Qablitum
Listen to
Qablitum
Qablitum is a piece inspired by
listening to this lecture of February 1971 by Lou
Harrison: The Tuning of the Babylonian
Harp.
I chose a scale called "Qablitum" (filed under
Ancient Mesopotamian Scales, from LMSO scale library) an
heptatonic scale, repeating at the octave, whose
interval ratios from the fundamental note are:
1/1,256/243,32/27,4/3,1024/729,128/81,16/9 (a mode of
the more common scale:
1/1,9/8,81/64,4/3,3/2,27/16,16/9).
Each large step is 9/8 and each small one is 256/243,
a pythagorean scale more than 1000 years older than
Pythagoras himself!!!. He simply brought the
Babylonian knowledge to the Greek world.
I set up an 8 note polyphonic instrument (using an
harp sound) with Reason and started
improvising, recording everything with
Logic Pro.
I extracted a melody, from what I had previously
played, assigning it to an ethnic violin sound
(from MOTU Ethno library). I edited and
doubled, it with a Clavia G2 pad sound.
All instruments were retuned with LMSO.
The picture of the Sumerian tablet, on the top of
this page, comes from Marcelle Duchesne-Guillemin's
"The Discovery of Mesopotamian
Music". Lou Harrison
mentions her studies as the source of his talk.
X. J. S. commented:
A wonderful
piece.