"their tradition "

yep THEIR....
~~~~~~~~

"harmony did not exist until "Western musicians" devised a way to write it down "

What you thought I said was not what I thought you thought it meant.... :-)

"Mustn't there have been something to be transcribed in order for the need to develop written notation (including a way to notate two or more notes being sonded simultaneously) to arise?"

I did not deny that - if you HAD studied 'classical Music Theory' you would not have needed to call my misunderstood words 'hogwash'. Read up on 'Gregorian Chant', mate! I repeat "there was a series of horizontal melodies" which became transformed over time in to "Formal Theories of (Western) Vertical Harmony"...


"Singing and playing came first, long before the written transcription of same could possibly have developed"

Where did I say ANYTHING that denied that?


IMO WAV's "single-melody chants" is musical gibberish. Read up on 'Gregorian Chant', mate!

This thread is starting to remind me of a comedy skit - can't remember who did it - about two characters who know nothing about anything trying to talk seriously about profound subjects....

"Did you know that the sun is ah - an incredibly long distance away? If you put motor cars end to end, oh, it would take an enormous amount of them to stretch there. And that light, well even though it moves at er, tremendously fast speed - the fastest thing in the universe, you know, when it leaves the sun takes, oh, ah, quite a while to get to the earth"

... I do love such rigours informative discussions...

:-)



and on it goes....