Painting With Scales

Bit by bit, I became convinced that our own Great Masters tended to use the numerous scales at our disposal as if they were colours. (Here, I need to stress on the fact that, in this Scale/Colour notion of mine, I'm not trying to establish any relationship of a "physical" nature; i.e. I'm not after proving that such and such scale corresponds to such and such colour based on any resemblance between the intervallic structure of the former and the wave length of the latter. Mine is merely an empirical description of a historical tendency.)

It thus became clear to me that a given scale would, quite normally, be used to express a given positive frame of mind as well as another negative one. For example, just as the colour "red" may remind some people of "roses", while the same colour might just as well remind other people of "fire", and still others of "blood", the same phenomenon is equally applicable to any given scale.

To make your life easier, as well as mine, I'll use "tetrachords" (= four strings, from Greek) to show you what I mean. Tetrachords are the building blocks of scales; an octave, in fact, is composed of two superimposed identical/non-identical tetrachords. (Traditionally, a tetrachord is called a "Wing" in Arabic; so, a scale, much like a bird, has two "wings".)

I should add that we have a curious variety that one is tempted to call a "pentachord" (penta = five). The reason is that while tetrachords are confined within a perfect fourth, certain scales of ours simply defy consistent, thus scientific, analysis without introducing the notion of a pentachord; i.e. a group of five, consecutive notes confined within a perfect fifth.
 

Tell me if I'm being too subjective...

• You might notice that the wider the bottom intervals of a tetrachord the brighter it sounds. The opposite is equally true; it's as if one is closing the shutters!
• A couple of months ago I couldn't be bothered about the origin of this Scale/Colour relationship. After all, who cares if there is a relation between the word "lion" and the animal thus designated? Then, as I was reading a book about computer graphics (I'm a webmaster, after all), I realized the following amazing, interwoven relationships as perceived by graphics people:
• The blue colour reminds them of right angles, sqaures and cubes.
• The red colour of curves, circles and spheres.
• The yellow colour of acute angles, triangles, pyramids and cones.
Next, I couldn't help noticing that:
• Within the bluish group of tetrachords, the contrast between a whole tone and a semitone is like walking in a straight line (180º), then turning to the right or to the left (90º); one interval is half of the other, as it is the case with the two angles.
• Within the reddish group, the contrast between the whole tone and the three-quarters forms the equivalent of an obtuse angle. (Let's not forget that a curved line is in fact formed of an infinite number of obtuse angles.)
• Within the yellowish group, the contrast between the semitone and the one-and-half (the augmented second) is as pronounced as the change of direction in the acute angle.
• Next, as the inter-domain relationships unfolded, I noticed that the most basic vowels have very similar relationships among them. Thus:
• The "A" (in almost all its morphemes/varieties) has the mouth wide open, in a square-ish shape.
• The "O" is not only rounded in writing; it has the mouth rounded, too. As far as I'm concerned, it reminds me of the warmth of holding someone in my (rounded) arms.
• The "E" is as acute and prominent as a shriek or a squeak.

`Agam (1-1-½)		Personal happiness, Satisfaction, Morning/Sunrise, Wonder/Amazement, Military/Anthems
Nahawand (1-½-1)		Brooding, Lost hopes, Disillusion, Gentle blame, Anything in between the two extremes (above & below)
Kord (or Kurd)  (½-1-1)		Anticipated/Faked happiness, Sad memories, Rhetoric questions (=refusing to believe), Submission/Resignation

Rast (1-¾-¾)		Glory, Vivid (= bleeding) pain, Weeping, Passion, Sentimentality
Sikah (¾-1-1-¾)		Passion, Divine love/Love for God
Eraq (¾-1-¾)
Bayati (¾-¾-1)		Warmth, Affection, Tenderness, Happiness for others

Hegaz (½-1½-½)		Extreme joy, Acute feelings, Anger, Violent blame, Enthusiasm, Frustration, Suffering, Lamentation
Atharkord (½-1-1½-½)		Depression, Despair
Zamzamah (½-1-½-1½)

This next tetrachord is rather weird, though one of the most popular, as it contains both the three-quarter-tone and the one-and-half-tone intervals. This gives it the warmth of the reddish and the poignancy of the yellowish varieties, all in the same time.
 

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