[MrDosu]

Yeah, this is pure semantics.

We attached certain names to certain frequencies in western culture and made rules about 'proper music'. It is quite fascinating how culturally influenced we are on what is beautiful sound. Other cultures will have different frequencies and composition rules they consider good or artistic. Seven different D notes is how you say 7 unique frequencies, not one.

[khedoros1]

It's how you say 7 unique frequencies with a specific mathematical relationship between each other. You can ignore the names of the notes, and it's still interesting, considered in those terms.

[uxp100]

Can you point me to a culture whose music doesn't acknowledge octaves? It sounds interesting.

[jlg23]

Sorry, inherently hard to find again again on google, so no links, but I remember 2 different studies, one in Central- or Eastern Africa and another in the Amazon rain forest: People who where never exposed to harmonic music don't have an innate preference for harmonies over disharmonies. IIRC they preferred whatever was closest to what they knew, which was interpreted as a clue that music perception is heavily influenced by the expectations of the listeners.

[watwut]

China I think.

[watwut]

Why was this downvoted? I was right. Traditional Chinese music is in pentatonic scale.

[skj]

In context, "have octaves" mean treating notes whose frequencies are powers of two as the "same", just shifted up. I believe the pentatonic scale still has this feature.

[watwut]

Thank you.

[baddox]

I'm no expert on Chinese music, but every Chinese scale I'm aware of is still based on the harmonic series and still observes octave equivalence.

[pkolaczk]

Chinese pentatonic scale is just a subset of major heptatonic scale used in western music.