Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Plural form of
hexachord .
Etymologies
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Examples
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This change, however, was made after the scale was divided into a system of octaves instead of hexachords.
Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University Edward MacDowell 1884
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Following out his system, he applied the newly acquired syllables to each of the hexachords -- for instance, the lowest hexachord, G A B C D E, which was called hard, became _ut re mi fa sol la_; the second, which was called natural, C D E F
Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University Edward MacDowell 1884
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Furthermore, as there were six of these syllables, he arranged the musical scale in groups of six notes instead of four, hexachords instead of tetrachords.
Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University Edward MacDowell 1884
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The improvement in singing soon made the limits of the hexachords too small to be practical; therefore another syllable was added to the hexachordal system, _si_, and with this seventh note we have our modern scale.
Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University Edward MacDowell 1884
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The first change in the _tetrachord_ system of reckoning tones and dividing the scale was made by Guido d'Arezzo (first half of eleventh century), who divided it into hexachords or groups of six notes each.
Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University Edward MacDowell 1884
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From this we see that the scale in present use is composed of octaves, just as the older scales were composed of hexachords, and before that tetrachords.
Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University Edward MacDowell 1884
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The next three hexachords were treated in the same manner; the last or seventh hexachord was merely a repetition of the first and the fourth.
Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University Edward MacDowell 1884
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He also expanded the system of disjunct tetrachords from the enchiriadis notation into a system of overlapping hexachords, retaining the key feature of the tetrachords -- the half step between the two middle notes.
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The next three hexachords were repetitions of the first three, namely, G A B C D E, C D E F G A, F G A B [flat] C D; the last was again a repetition of the first, G A B C D E.
Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University Edward MacDowell 1884
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