Talk:Perfect fourth

Removed discussion



 * What language is all this nonsense?? Please translate into English. 66.245.64.45 17:35, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I've taken the liberty of removing the first anon's comments because they were offensive, irrelevant, in Swedish, and for all I know libellous. &mdash;Blotwell 05:09, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Perfect third?
I've long thot (and read in a book called "Temperament") that 4:3 was the ratio of a perfect third: B to the F+ below it (248Hz to 186Hz), but there doesn't seem to be a page about the perfect third.


 * If the book called it that it made an error. The just interval F# to B (4:3) is a perfect fourth. The only diatonic thirds are major (5:4) and minor (6:5).--Glenn L (talk) 02:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Assonant or consonant
I wonder if by "consonant", some authors mean "assonant". Only recently have I gotten the impression that these were synonyms. Brewhaha@edmc.net 06:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Not sure how: assonance is literary term. --Jubilee♫ clipman  01:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The short answer is "no". Perfect fourth is a musical term, see consonance and dissonance. Hyacinth (talk) 23:31, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Please alter...
..."Specifically, it is considered consonant when heard in its most common position as detailed above; but dissonant when built upon a chord's root." Suppose we have 2 chords with identical notes, only the note that we consider the root is different. How does which note we consider the root affect the sound of the interval?? Georgia guy 16:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You're right - it should have been the bass note, not the root. I've fixed it. (Mark - 03 September 2006)

Fact or Fict
User "Keenan Pepper" has asked for a citation regarding this edit. I'm not sure what that entails even after reading the Wiki page on citations. Is it enough to find a web site that confirms it independently? If so, this one does: http://www.ars-nova.com/cpmanual/dissonance.htm But I don't know who they are and whether their confirmation carries enough weight. Obviously if it was Groves there would be no argument. Anyway, what they say about the perfect fourth is: "The perfect fourth is unique among the intervals in that it is treated sometimes as a dissonance and sometimes as a consonance. When formed with the bass it is normally considered dissonant. There is a special case called the 'consonant fourth'". (Mark - 3 September 2006)


 * Interesting. I'm looking to arrange three melodies into one. It seems to me that if the first and last chords are either interesting or major, then the middle might work out nicely. Brewhaha@edmc.net 06:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * By the Wiki page on citations, do you mean Citation or Citing sources? I don't think the former would do you much good, but you should definitely read the latter. A manual for computer software (which is what is) is better than nothing, I guess, but I was thinking more along the lines of a music theory textbook or a scholarly paper by a music theorist. —Keenan Pepper 05:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The web page cited might be scholarly, and I don't think paper is necessarily more authoritative than the web can be.


 * No - I don't have any sources to hand that are more authoritative than that one that deal with that specific point, and I only found that one via a Google search after you asked for a citation. I read the "citing sources" article after clicking on your "citation needed" link and I see there's a multitude of ways to do it. I'm not sure which is most appropriate. If you think that source is worthy enough, would you mind citing it for me? Then I'll know how to do it next time. If you think it's not authoritative enough, then just revert my edit (bearing in mind that the article was in error as pointed out by user "Georgia Guy"). Thanks (Mark - 4 September 2006)
 * I found a paper that seems more appropriate. Citing sources is easy: just put . I like to use templates like Cite journal and Cite book because I can't remember the correct punctuation, but they're not required. —Keenan Pepper 04:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Keenan. (Mark - 05 September 2006)

It is of course nice to hav some of both widely circulated materials and web pages for references. Keep in mind that trivia abounds in music, so finding paper for some things might be rather tricky. You might need to use the web, first. Brewhaha@edmc.net 06:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The PDF link at the bottom doesn't work anymore (Thomas - 08 August 2008)

Why does the search for Diatessaron go directly to the religious page when it is primarily a musical term?
Why does the search for Diatessaron go directly to the religious page when it is primarily a musical term?

Before I searched Wikipedia, I had never seen the religious usage before. And that isn't what I was looking for.

The religious term is not the primary definition of Diatessaron, the musical one is. The term was first used several centuries before Christ, as a musical term, in pre-Christian classical ancient Greece.

The result page should show the different meanings in a disambiguation page. It is not helpful to direct people automatically to a secondary meaning (secondary both semantically and historically).

If anyone knows how to do this it is a good idea to fix this up and will prevent other people searching for music-historical information from being misdirected to a page about religion.

thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.175.172.24 (talk) 00:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's called archaic. It primarily was a musical term that has been replaced. Hyacinth (talk) 10:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Additional citations
Where, why, and how does this article need additional citations? Hyacinth (talk) 21:06, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Needed now... (see below) --Jubilee♫ clipman 22:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Many unreferenced claims and paragraphs constituting Original Research are now marked individually.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Such as? Hyacinth (talk) 10:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Such as most of the first half of the section titled "Short history of the fourth", which is bristling with "citation needed" tags.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, misread or misinterpreted. Hyacinth (talk) 01:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Tag removed. Hyacinth (talk) 01:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Added from quartal and quintal harmony
Much of the stuff over there was clearly better here so I've moved it and tidied up a little. Please don't move it back: this stuff has little relevence to quartal harmony. Refs needed and expansion of C20th stuff. --Jubilee♫ clipman 22:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

What makes a perfect interval perfect?
Looking at this sentence "The term perfect identifies this interval as belonging to the group of perfect intervals, so called because they are neither major nor minor (unlike thirds, which are either minor or major) but perfect", it seems to me this is just like saying that grass is green because it's neither red nor blue. In fact, we do know why grass is green, but I've never seen a definition of what makes an interval major, minor or perfect. Is there a simple definition? Mandolamus (talk) 23:48, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Interlanguage link(s)
I've added Quarte_(musique) to the page as the only way I know of getting an interlanguage link to the equivalent article(-part) in the French Wikipedia to appear. I'm aware that this way of doing things has been superseded by some far more whizzy procedure. The trouble is: I don't know what it is! Can anyone point me to an idiot's guide explaining how I should be doing this? TIA -- Picapica (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

What is the complement of an interval?
The article states that the complement of a perfect fifth has a ratio of 3:4. But it doesn't say what that means, nor is the word "complement" found anywhere in the article Interval (music). What does it mean? -lethe talk [ +] 22:04, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, the complement of an interval is "the rest of an octave." In other words, stacking an interval and its complement make an octave. Another pair of complementary intervals is a third and a sixth, for example G4 to B4 and B4 to G5. Just plain Bill (talk) 22:39, 17 November 2020 (UTC)