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 enlarge | Author: Stuart Isacoff
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy Used: $9.00
You Save: $14.00 (61%)
Used (12) Collectible (3) from $9.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 809294
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 0375403558
Dewey Decimal Number: 784.1928
EAN: 9780375403552
ASIN: 0375403558
Publication Date: November 13, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 46-49 of 49 | | « PREV 1 ... | | |
 Enlightening, entertaining and a great read November 29, 2001
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Unlike the previous reviewer, I was thoroughly engaged by this book. The author takes the reader on a fascinating time-machine journey, from Pythagoras to Descartes to Newton. The point of the book is not so much to argue for a particular way of tuning as it is to point out the radical change in thought that music made in parallel to other areas, whether political or scientific, e.g., the tuning of the piano and its relation to the String Theory in physics.
I was puzzled by the previous reviewer's inability to appreciate the anecdotal asides: da Vinci strumming his self-made fiddle; the arguments Galileo and his father had with the music establishment of their time; Giardano Bruno being burned alive at the stake as a heretic. And all of this is told with what I take to be a wry sense of humor. Distractions? That's what makes this book so damn interesting! This book is a romp in a way that you can't anticipate when picking up non-fiction.
Absolutely enjoyable and intriguing. I loved it.
FASCINATING - A JOY TO READ! November 27, 2001
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Stuart Isacoff has taken an esoteric subject that could be unbearably dry and he has crafted a fascinating and highly readable account of the history and importance of musical temperament. Musicians, musical instrument builders and technicians will be naturally drawn to the subject and they will find this work scholarly, witty and concise. Others with no apparent interest in temperament will discover a book that both enlightens and entertains. Pick it up, glance at virtually any page and you will be drawn into it; thus is reflected the skill of a gifted writer. Add to that the understanding of a gifted musician and you have the ingredients of a work that is in every respect a joy to read and to own. I recommend "Temperament" enthusiastically.
 A dubious jumble of facts and factoids - November 24, 2001
12 out of 18 found this review helpful
The author's history is suspect, he treats Equal Temperment as some great puzzle and religious battle, which was Fought Over
Millenia and finally Won by the Good Guys (the equal temperment crowd). It wasn't fought over millenia, as a credible idea
it's pretty darn recent, and it's not at all clear the good guys won.The book is incredibly disjointed, hopping around from art to philosophy, to science to architecture, and occasionally saying something -- often wrong -- about music. There are factual errors. The author seems to have the impression that the first harmonic of a tone is a fifth above it, which is just wrong. The inharmonicity of a piano string is, he claims, caused by the great tension it is under -- it is actually caused by the fact that a metal string acts a little bit like a metal bar, and not quite like a mathematically perfect string. He also drags in some poor fellow from China who seems to have observed that 749:500 is a pretty good ratio for a fifth, and claims (after an entire chapter devoted to getting to '749:500' that this fellow "solved equal temperment." In summary, a great waste of funds. Buy "The Piano Shop on the Left Bank" instead.
Promise unfulfilled November 23, 2001
29 out of 38 found this review helpful
While much of the material would have to be rated "extremely interesting", it would also have to be rated "largely irrelevant" to the topic at hand. While it's essential to be reminded of the historical contexts in which the development of various tuning systems developed, I, for one, was expecting more of a well structured focus on the tuning systems themselves, and not an anecdotal one volume compendium of European and Oriental cultural and religious history with an occasional digression into tuning systems themselves. That being said, the occasional actual discussion of tuning is quite well done and accessible to the non-specialist.I also expected that the author would have had a more balanced approach to the issues of tuning as they relate to various groups of instruments and their copmbinations into ensembles, and not such complete focus on the tuning of the keyboard instruments and mainly harpsichord and piano at that. At one point Mr Isacoff makes the point that the organ can be less tolerant of the small adjustments made to achieve an "equal temper" than the piano, but then doesn't follow up on this opportunity. There is almost no mention of the issues of tuning that apply to the brass and woodwind instruments. I would recommend the book highly to a student of history, or to someone wanting to casually "dip into" the subject, but not to someone who was seriously interested in the topic of temperament itself.
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