The Physics of Sound, Acoustics and Music and Many False Assumptions by Thomas Sanford Wagner

Tom, as a musician myself in my other life, and author of a popular recording book ("Guerrilla Home Recording"), I was naturally attracted to your essay. While I don't think you're focusing on the most foundational issues in physics, your essay is fascinating and enlightening nonetheless, and touches on a lot of mysteries in acoustics. For example, I've always wondered why it's impossible to get a loudspeaker playing a recording of speech to sound like a person in the room talking. Or, what it would take to get a recorded mix, played on speakers or headphones, to truly sound like a live performance. Even from a block away, you can always tell whether the music coming from a venue is live or recorded. In college, I thought the solution would involve starting the signal chain with a "digital microphone" that operated similar to the human cochlea, until someone pointed out that turning such signals back into analog sound would necessitate basically simulating the human brain.

Anyway, thanks for submitting your essay; I'll surely re-read it when things settle down. You deserve to be doing better in the competition. Best of luck.

Dear Tom,

It's refreshing to read and consider an essay that hits so close to home in the human aspects of experience. I have a background in music also and am going to give your essay a good rating. Maybe you'll consider my essay that has very much to do with waves (EM waves) and the dispersion and Doppler processes which conspire to produce the relativistic effects.

I think you could have said much more about the comparative staleness of equal tempered scales. In Europe, especially, there is a bit of a revival in rebuilding cathedral organs that have their original tempered tunings. The experience of hearing one brings the music alive gives a unique character to each and every musical piece.

It's unfortunately seldom expressed or possibly even little recognized that excellent performers modify the pitch of the tones of the scale they are playing or singing to suit the harmonic context of the passage. That recognition of artistry could and should be taught.

With best wishes,

Steve

Dear Thomas

Music in Terms of Science

James Q. Feng arXiv:1209.3767 [pdf, other]

I think interesting for you.

Steve

Thank you for the very nice post. I shall certainly read your essay.

I did not go further into equal tempered tuning as 25,000 characters do not go very far. The tempered scale is the bane of music today. Technology should have completely eradicated it but yet it persists like a summer cold. Most Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) are set to the tempered scale and consider natural tuning as de-tuning. Paul Hindemith felt that our toleration of tempered tuning is likened to our ability to withstand pain.

Music groups that can affect the tuning never play in the equal tempered system. They always make precise, discrete shifts in certain chords or intervals to keep the music being played in correct tune. This shift is always an interval, called a comma, equal, to 81\80. This known as the Syntonic Comma, sometimes referred to as the Dydimus Comma. Theorists usually say it is about 21.51 cents. This comma is equal to exactly 1.0125. Defining it in the tonometric system is as useless as it is absurd.

Some years ago I scored a film on Ancient Peru and did some research at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Junius Byrd, the curator, gave me a book about the old Quechua instruments, especially the pan flutes. These people made remarkable instruments. One set of pan flutes had two pipes that were pitched very close together. The researcher gave the interval between the two pipes as about 22 cents. He never realized that the actual interval had to have been the Dydimus comma and that would indicate that ancient Peruvian music had an harmonic structure.

Is there any more dreadful sound in the world than a romantic organ tuned to the tempered scale? (Except perhaps those idiotic tympani rolls tacked onto the end of the Romeo and Juliet Overture).

The adaptation of the tempered system is quite recent. Because a set of pieces by Bach have the unfortunate title of Well-Tempered Clavichord many people wrongly think that Bach was the initiator of the tempered system. Bach did not invent nor did he use the tempered scale. The Well-Tempered Clavichord is two sets of preludes and fugues that are written in all twelve keys. Each piece is quite tonal and harpsichord players tune their instruments to the key of each just as they did in the time of Bach.

While notions of isometric tuning go back to the ancient Greeks the notion of the tempered scale is usually attributed to Andreas Werkmeister, a contemporary of Newton. The scale came into common usage toward the end of the nineteenth century. It was popularized by British organ makers as the tempered scale gives the illusion of being able to modulate to any key.

We can only hope that both the tempered scale and the tonometric system, like old soldiers, will soon simply fade away.

Tom Wagner

Karl

Thank you for that fine post.

I feel that music is (or should be) one of the foundations of physics. Quantum physicists are fond of saying that when you study quantum physics you are studying music. The problem is that most physicists do not have a true understanding of real music theory. They shouldn't feel too badly as most musicians don't either. The worst offenders in the wrong ideas of musical theory are the university music departments. Igor Stravinsky once said of university music theory departments that they are places where professors of counterpoint grope forever in regions of outer darkness. That may be a bit harsh but then Stravinsky was never known for being a gentle spirit.

I am finally getting physicists and non-physicists alike interested in these ideas. When I first wrote the Structural Resonance papers I got some heavy resistance. Fortunately I had for a friend and mentor Dr. Frederick Seitz, Fred was a former president of the National Science Foundation. He was president of the Rockefeller University when I met him. He was also on the Boards of Directors of more companies that you could shake a stick at. His help and encouragement made it all happen.

I have most of the tools I need and some of the coding written to try and be able to actually record and reproduce truly real sound. How these ideas interface with physics will need input from physicists but the postings I have been getting are very encouraging.

Tom

Karl

Thank you for that fine post.

I feel that music is (or should be) one of the foundations of physics. Quantum physicists are fond of saying that when you study quantum physics you are studying music. The problem is that most physicists do not have a true understanding of real music theory. They shouldn't feel too badly as most musicians don't either. The worst offenders in the wrong ideas of musical theory are the university music departments. Igor Stravinsky once said of university music theory departments that they are places where professors of counterpoint grope forever in regions of outer darkness. That may be a bit harsh but then Stravinsky was never known for being a gentle spirit.

I am finally getting physicists and non-physicists alike interested in these ideas. When I first wrote the Structural Resonance papers I got some heavy resistance. Fortunately I had for a friend and mentor Dr. Frederick Seitz, Fred was a former president of the National Science Foundation. He was president of the Rockefeller University when I met him. He was also on the Boards of Directors of more companies that you could shake a stick at. His help and encouragement made it all happen.

I have most of the tools I need and some of the coding written to try and be able to actually record and reproduce truly real sound. How these ideas interface with physics will need input from physicists but the postings I have been getting are very encouraging.

Tom

If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process.

Sergey Fedosin

Dear Thomas,

As someone interested in both physics and music, I found your essay very interesting, and indeed eye-opening. You cover a lot of ground in different areas music theory in just one short paper, and I think this may increase the likelihood that some of your arguments escape notice. I looked at your website, and if I may make a suggestion, it would be helpful to interested persons if

a) you could include some samples that allow the listener to directly compare music according to the tempered scale against the properly tuned one.

b) you could have dedicated web pages for each of the areas in which your framework leads to a better understanding of aspects of music theory.

Finally, it seems to me that among those interested in your work may be

a) music instrument manufacturers

b) musicians, both composers and performers

c) music theorists

d) physicists

e) architects

f) physicians

g) public health officials

h) entrepreneurs and venture capitalists

And each group among this "target audience" has obviously different perspectives, backgrounds, levels of and need for understanding aspects of your work. So, if you have not already done so, you may wish to differentiate your approach towards each group. For example you might consider having sections in your website dedicated to addressing each group separately.

At any rate, your essay was very interesting, and I wish you all the best.

Armin

PS. I noticed that you designed an automatic prescription filling progam. Ha, another commonality, as I am (still) a pharmacist by profession.

Dear Tom,

Thank you so much for your beautifully written article. So much important truth in it!

Yes, yes, I remember our performances at St. John the Divine and in Valparaiso so well - and how the clarity of hearing or lack thereof made all the difference.

As ever,

Nina

Armin

Thinks for the post.

I am currently creating a new Web page in which I will explore many of the things you suggest. I will also put examples of some of my music and some samples of tempered and perfectly tuned music as well.

Reading and responding to the essays here has proved to be a delightful but time-consuming enterprise.

The prescription program was written for a psychiatrist who deals a lot with drug patients. The details required by the Feds and the prescription forms meant she was spending many hours writing out prescriptions. I was able to automate the process to satisfy both the Feds and the pharmacies and now he does the whole things in fifteen to twenty minutes. It was an interesting challenge.

Tom Wagner