Whoa there, cowboy. There are four basic chords in music theory: tonic, subdominant, dominant, and submediant, aka as 1, 4, 5, and minor 6. The 12 notes of the scale are not evenly (geometrically) spaced logarithmic frequencies along an octave. These chords work because of WAVE NODES on a vibrating string. Of course, an octave is 2:1. A perfect fifth (dominant) is 3:2, a fourth (subdominant) is 4:3, and a minor sixth (sub mediant) is 8:5. I even measured one seventh of the distance on a guitar E string, found the wave node, and discovered that the 7:4 harmonic hit a D note perfectly.
Further more, harmony isn't perceived subconsciously. Yes, pitch is relative as you are suggesting, but when the waves fail to line up, the resulting dischord sounds terrible to everybody.
One other thing. The cochlea of everyone's ear is semi logarithmic, but not exactly of base 1.618033988 There is slight random variation among all people and it causes pitch perfect violinists to choose notes that are ever so slightly different in frequency because the slight amount of dischord will be perceived warmer or colder in different keys to different violinists. I'm not arguing the physics here, only saying there is a bio-mechanical component to audio perception.
BTW, I enjoyed your well articulated comment. Haven't read anything written to that superior level since your name was blacker than black. Welcome back. 👍
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Whoa there, cowboy. There are four basic chords in music theory: tonic, subdominant, dominant, and submediant, aka as 1, 4, 5, and minor 6. The 12 notes of the scale are not evenly (geometrically) spaced logarithmic frequencies along an octave. These chords work because of WAVE NODES on a vibrating string. Of course, an octave is 2:1. A perfect fifth (dominant) is 3:2, a fourth (subdominant) is 4:3, and a minor sixth (sub mediant) is 8:5. I even measured one seventh of the distance on a guitar E string, found the wave node, and discovered that the 7:4 harmonic hit a D note perfectly.
Further more, harmony isn't perceived subconsciously. Yes, pitch is relative as you are suggesting, but when the waves fail to line up, the resulting dischord sounds terrible to everybody.
One other thing. The cochlea of everyone's ear is semi logarithmic, but not exactly of base 1.618033988 There is slight random variation among all people and it causes pitch perfect violinists to choose notes that are ever so slightly different in frequency because the slight amount of dischord will be perceived warmer or colder in different keys to different violinists. I'm not arguing the physics here, only saying there is a bio-mechanical component to audio perception.
BTW, I enjoyed your well articulated comment. Haven't read anything written to that superior level since your name was blacker than black. Welcome back. 👍