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Re: Why is high high?



I'm not sure if this is relevant to vertical spatial relations,
but it is an interesting fact that the ealiest known keyboard
instrument, an artifact resembling a calliope, built in Alexandria
and currently in the museum at the archeological dig at the ancient
Greek city of Dion, has the bass notes to the right and treble
notes to the left.

Daniel Salomons wrote:
>My teacher in high school told once, that in ancient Greece it was
>the other way around, ie. what is considered high pitch today, was
>called low, and what is low now, was called high then. This was
>because if they were playing an instrument which resembles a bit
>of a tea-bass, or an other instrument with vertical strings, the
>hand had to be moved upwards for low sounds, and it had to be moved
>downwards for high sounds.
>

Cheers,
Steve

---
 Steven M. Boker                                 219-631-4941 (voice)
 sboker@nd.edu                                   219-631-8883 (fax)
 http://www.nd.edu/~sboker/                      219-257-2956 (home)
 Dept. of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556

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