Missing Quotation Mark - 5. Music, Temperament, and Social Concord
From The Observatory
Query: 5. Music, Temperament, and Social Concord
Missing Quotation Mark
Quoted text:
McClain[1] (1978: p. 19) stated that Plato theorized “that even the best aristocracy will degenerate in time through a timocracy [rule by the rich], oligarchy [rule of the few], and democracy [rule of the many].” Similarly, “Any tuning which uses the ‘perfect’ ratios of integers—and Socrates’ system uses 1:2:3:4:5:6[—]will degenerate unless the number of tones is rigidly limited. A series of perfect fifths 2:3, for instance, slightly larger than 7/12 of the octave, could agree with the octave series only if some higher power of 2 agreed with some higher power of 3, an obvious impossibility since the first series is even and the second is odd.”
Originally this quotation ended in “if some” and had no close-quotation mark. We found the original quotation and added it: “higher power of 2 agreed with some higher power of 3, an obvious impossibility since the first series is even and the second is odd.” Does it work, or would you cut it sooner?
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- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the Song Itself (Maine: 1978), p. 19.
