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.

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.

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.

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.

A Guide to Musical Temperament

A Guide to Musical Temperament PDF Author: Thomas Donahue
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810854383
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Author Thomas Donahue assembles new information and material from previous sources, providing a comprehensive outline of theories and a historical overview that fills a neglected niche in music and keyboard reference."--Jacket.

New Tonality

New Tonality PDF Author: Paul Moravec
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
First Published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

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.

Big Bangs

Big Bangs PDF Author: Howard Goodall
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446484548
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The dramatic story of five key turning points in a thousand years of Western music - discoveries that changed the course of history. Who first invented 'Doh Re Mi...'? What do we mean by "in tune"? Looking back down the corridor of a thousand years, Howard Goodall guides us through the stories of five seismic developments in the history of Western music. His "big bangs" may not be the ones we expect - some are surprising and some are so obvious we overlook them - but all have had an extraordinary impact. Goodall starts with the invention of notation by an 11th-century Italian monk, which removed the creation of music from the hands of the players to the pens of the composers; moves on to the first opera; then to the invention of the piano, and ends with the story of the first recording made in history. Howard Goodall has the gift of making these complicated musical advances both clear and utterly fascinating. Racy and vivid in a narrative full of colourful characters and graphic illustrations of technical processes, he also gives a wonderful sense of the culture of trial and error and competition, be it in 11th-century Italy or 19th-century America, in which all progress takes place. Big Bangs opens a window on the crucial moments in our musical culture - discoveries that made possible everything from Bach to the Beatles - and tells us a riveting story of a millennium of endeavour.

Keyboard Connections

Keyboard Connections PDF Author: Anthony Osborne
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 142084783X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 85

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Book Description
Although music theory and temperament have been familiar studies since the time of Pythagoras, written explanations can be obscure and often mystical. This book describes proportion and temperament in the simplest way using straightforward diagrams and minimum text Anthony Osborne, with his architectural training, produces a range of illustrations as a practical guide, readily understandable to the reader whether or not they have musical, mathematical or scientific knowledge. Principally concerning the piano keyboard, this book is an information source regarding the connections between music, and architecture. He explains Equal Temperament and the pivotal role of the Dominant Seventh and explores Doppler''s theory, sound, light and colour and the relevance of proportion and consonance in the universe around us.