Diatonic Scale Interaction and Intervallic Content in Contrapuntal Polydiatonicism: On the Applicability of Set Theory

Xuewei Chang; Marzelan Salleh

doi:10.5216/mh.v25.83106

Autores/as

Xuewei Chang Department of Music, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia s2164294@siswa.um.edu.my https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0808-5701
Marzelan Salleh Department of Music, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia marzelan@um.edu.my https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6655-1305

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5216/mh.v25.83106

Palabras clave:

diatonic scale, contrapuntal polydiatonicism, polytonality, set theory, intervallic content

Resumen

Interval classes (ICs) can be generated not only through the combination of pitches within a single pitch-class set, but also through the interaction between pitches from two distinct sets (scales), thereby revealing the potential for generating various intervals across different sets. In actual music, such inter-set interaction is primarily manifested in the construction of harmonic intervals in contrapuntal polytonal music. One particularly representative structure is contrapuntal polydiatonicism, which is developed on the basis of the diatonic scale. This article analyzes contrapuntal polydiatonicism involving twelve different tonal relationships using interval vectors from set theory, demonstrating that their intervallic content distributions differ significantly. Certain interval classes appear in greater numbers within specific combinations; this distributional feature may influence a composer’s choice of tonal relationships within polydiatonic structures.

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Biografía del autor/a

Xuewei Chang, Department of Music, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia s2164294@siswa.um.edu.my

Xuewei Chang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Music, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Malaya. His research focuses on music composition and 20th-century Western music. He holds a bachelor’s degree in musicology and a master’s degree in music composition. His research publications have been indexed in internationally recognized databases, including Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. His academic interests include ethnomusicology, music history, and composition.

Marzelan Salleh, Department of Music, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia marzelan@um.edu.my

Dr. Marzelan Salleh is a senior lecturer in the Department of Music, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Malaya. He earned his Ph.D. in Composition from the University of Bristol under Prof. Dr. Michael Ellison and completed his master’s degree at the University of Salford with Prof. Alan Williams. His works, including Bani Jawi, Bangkit, Puteri Gunung Ledang, Rukun, Hijrah, and Tarian Cinta, combine contemporary music techniques with Asian musical influences. His compositions have been performed in the UK and Malaysia and featured in festivals such as the Bristol New Music Festival and New Music in the Southwest.