Product Description

This masterly treatment of classical acoustics embodies the great physicist’s lifetime of research, and presents his vast knowledge of the field in a clear, easy-to-follow account. Among the topics explored: physical phenomena, the physiology of hearing, the relation of musical phenomena to physics, and historical aspects of musical sound.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #338400 in Books
• Published on: 1954-06-01
• Original language: German
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780486607535
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Customer Reviews

An undisputed classic in the science of hearing and music
Helmholtz's Sensations of Tone became an almost instant classic in the study of hearing when it was published in 1863. It combined the physics, physiology and psychological aspects of hearing in an attempt to explain the origins of musical harmony and dissonance. Though not easy reading, it is accessible to the non-specialist. However it also provides an important historical resource for the specialist and helps one to understand the origins of so much of contemporary hearing research. Indeed, in many ways Helmholtz reads more like a contemporary than a long-past founding father. The appendices provided by the translator are helpful as well. Finally, the inexpensive paperback edition from Dover makes this book an excellent bargain.

I concur.
This is worthwhile for the reasons already cited (so I need not rehearse them), but it is important to recognize that much of it has been superceded or disproved. I hope those prospective purchasers who have found their way here are aware of Juan Roederer's THE PHYSICS AND PSYCHOPHISICS OF MUSIC--very much recommended!

Thorough, leisurely study of the principles of musical harmony and scales
Part 1 discusses how tones may be perceived as built up by the base tone and the "harmonic upper partial tones". These upper partial tones are what distinguishes different instruments and they determine the "quality of the tone"; e.g. "if only the unevenly numbered partials are present ... the quality of the tone is hollow, and, when a large number of such upper partials are present, nasal", etc. (p. 119). Helmholtz's model of the ear has it that there is a spectrum of hairs in the ear, each with its own mode of vibration. When we hear a tone it is decomposed into its partials through "sympathetic resonance" of the corresponding hairs, and it is this information--i.e. essentially Fourier coefficients--that is sent to the brain. Part 2 discusses the theory of consonance. Again, the Fourier analysis point of view is the key. The consonance or dissonance of two tones is determined by the interaction of the partials of the tones, giving mathematical precision to the idea that "two consonant tones flow on quietly side by side in an undisturbed stream; dissonant tones cut one another up into separate pulses of tone" (p. 226). Thus one can claim that "ultimately, then, the reason of the rational numerical relations of Pythagoras is to be found in the theorem of Fourier, and in one sense this theorem may be considered as the prime source of the theory of harmony" and so "the enigma which, about 2500 years ago, Pythagoras proposed to science ... 'Why is consonance determined by the ratios of small whole numbers?' has been solved by the discovery that the ear resolves all complex sounds into pendular oscillations ... and that it regards as harmonious only such excitement of the nerves as continue without disturbance" (p. 229). Part 3 studies scales; quoting from the conclusion: "the construction of scales ... is a product of artistic invention, and by no means furnished by the natural formation or the natural function of our ear, as it has been hitherto most generally asserted. Of course the laws of the natural function of our ear play a great and influential part in this result; these laws are, as it were, the building stones with which the edifice of our musical system has been erected, and the necessity of accurately understanding the nature of these materials in order to understand the construction of the edifice itself, has been clearly shewn by the course of our investigations upon this very subject. But just as people with differently directed tastes can erect extremely different kinds of buildings with the same stones, so also the history of music shews us that the same properties of the human ear could serve as the foundation of very different musical systems." (p. 366).