Synopses & Reviews
The only things truly universal in music are those that are based on biological and/or perceptual facts. Tuning Timbre Spectrum Scale focuses on perceptions of consonance and dissonance, which are defined in the Harvard Dictionary of Music: "Consonance is used to describe the agreeable effect produced by certain intervals as against the disagreeable effect produced others. Consonance and dissonance are the very foundation of harmonic music... consonance represents the element of smoothness and repose, while dissonance represents the no less important elements of roughness and irregularity." Tuning Timbre Spectrum Scale begins by asking (and answering) the question: How can we build a device to measure consonance and dissonance? The remainder of the book describes the impact of such a "dissonance meter" on music theory, on synthesizer design, on the construction of musical scales and tunings, on the design of musical instruments, and introduces related compositional techniques and new methods of musicological analyses.
Synopsis
Table2. 2. Each note consists of three partials. If the sequence is played ascending, then the ?rst virtual pitch tends to be perceived, whereas if played descending, the second, lower virtual pitch tends to be heard. Only one virtual pitch is audible at a time. This can be heard in sound examples S: 6] and S: 7]. Note First Second Third Virtual Pitch Virtual Pitch partial partial partial ascending descending 1 600 800 1000 200. 0 158. 9 2 620 820 1020 205. 2 163. 0 3 640 840 1040 210. 4 167. 1 4 660 860 1060 215. 6 171. 2 5 680 880 1080 220. 9 175. 3 6 700 900 1100 226. 1 179. 4 7 720 920 1120 231. 3 183. 6 8 740 940 1140 236. 6 187. 7 9 760 960 1160 241. 8 191. 8 10 780 980 1180 247. 0 195. 9 11 800 1000 1200 252. 2 200. 0 Pitch and virtual pitch are properties of a single sound. For instance, a chord played by the violin, viola, and cello of a string quartet is not usually thoughtofashavingapitch;rather, pitchisassociatedwitheachinstrumental tone separately. Thus, determining the pitch or pitches of a complex sound source requires that it ?rst be partitioned into separate perceptual entities. Only when a cluster of partials fuse into a single sound can it be assigned a pitch. When listening analytically, for instance, there may be more notes presentthaninthesamesoundwhenlisteningholistically."
Synopsis
TTSS offers a unique analysis of the relationship between the structure of sound and the structure of scale and will be use to musicians and composers who use inharmonic tones and sounds. TTSS also provides a unique approach to working with environmental sounds, and there are clear applications for the use of inharmonic sounds in film scoring. The book analyses a wide range of instruments - from existing instruments, electronic instruments, artificial sounds and the sounds and scales on non-western instruments, including the only such analysis of Indonesian instruments.
Synopsis
The only things truly universal in music are those that are based on biological and/or perceptual facts. Tuning Timbre Spectrum Scale focuses on perceptions of consonance and dissonance, which are defined in the Harvard Dictionary of Music: "Consonance is used to describe the agreeable effect produced by certain intervals as against the disagreeable effect produced others. Consonance and dissonance are the very foundation of harmonic music... consonance represents the element of smoothness and repose, while dissonance represents the no less important elements of roughness and irregularity." Tuning Timbre Spectrum Scale begins by asking (and answering) the question: How can we build a device to measure consonance and dissonance? The remainder of the book describes the impact of such a "dissonance meter" on music theory, on synthesizer design, on the construction of musical scales and tunings, on the design of musical instruments, and introduces related compositional techniques and new methods of musicological analyses.
Table of Contents
Prelude; The Octave Is Dead, Long Live the Octave; The Science of Sound; Musical Scales; Consonance and Dissonance of Harmonic Sounds; Related Tunings and Spectra; A Bell, a Rock, a Crystal; Adaptive Tunings; Applied Adaptive Tunings; The Gamelan; A Wing, an Anomaly, a Recollection; Consonance-based Musical Analysis; From Tuning to Spectrum; Spectral Mappings; A Musical Theory for 10-tet; Speculation, Correlation, Interpretation; Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography; Sound Examples; Index.