A Guide to Musical Temperament


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.




Tuning and Temperament


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.




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


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.




Musical Temperaments


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.




A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music


Book Description

Revised and expanded, A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth Century Music is a comprehensive reference guide for students and professional musicians. The book contains useful material on vocal and choral music and style; instrumentation; performance practice; ornamentation, tuning, temperament; meter and tempo; basso continuo; dance; theatrical production; and much more. The volume includes new chapters on the violin, the violoncello and violone, and the trombone—as well as updated and expanded reference materials, internet resources, and other newly available material. This highly accessible handbook will prove a welcome reference for any musician or singer interested in historically informed performance.




Temperament


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.




Harmonograph


Book Description

Ashton presents a short, illustrated introduction to the evolution of simple harmonic theory. Illustrations.




Tuning in


Book Description

A basic guide to alternate scales, temperaments and microtuning using synthesizers.




A Performer's Guide to Renaissance Music, Second Edition


Book Description

Vocal/choral issues. The solo voice in the Renaissance / Ellen Hargis ; On singing and the vocal ensemble I / Alexander Blachly ; On singing and the vocal ensemble II / Alejandro Planchart ; Practical matters of vocal performance / Anthony Rooley -- Wind, string, and percussion instruments. Recorder ; Renaissance flute / Herbert Myers ; Capped double reeds : crumhorn--Kortholt--Schreierpfeif / Jeffery Kite-Powell ; Shawm and curtal / Ross Duffin ; Racket : rackett, Rankett (Ger.), cervelas (Fr.), cervello (It.) / Jeffery Kite-Powell ; Bagpipe / Adam Knight Gilbert ; Cornett / Douglas Kirk ; Sackbut / Stewart Carter -- Bowed instruments / Wendy Gillespie -- The violin / David Douglass -- Plucked instruments / Paul O'Dette -- The harp / Herbert Myers -- Early percussion / Benjamin Harms -- Keyboard instruments / Jack Ashworth -- Practical considerations/instrumentation. Proto-continuo / Jack Ashworth and Paul O'Dette ; Mixed ensembles / James Tyler ; Large ensembles / Jeffery Kite-Powell ; Rehearsal tips for directors / Adam Knight Gilbert ; Performance editions / Frederick Gable -- Performance practice. Tuning and temperament / Ross Duffin ; Pitch and transposition / Herbert Myers ; Ornamentation in sixteenth-century music / Bruce Dickey ; Pronunciation guides / Ross Duffin -- Aspects of theory. Eight brief rules for composing a si placet altus, ca. 1470-1510 / Adam Knight Gilbert ; Renaissance theory / Sarah Mead -- Introduction to Renaissance dance. Early Renaissance dance, 1450-1520 / Yvonne Kendall -- For the early music director. Starting from scratch / Jeffery Kite-Powell.




Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale


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.