16:24, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

More on the (supernumerous) references
I was about to correct the typo ("called"), when I read this source more carefully. It actually supports a "diminished prime" as a possible "interval", but says you must not call it a "diminished unison". A problem with many books like this is that they are didactic: written from many years of teaching experience as "what you should tell the children", not written as part of a search for truth. Anyway, I removed it (the following text)...


 * Gardner, Carl Edward (1912). Essentials of Music Theory, p.38. C. Fischer. ISBN 978-1-4400-6780-8. "The prime is also called an unison, but in speaking of intervals, it should always be called a prime. Correctly speaking, a perfect prime is not an interval, but in the theory of music it is so called. There is good reason for making this error, but none for called a diminished prime a diminished unison."

Imaginatorium (talk) 09:58, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Eighteenth century references
Hello. Would you please illustrate the place in Werckmeister, Andreas (1715) "Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse" that establishes "mi contra fa" and "diabolus in musica" as references to a chromatic semitone, rather than to the accepted description of a tritone (e.g. F to B, or E to B flat). The other C18 reference only opens half a page in MDZ, and it can't be read. Halteres (talk) 18:39, 9 May 2024 (UTC)