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Tuning and Temperament: A Historical Survey
The demands of tuning (attaining the perfect scale) and temperament (the compromises necessary for composing in every key) have challenged musicians from the earliest civilizations onward. This guide surveys these longstanding problems, devoting a chapter to each principal theory and offering a running account of the complete history of tuning and temperament. Organized chronologically, the book features a helpful glossary and numerous illustrative tables, and it requires minimal background in music theory. This new reissue is currently the only edition in print of a much-quoted classic. 9 figures. 180 tables.
- GenresMusicNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 26, 2023
I dont want to sell this book short with four stars. The work that Barbour did with this book was miraculous, thoroughly researched and greatly insightful. The sources are cited healthily with great care and all topics in temperament are explained in great detail with figures and numbers. I love the citations and the reference list in the back. I have heard in a work by Jorgensen that some of this work was undermined by another tuner and I also noticed the whole book starts with the assumption that Equal Temperament is the ideal and goal temperament, devaluing all other tuning systems. I could use some more subjectivity in this reading. Overall very helpful for my studies.
June 14, 2026
It says on the back of the Dover edition "... requires minimal background in music theory." Well, I wouldn't take that at face value. This is certainly not an introduction. It is bit like one of those nineteenth century Anglo-Saxon primers where you get a chapter on grammar then a whole Icelandic saga, with a glossary.
I'm not sure what is a good introductory text. I went back and re-read Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics. Personally, I wouldn't start there, if I was writing about it, though the whole physical and physiological background in impeccable. Music: A Mathematical Offering has its merits. There really is an opportunity here to write the book I would have written.
In any event, equipped with glossary, Barbour gives us an authoritative survey of, pretty much, all the attempts there have been to tune (Western) musical instruments, including those not limiting themselves to twelve tones. For most of the tunings Barbour gives us the (presumably) residual standard deviation from a linear regression. That is potentially interesting, if not the whole story. However, I could not see where he told us what was the independent variable. I'm assuming it's equal temperament. Neither does he tell us whether he has taken logarithms of applied any weighting. All a bit unsatisfactory. Apologies if I missed it.
Then there is, as far as I could see, no real discussion of inter-modulation tones. I didn't see the distinction made between frequency and pitch clarified. Railsback gets a passing mention.
And in the context of Railsback, we're told that actual piano tuning isn't good enough to make all these fine distinctions in any event. Of course, my Yamaha electronic piano says otherwise. It would be interesting to know how good tuning is with modern electronic equipment and how well (modern) pianos keep tune. It's not in here.
Reference to the various mathematicians who have "put an oar in" here is interesting: Euler, Huygens (good account in Dutch Light: Christiaan Huygens and the Making of Science in Europe), Kepler, Stevin ...
Essential but neither the place to start nor to finish.
I'm not sure what is a good introductory text. I went back and re-read Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics. Personally, I wouldn't start there, if I was writing about it, though the whole physical and physiological background in impeccable. Music: A Mathematical Offering has its merits. There really is an opportunity here to write the book I would have written.
In any event, equipped with glossary, Barbour gives us an authoritative survey of, pretty much, all the attempts there have been to tune (Western) musical instruments, including those not limiting themselves to twelve tones. For most of the tunings Barbour gives us the (presumably) residual standard deviation from a linear regression. That is potentially interesting, if not the whole story. However, I could not see where he told us what was the independent variable. I'm assuming it's equal temperament. Neither does he tell us whether he has taken logarithms of applied any weighting. All a bit unsatisfactory. Apologies if I missed it.
Then there is, as far as I could see, no real discussion of inter-modulation tones. I didn't see the distinction made between frequency and pitch clarified. Railsback gets a passing mention.
And in the context of Railsback, we're told that actual piano tuning isn't good enough to make all these fine distinctions in any event. Of course, my Yamaha electronic piano says otherwise. It would be interesting to know how good tuning is with modern electronic equipment and how well (modern) pianos keep tune. It's not in here.
Reference to the various mathematicians who have "put an oar in" here is interesting: Euler, Huygens (good account in Dutch Light: Christiaan Huygens and the Making of Science in Europe), Kepler, Stevin ...
Essential but neither the place to start nor to finish.
May 18, 2023
I saw this had a 3 star review and needed to make an account just for this reason.
This is a GREAT book.
There is so many history books and sources out there that doesn't dive deep enough into the letters and accounts of what actually happened, and here you have an outstandingly detailed book about the history of musical temperaments. Its not a light read for someone new to the theme, but if you have the surface level knowledge of the historical keyboard instruments, tuning and temperament systems, this is a great book to dive into for more information.
This is a GREAT book.
There is so many history books and sources out there that doesn't dive deep enough into the letters and accounts of what actually happened, and here you have an outstandingly detailed book about the history of musical temperaments. Its not a light read for someone new to the theme, but if you have the surface level knowledge of the historical keyboard instruments, tuning and temperament systems, this is a great book to dive into for more information.
February 7, 2017
"requires minimal background in music theory"
yeah, right.
yeah, right.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews