Abstract
THE author unfolds a new theory to account for the fact that certain combinations of sound, called concords, are “pleasant,” while others, called discords, are “unpleasant.” In place of the ancient theory by which the “harmony of numbers” in the sense of proportions of string-length to pitch has dominated these questions since the days of Pythagoras, he considers that sound possesses “volume,” an attribute somewhat difficult to grasp at first sight. So far as we can understand the new theory, the volume of a low sound contains within itself the volumes of, all sounds higher than itself; the proportions of the various volumes coincide with the well-known proportions of those of pitch. Hence the volume of the sound represented by C is exactly double that of the next C above it, and the volume of G, lying between the two, is two-thirds that of the lower C.
The Foundations of Music.
By Dr. Henry J. Watt. Pp. xvi + 239. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1919.) Price 18s. net.
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The Foundations of Music . Nature 105, 98 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105098a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105098a0