QUOTE(linda.ff @ Aug 10 2011, 08:26 PM) I was always taught, as
I'm sure many of you were, that at a low pitch the intervals are
always best left wide - 5ths and octaves. I've been talking
about this with a coujple of pupils, and I wonder if the reason
I'm giving tallies with anyone else's (I was never taught why) I
start by showing them how an octave is a doubling of the
frequency, so two octaves is x4 etc (surprising how many kids
don't immediately twig that it's not 3!) Then I say they must
have been wondering what happened to three times, and with the
little caveat that actually it's a few vibrations short (or is
it a few vibrations over? I can never remember) but not to worry
about that now, I show them how you find x6, and say that from
C, the E just over 2 octaves higher is (roughly) x5 (x here
being "times") thus the major triad sounds comfortable to us
because it's maths/physics and not just because we chose those
notes and have got used to them. "Roughly" only applies to
instruments, like piano and