Excerpt from Handbook of Acoustics (Curwen's Edition, 5005;): For the Use of Musical Students

Although many works on the subject of Acoustics have been written for the use of musical students, the author of this book has not met with one which gives, in an elementary form, more than a partial view of the science. Thus, there are several admirable treatises on the purely physical and experimental part, but most if not all of them stop short just when the subject begins to be of especial interest to the student of music. On the other hand, there are many excellent works, which treat of the bearings of purely acoustical phenomena on the science and art of music, but which presuppose a knowledge of such phenomena and their causes on the part of the reader. Thus the ordinary musical student, who can probably give but a limited amount of time to this part of his studies, is at the disadvantage of having to master several works, each probably written in a totally different style, and possibly not all agreeing perfectly with one another as to details. This disadvantage has been felt by the author, in his classes for some years past, and the present work has been written with the object of furnishing to the student, as far as is possible in an elementary work, a complete View of Acoustical science and its bearings on the art of music.

In the arrangement of the subject, the reader should observe that up to and including the 7th Chapter, the sounds treated of are supposed to be simple; the next four chapters treat of sounds - both simple and compound - singly, that is to say, only one tone is supposed to be produced at a time the phenomena accompanying the simultaneous production of two or more sounds are reserved for the remaining chapters.

The movable Sol-fa names for the notes of the scale have been used throughout, as they are so much better adapted to scientific treatment than the fixed Staff Notation symbols. It may be useful to readers not acquainted with the Tonic Sol-fa Notation to mention that in this system, the symbol (1 is taken to represent a sound of any assumed pitch, and the letters, r, m, f, s, l, 13, represent the other tones of the diatonic scale in ascending order. The sharp of any one of these tones is denoted by placing the letter 9 after its symbol thus, the sharp of s is 39; of r, re; and so on. The flat of any tone is denoted by placing the letter a, after its symbol: thus the flat of t is ta; of m, ma; and so on. The upper or lower octaves of these notes are expressed by marks above or below their symbols thus (11 is one octave, (12 two octaves above (1; s1 is one octave, 3, two octaves below 3. Absolute pitch has been denoted throughout by the ordinary symbols, 0 representing the note on the ledger line below the treble staff. Its successive higher octaves are denoted by placing the figures 1, 2, 3, &c., above it, and its lower octaves by writing the same figures beneath it; thus, C], C, C', &c.; Cl, C, Cs.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.