Shards and Tones

[Armadillo]

If there’s 16 shards, each with a unique tone… are the tones the 16 notes in a 2-octave scale? This opens up lots of new questions:

- Which key is this scale in?
- When two shards combine to make a new tone, does it make one of the sounds of a note not in the scale (for example, a black key in the C-Major Scale), or a combined sound of the two notes being played together?
- Are two Shards more compatible because their notes sounds better together (say, a 1st and 3rd) and incompatible if they’re closer together (such as Ruin and Preservation)? If this is true, what about tones that are the same note but in different octaves?
- Do their numbers line up with their notes? (10 with Honor, 9 with Odium, etc)

Wrinkles:
- If the numbers line up too.. 9 is Odium and 10 is Honor --> Retribution. Retribution says their intents are a lot more aligned so they go well together. Generally, two notes right next to each other on a scale don't sound great.

Edited April 18, 2025 by Armadillo
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[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

On 4/17/2025 at 8:58 PM, Armadillo said:

If there’s 16 shards, each with a unique tone… are the tones the 16 notes in a 2-octave scale? This opens up lots of new questions:

- Which key is this scale in?
- When two shards combine to make a new tone, does it make one of the sounds of a note not in the scale (for example, a black key in the C-Major Scale), or a combined sound of the two notes being played together?
- Are two Shards more compatible because their notes sounds better together (say, a 1st and 3rd) and incompatible if they’re closer together (such as Ruin and Preservation)? If this is true, what about tones that are the same note but in different octaves?
- Do their numbers line up with their notes? (10 with Honor, 9 with Odium, etc)

Wrinkles:
- If the numbers line up too.. 9 is Odium and 10 is Honor --> Retribution. Retribution says their intents are a lot more aligned so they go well together. Generally, two notes right next to each other on a scale don't sound great.

(Precluding note - it ain’t confirmed that Cultivation is 3)
Hhmmm… 

Perhaps, but maybe not - they are also associated with color.

Saying it is:

Cultivation is three, and her and honor, for a time, were the “pure tone of Roshar” - which would be 3 and 10, an entire octave.

However, he stresses the point that Odium was part of the three, and part of the pure tones - meaning that it would be 3, 9, and 10 - not musically unused, but usually broken up.

BUT

What evidence do we have that their scales are 8 note? They had a 3 note scale historically, matching Cultivation, or matching the three Shards - generally, I don’t think it needs to line up with our musical tradition.

(Also, 8 isn’t the number of “even” intervals in our scales - there are twelve distinct notes. Even those aren’t even interval - the change in frequency [I don’t think that’s the word…] is not linearly modeled.)

[Armadillo]

On 4/21/2025 at 2:06 PM, SpiritOfWrath said:

Cultivation is three, and her and honor, for a time, were the “pure tone of Roshar” - which would be 3 and 10, an entire octave.

That would make sense why it would be called a "pure tone" then, huh! Since they're the same note.
Their intents unfortunately don't make a ton of sense together (like Ruin/Odium, or Honor/Valor might), though that would have been nice.
And I guess towerlight would sound either sound exactly like the "old" pure tone of Roshar (before Odium) or the exact middle note. Which isn't exactly the case, I don't think

On 4/21/2025 at 2:06 PM, SpiritOfWrath said:

What evidence do we have that their scales are 8 note? They had a 3 note scale historically, matching Cultivation, or matching the three Shards - generally, I don’t think it needs to line up with our musical tradition.

 

Good point. I was saying 8 because it goes into 16 so evenly, meaning two shards would share each note. If it was a three note scale, and "scale" has the same meaning to them that it does to us, then the first and last notes of their scale would be the same but different octaves (like our 8-note scale).

If we use the C-major scale as the "Cosmere Standard" example, then their scale would sound like (low) E-D-E (high). Kinda wacky. But Towerlight would either sound like an octave of E or Bb if my theory of merging tones is correct.

On 4/21/2025 at 2:06 PM, SpiritOfWrath said:

Also, 8 isn’t the number of “even” intervals in our scales - there are twelve distinct notes.

Actually, my irl "headcanon" is that the Shard that created Earth was Shard #12 haha. Twelve months, twelve gods of olympus, 24 hours in a day, etc.

On 4/21/2025 at 2:06 PM, SpiritOfWrath said:

Even those aren’t even interval - the change in frequency [I don’t think that’s the word…] is not linearly modeled.

True. I think that we just picked 12 because that was the easiest to divide them up into. Which makes sense. 12 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, which makes for easy separation.