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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: 809865
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:
 As a musician it explains things I've wondered about May 13, 2005
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Stuart Isacoff's book is a history channel approach to a sterile and often boringly treated subject.
His stories are great, his examples clear, and his math simple enough for me to follow (and it's been a few decades since math class!).
As a guitarist, this helps explain the anomalies I've encountered and frustrations I've endured in properly setting up and tuning my instruments. The book is an easy read, and for those who may want to delve deeper, a good start.
Uncertainty and Temperament November 3, 2004
6 out of 15 found this review helpful
This book was interesting to me.But there is another story.
In quantum physics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle expresses a limitation on accuracy of simultaneous measurement of observables such as the position and the momentum of a particle. (1927)
Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem says that ...."any precise mathematical system must contain some statementsthat are neither provable nor disprovable by the means allowed within the system". (1931)
In 1916 Einstein published his general theory of relativity. In it he proposed that gravity is not a force but a curved field in the space-time continuum that is created by the presence of mass. People were astonished by the fact that space and time are under relativity. Even though, the world could stay ease within the determinism where there was a general algorithmic procedure for resolving all mathematical questions.
But since Heisenberg's discovery, Isaac Newton's laws of motion has not been used to predict accurately the behavior of single subatomic particles. The world was then suffered from this uncertainty. Godel gave an additional blow to the people's mental world with the incompleteness.
Roger Penrose, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and a physicist, now happily says, "We cannot create any kind of new artistic sensitivity however we may accumulate many times of calculations. Art is a non-computable physics."
I would like to say, "Music is a non-computable physics, too".
But over the centuries musicians, mathematicians, theorists, thinkers, experts and amateurs have been suffered from the comma which is the difference between a perfectly tuned octave and the octave resulting from a tuned circle of fifths. Many great people have been trying to create the perfect scale in vain. Mathematics easily proves that perfection is not possible. Any solution does not exist. Musicians, especially pianists, have been accused of using the Equal Temperament for thier pianos because the Equal Temperament is said to be an anti-musical compromise which leaves each key equally damaged and none perfectly in tune.This comma has put a curse on music.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle;
The position and momentum of a wave in space have been changed in form to the time and frequency of a wave. Here is a sound wave as a time-varying signal. Now we have found out the fact that it is impossible for us to know the exact frequencies in our sound wave at an exact moment in time. When frequency is 0.1Hz, delta t should be more than 1 /(4*pai*0.1) sec which is about 0.80 sec.
Middle C of the equal temperament is calculated approximately as 261.6256Hz. If you want to determine C with this precision 0.0001Hz, you need delta-t of 800 sec, or 13 min 20 sec. If you want to get the exact Middle C, you need an infinite time and a continuous wave of C.
In other words, theoretically we cannot get the perfect fifth tone with a frequency from a root tone with a frequency f0 by calculating f = f0 * (3/2).
In another treatment, the "uncertainty" of a variable is taken to be the smallest width of a range which contains 50% of the values, which, also in the case of normally distributed variables, leads to a lower bound of
delta f * delta t =< 1/( 2*pai ) for the product of the uncertainties. For different types of wave packets and for other treatments, the uncertainty can be set to a much lower bound.
In this physical world there can exist no temperament based on the ratios of whole numbers. Even harmony must live with this "uncertainty".
The Fourier Transform Theory:
You may say again that it is only for the subatomic world. But the Fourier Transform Theory reveals that the sound wave cannot get rid of the Uncertainty of Time and Frequency. A physical signal, such as sound pressure can be represented as a continuous function of time. This is the time domain representation of the sound. There is an equally valid frequency domain representation.
The uncertainty clouds cover the differentials of pitches which depend on various temperaments. And this uncertainty might be able to break the historic curse over the music.
Music of Sacred Temperament (the Well Tempered Clavier)
 "meticulously researched?" August 1, 2004
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
Several reviewers have praised the author for his meticulous research. Perhaps they mean this, from p. 19: "As late as 1768, composer George Frideric Handel paid for an organ with split keys for the Foundling Hospital in London." Handel did buy an organ for the Foundling Hospital, but I can find no reference in its specs to a keyboard with split keys, which surely would merit mention as it would have been extraordinary for such an instrument. Even more extraordinary is Handel's apparent ability to make a gift 9 years after his death - in fact, he made the gift in 1749, and it was well known and widely praised for its great generosity (Handel also played many benefit concerts for the Foundling Hospital and became one of its governors). I have not read beyond this point, as I cannot have much confidence in an author of a book on a musical subject who gets wrong the date of a famous musical event, has one of the world's greatest composers still living 9 years after his death, and probably has the point at issue also wrong.
 Interesting subject, unsatisfactory treatment March 16, 2004
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The book is too anecdotal, an amateurish cultural history. Many of the materials are not quite relevant. If the author stuck to the subject the pages could be two-third less. Hope someone will come up with a better one.
Why you might/might not like this book: Reviewing reviews February 13, 2004
34 out of 36 found this review helpful
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and, for the first time in my life, feel that I actually understand the issues around temperament. I would recommend this book to a lot of people but not everyone, as the number of negative reviews illustrates. The negative reviews for this book seem to fall into four categories-if you are in one of those groups then you may want to buy a different book:
1) The lunatic fringe: Examples here are: The review that castigates the book for abusing non-Western music (It's hard to see the point of this complaint since the intent of the book is to discuss the role of temperament in Western music--no real mention is made of any other kind of music); The review by the person who read only a 2 or 3 page excerpt of the book (apparently ignorance is no impediment to opinion); The person who hadn't read the book yet but would post a review when they had (see previous); The reviewer who felt that the book was all about sex (I missed that). And so on.
2) People who were unhappy about the lack of technical detail. While I am obviously disparaging the previous group, these reviewers have a valid complaint. These readers were looking for (as examples): actual scores; more math with more explicit discussion of the exact size of the differentials between similarly named tones; more technical terms (e.g. "hertz"). I have a good grounding in math, read a lot of technical material, but would probably best be described as a "music lover". I'm just not in these reviewers league. Since I don't read music, for instance, a score would be useless to me. For the audience that I represent, the level of technical detail worked very well and is appropriate for a "general interest" book. The author's description of the music met my needs and the prescence of a score wouldn't have helped. I didn't miss the technical details that these other readers were looking for.
3) Reviewers who felt a lot of the book was irrelevant and fluff. Also a valid comment as much of the book isn't directly about temperament (as an example, these reviewers would probably point to chapter 7, which is an overview of the birth of the Renaissance). However, the author's intent is not to discuss temperament but to discuss how the battles over temperament reflected much of what else was going on politically and culturally at the time. He wants to claim that the discussions of temperament reflected other battles and that the arguments over temperament were enabled only by other changes going on in the world. If that larger discussion doesn't interest you, this is the wrong book for you in the same way that the lack of technical detail made the book an unhappy experience for the previous group of readers. Again, I enjoy the kind of writing that tries to draw connections between relatively obscure technical matters and larger social interests. However, it does mean that this isn't a book that is just about temperament.
4) People who wished the author had gone into more detail/covered more topics. As examples: Apparently well-temperament has gotten short shrift (I can see that I would have liked more on the topic); The book focuses on the issues as demonstrated by tuning pianos (the author announces this early in the book); Some readers would have like more on temperament issues with other kinds of instruments; other readers wished the author had followed up on reference to temperament in China, organs, and other topics. Apparently there is room here for a larger book on this topic. I enjoyed the length of the book and it didn't leave me wanting more but that may just reveal my ignorance of the subject: Had I known more I may have wanted more.If you are looking for a medium-length discussion of temperament (a critical topic in understanding music) for the general reader and music lover, a book that tries to tie this topic into the larger cultural/political/social changes in the world--then this is a fascinating book. It's well written (a couple of stretched metaphors) and interesting (I devoured it in two days). If you are looking for a broader study, a more technical discussion, or a discussion of temperament purely in musical terms then you will be disappointed. I got excited about the topic! The book made me want to buy a CD that demonstrates the issues by playing the same piece of music in several different tunings--something that I wouldn't even have considered before.
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