Harry Partch, Ivor Darreg, and Ralph David Hill are among the many microtonalists to suggest that

music has been slowly evolving to employ higher and higher harmonics in its constructs (see
emancipation of the dissonance).[citation needed] In medieval music, only chords made of octaves
and perfect fifths (involving relationships among the first three harmonics) were considered
consonant. In the West, triadic harmony arose (contenance angloise) around the time of the
Renaissance, and triads quickly became the fundamental building blocks of Western music. The
major and minor thirds of these triads invoke relationships among the first five harmonics.

Around the turn of the 20th century, tetrads debuted as fundamental building blocks in African-
American music. In conventional music theory pedagogy, these seventh chords are usually
explained as chains of major and minor thirds. However, they can also be explained as coming
directly from harmonics greater than 5. For example, the dominant seventh chord in 12-ET
approximates 4:5:6:7, while the major seventh chord approximates 8:10:12:15.