This paper explores the use of simple ratios to tune musical intervals and chords. Included are a tutorial, a set of computer programs, and a re-tuned two-part invention by J.S. Bach.
just intonation, tuning system, Helmholtz, Csound, intonation, computer music, electronic music, Bach
The History of Musical Tuning and Temperament during the Classical and Romantic Periods.
Why is the history of tuning and temperament so important? To most musicians, the idea that the sound of notes and scales have changed is a foreign concept. Over the past 2000 years, tuning and temperament has changed, from region to region, from musician to musician, and from year to year. The histories of tuning and temperament are important because to understand the music of the past, you need to understand that the music didn't sound the same today as it sounded then....
Physics of Music - Notes.
Physics of Music, Musical Scales,
Physics of Musical Instruments, PVC Flute, Equal Temperament,
Musical Scale, Just Temperament, Overtones, Harmonics,
Finger Holes, Wind Chime, Music Composition Paper.
MTU Department of Physics in the College of Sciences and Arts.
Physics, Department of Physics, MTU, Michigan Technological University, academics, research, people, alumni, features, contact, site map
Overview of historical temperaments on keyboard instruments.
The need for temperament arises because it is impossible to have octaves, fifths, thirds, etc., all pure at once, or, in other words, because the ratios of the different pure intervals are incompatible....
temperament, tuning, Pythagore, just intonation, Aaron, Silbermann, Salinas, Kirnberger, Vallotti, Werckmeister, LewareQC
Cajuns, Accordions, Fiddles and Scales by Jim Allen: Many times I have heard or read that Cajuns play their accordions up a fifth. One web site says that Cajuns play up a fifth and go to great lengths to avoid playing the seventh note, Ti, because it will be flat.
I have often puzzled over these statements. I play a very few Cajun numbers, and don't play them up a fifth. On the other hand, I play a few non-Cajun numbers up a fifth because I like the musical effect of the diminished seventh ...
The Just Intonation System of Nicola Vicentino:
Nicola Vicentino (1511-c.1576) was a remarkable theorist and composer whose fame today rests chiefly with his advocacy of chromatic and even microtonal music. Unlike the traditional theorist of the Middle Ages, he was not content to just confine himself to abstract mathematical theory; he showed how his theories could be applied to practical composition and tuning. In fact, he designed and built at least two keyboard instruments designed to play in all of the Greek genera: a harpsichord with thirty-six keys per octave which he called the archicembalo and a comparable portative organ, the arciorgano. His tuning system included thirty-one pitches within an octave, which, as Barbour reasonably interprets it, was most probably applied to the archicembalo through a cycle of fifths tempered by 1/4-syntonic comma, the same interval commonly used in meantone temperament at the time [1]. However, it is less well known that he also defined the intervals of his system either implicitly or explicitly at least two other ways: as just ratios derived from ancient theorists, and as divisions of other intervals.
Humanism began having a profound effect on music theory and aesthetics in the sixteenth century, when musicians began rediscovering or reevaluating the writings of ancient theorists such as Boethius and Ptolemy. The ancient theories of modes and tetrachordal divisions, though often misunderstood, were widely considered prerequisite knowledge to the art of composition. Vicentino presented his own theories and interpretations of ancient theory in his treatise L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (Ancient Music Restored to Modern Practice), first published in Rome in 1555 ...