How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)

How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) PDF Author: Ross W. Duffin
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393075648
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
"A fascinating and genuinely accessible guide....Educating, enjoyable, and delightfully unscary."—Classical Music What if Bach and Mozart heard richer, more dramatic chords than we hear in music today? What sonorities and moods have we lost in playing music in "equal temperament"—the equal division of the octave into twelve notes that has become our standard tuning method? Thanks to How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony, "we may soon be able to hear for ourselves what Beethoven really meant when he called B minor 'black'" (Wall Street Journal).In this "comprehensive plea for more variety in tuning methods" (Kirkus Reviews), Ross W. Duffin presents "a serious and well-argued case" (Goldberg Magazine) that "should make any contemporary musician think differently about tuning" (Saturday Guardian). Some images in the ebook are not displayed owing to permissions issues.

How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)

How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) PDF Author: Ross W. Duffin
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393075648
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Get Book Here

Book Description
"A fascinating and genuinely accessible guide....Educating, enjoyable, and delightfully unscary."—Classical Music What if Bach and Mozart heard richer, more dramatic chords than we hear in music today? What sonorities and moods have we lost in playing music in "equal temperament"—the equal division of the octave into twelve notes that has become our standard tuning method? Thanks to How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony, "we may soon be able to hear for ourselves what Beethoven really meant when he called B minor 'black'" (Wall Street Journal).In this "comprehensive plea for more variety in tuning methods" (Kirkus Reviews), Ross W. Duffin presents "a serious and well-argued case" (Goldberg Magazine) that "should make any contemporary musician think differently about tuning" (Saturday Guardian). Some images in the ebook are not displayed owing to permissions issues.

Temperament

Temperament PDF Author: Stuart Isacoff
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375703306
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Few music lovers realize that the arrangement of notes on today’s pianos was once regarded as a crime against God and nature, or that such legendary thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, da Vinci, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and Rousseau played a role in the controversy. Indeed, from the time of the Ancient Greeks through the eras of Renaissance scientists and Enlightenment philosophers, the relationship between the notes of the musical scale was seen as a key to the very nature of the universe. In this engaging and accessible account, Stuart Isacoff leads us through the battles over that scale, placing them in the context of quarrels in the worlds of art, philosophy, religion, politics and science. The contentious adoption of the modern tuning system known as equal temperament called into question beliefs that had lasted nearly two millenia–and also made possible the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, and all who followed. Filled with original insights, fascinating anecdotes, and portraits of some of the greatest geniuses of all time, Temperament is that rare book that will delight the novice and expert alike.

Meantone Temperaments on Lutes and Viols

Meantone Temperaments on Lutes and Viols PDF Author: David Dolata
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253021464
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Written for musicians by a musician, Meantone Temperaments on Lutes and Viols demystifies tuning systems by providing the basic information, historical context, and practical advice necessary to easily achieve more satisfying tuning results on fretted instruments. Despite the overwhelming organological evidence that many of the finest lutenists, vihuelists, and viola da gamba players in the Renaissance and Baroque eras tuned their instruments in one of the meantone temperaments, most modern early instrument players today still tune to equal temperament. In this handbook richly supplemented with figures, diagrams, and music examples, historical performers will discover why temperaments are necessary and how they work, descriptions of a variety of temperaments, and their application on fretted instruments. This technical book provides downloadable audio tracks and other tools for fretted instrument players to achieve more stable consonances, colorful dissonances, and harmonic progressions that vividly propel the music forward.

Tuning and Temperament

Tuning and Temperament PDF Author: J. Murray Barbour
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486317358
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This classic chronicle of the longstanding challenges of tuning and temperament devotes a chapter to each principal theory, features a glossary and numerous tables, and requires only minimal background in music theory.

Harmonic Experience

Harmonic Experience PDF Author: W. A. Mathieu
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620554011
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 724

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Book Description
An exploration of musical harmony from its ancient fundamentals to its most complex modern progressions, addressing how and why it resonates emotionally and spiritually in the individual. W. A. Mathieu, an accomplished author and recording artist, presents a way of learning music that reconnects modern-day musicians with the source from which music was originally generated. As the author states, "The rules of music--including counterpoint and harmony--were not formed in our brains but in the resonance chambers of our bodies." His theory of music reconciles the ancient harmonic system of just intonation with the modern system of twelve-tone temperament. Saying that the way we think music is far from the way we do music, Mathieu explains why certain combinations of sounds are experienced by the listener as harmonious. His prose often resembles the rhythms and cadences of music itself, and his many musical examples allow readers to discover their own musical responses.

Musical Temperaments

Musical Temperaments PDF Author: Erich Neuwirth
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3709165407
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
Preface What you are now reading is the written version of an electronic document that explains the mathematical principles for different musical temperaments. The electronic version contains many music examples that you can listen to while you are working with this document at a computer. The written version obviously cannot offer this possibility. It serves therefore merely as a parallel study aid and guide and cannot replace actually working with the electronic text. Musical Temperaments Contents • V II Contents Introduction and Fundamental Properties 1 Pitch and Frequency 1 Preliminary Remarks 1 Frequencies and Intervals 2 Tuning Systems and Frequencies 5 Musical Scales in Different Tunings 5 Pure Tuning 5 Intervals and Triads in Pure Tuning 12 Pythagorean Tuning 23 Intervals and Triads in Pythagorean Tuning 31 Meantone Tuning 34 Intervals and Triads in Meantone Tuning 39 Equal Temperament (Tuning) 42 Intervals and Triads in Equal Temperament (Tuning) 47 Summary 50 Appendices 53 Pictorial explanations 53 Tables of Frequencies and Intervals 54 Operating Instructions 62 Glossary 67 Musical Temperaments Introduction and Fundamental Properties • 1 Introduction and Fundamental Properties Pitch and Frequency Preliminary Remarks It is well known that tones consist of periodically recurring phenomena, that is, beats repeating in a regular pattern. The number of repetitions of beats per second is measured in Hertz: 440 Hertz mean 440 beats per second. This number is also called the frequency of a beat.

Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale

Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale PDF Author: William A. Sethares
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1447141776
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale focuses on perceptions of consonance and dissonance, and how these are dependent on timbre. This also relates to musical scale: certain timbres sound more consonant in some scales than others. Sensory consonance and the ability to measure it have important implications for the design of audio devices and for musical theory and analysis. Applications include methods of adapting sounds for arbitrary scales, ways to specify scales for nonharmonic sounds, and techniques of sound manipulation based on maximizing (or minimizing) consonance. Special consideration is given here to a new method of adaptive tuning that can automatically adjust the tuning of a piece based its timbral character so as to minimize dissonance. Audio examples illustrating the ideas presented are provided on an accompanying CD. This unique analysis of sound and scale will be of interest to physicists and engineers working in acoustics, as well as to musicians and psychologists.

Music Equal Temperament

Music Equal Temperament PDF Author: Toni Morrow Wyatt
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1300273321
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
This book is about Zhu Zaiyu's Equal Temperament in Music, as well as China's scientific and cultural contributions to the art of music.

Intervals, Scales, Tones and the Concert Pitch C

Intervals, Scales, Tones and the Concert Pitch C PDF Author: Maria Renold
Publisher: Temple Lodge Publishing
ISBN: 1906999732
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Why is it that certain intervals, scales, and tones sound genuine, while others sound false? Is the modern person able to experience a qualitative difference in a tone's pitch? If so, what are the implications for modern concert pitch and how instruments of fixed tuning are tuned? Renold tackles these and many other questions and provides a wealth of scientific data. Her pioneering work is the result of a lifetime of research into the Classical Greek origin of Western music and the search for modern developments. She deepens our musical understanding by using Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science as a basis, and she elucidates many of his puzzling statements about music. The results of her work include the following discoveries: - The octave has two sizes (a 'genuine' sounding octave is bigger than the "perfect octave") - There are three sizes of "perfect fifths" - An underlying "form principle" for all scales can be found - Equal temperament is not the most satisfactory method of tuning a piano - She provides a basis for some of Steiner's statements, such as, "C is always prime" and "C = 128 Hz = Sun." Intervals, Scales, Tones is a valuable resource for those who wish to understand the deeper, spiritual aspects of music.

The Discovery of Musical Equal Temperament in China and Europe in the Sixteenth Century

The Discovery of Musical Equal Temperament in China and Europe in the Sixteenth Century PDF Author: Gene J. Cho
Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This study provides little-known mathematical, musicological and scientific facts regarding the discovery of musical equal temperament, and narrates the circumstances of the discovery in the historical and cultural contexts of the period (mid 16th to early 17th centuries) which, in turn, is placed in the intellectual chronology of the Eastern and Western worlds. By offering documentary evidence and information not found in Western publications, the book invites the reader to see the mathematics of the equal temperament and its discovery in an entirely new light.