Abstract
IN the Very favourable estimate of the work I have done in my translation of Helmholtz, in your number for Sept. 23, I am aken rather severely to task for my use of “Sensations of Tone” on my title-page, and my refusal to use the expression overtones in the body of the work. The title was long a matter of anxious consideration to me, and I have not yet seen my way to improving it. True, practical musicians, physiologists, and artists have each their own, very different, technical meanings for tone. The two last generally use it without an article, and in the singular; but musicians are accustomed to speak of “a tone,” or of several tones, when they allude to musical intervals. In common speech, however, all three agree with the outside world in speaking of a “loud and soft, gentle and angry tone of voice,” of a “fine-toned instrument,” of the “splendid or miserable tone produced by a violinist,” of the “magnificent tones of the organ.” That is, we are all accustomed to use tone, as I have done on my title, for “a musical quality of sound.” I know no other single word in English which expresses the same conception. In the original German, Prof. Helmholtz (and after him Prof. Tyndall) endeavours to use tone for a “simple tone” only. Neither have contrived to be consistent in so doing. I have had to correct the text several times in my translation on this very point, and instead of using tone for “simple tone” only, which is a new conception, and clang (in English, a din) for “compound musical tone,” which is also a new and not an easy conception, I have invariably used the word tone (except when distinguished by a capital letter—thus, Tone, for the interval) in the usual general sense of the word, and distinguished the particular cases by the prefix “simple” or “compound.” It seems to me that this is not so much “a little waywardness” on my part, as a desire for scientific accuracy.
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ELLIS, A. “Tone” and “Overtone”. Nature 12, 475 (1875). https://doi.org/10.1038/012475a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/012475a0
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