Jul 14 2007
Temperamental music
I recently finished the book Temperament - How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization, by Stuart Isaacoff, pianist, author, and founding editor of Piano Today.
The way instruments are tuned sounds like an incredibly dry subject, but it in fact is a subject which has been furiously controversial for centuries. The theory of how vibrating strings produce sound was first developed by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, and the relationship between notes on a scale were thought to be ordained by God. While the Pythagorean system produced “pure” intervals, it produced horrible results as music and harmony became more complex. Fixing the system involved scientists including Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, and Descartes, musicians including John Dunstable, Frescobaldi, and Bach, and religious figures including myriad Popes and John Calvin. Many methods proposed by all these people challenged fundamental beliefs people held of the relationship between God, man, and the universe.
Isaacoff mixes cultural history, musical theory, and mathematics into a very readable account of how the modern system of what is called equal-temperament tuning came into being. If you are a musician, I highly recommend this book.