On the sensations of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music / by Hermann L.F. Helmholtz ; translated, thoroughly revised and corrected, rendered conformable to the 4th (and last) German edition of 1877, with numerous additional notes and a new additional appendix bringing down information to 1885, and especially adapted to the use of musical students, by Alexander J. Ellis.

  • Hermann von Helmholtz
Date:
1895
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the sensations of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music / by Hermann L.F. Helmholtz ; translated, thoroughly revised and corrected, rendered conformable to the 4th (and last) German edition of 1877, with numerous additional notes and a new additional appendix bringing down information to 1885, and especially adapted to the use of musical students, by Alexander J. Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INTROD. It is of course impossible for any one to understand the investigations tlioroughly, wlio does not take the trouble of becoming acquainted by per- sonal observation with at least the fundamental phenomena mentioned. Fortunately with the assistance of common musical instruments it is easy for any one to become acquainted with harmonic upper partial tones, com- binational tones, beats, and the like.* Personal observation is better than the exactest description, especially wlien, as here, the subject of investiga- tion is an analysis of sensations themselves, wbicb are always extremely difficult to describe to those who have not experienced them. In my somewhat unusual attempt to pass from natural philosophy into the theory of the arts, I hope that I have kept the regions of physiology II and esthetics sufficiently distinct. But I can scarcely disguise from myself, that although my researches are confined to the lowest grade of musical grammar, they may probably appear too mechanical and unworthy of the dignity of art, to those theoreticians who are accustomed to summon the enthusiastic feelings called forth by the highest works of art to the scientific investigation of its basis. To these I would simply remark in conclusion, that the following investigation really deals only with the analysis of actually existing sensations—that the physical methods of observation employed are almost solely meant to facilitate and assure the work of this analysis and check its completeness—and thatthis analysis of thesensations would suffice to furnish all the results required for musical theory, even independently of my physiological hypothesis concerning the mechanism of H hearing, already mentioned (p. 5a), but that I was unwilling to omit that hypothesis because it is so well suited to furnish an extremely simple Con- nection between all the very various and very complicated phenomena which present themselves in the course of this investigation.T * [But the use of the Harmonical, described in App. NX. sect. P. No. 1, and invented for the purpose of illustrating the theories of this work, is recommended as greatly superior for students and teachers to any other instrument. — Translator.'] f Readers unaccustomed to mathematical and physical considerations will find an abridged account of the essential contents of this book in Sedley Taylor, Sound and Music, London, Macmillan, 1873. Such readers will also find a clear exposition of the physical relations of sound in J. Tyndall, On Sound, a course of eight lectures, London, 1867, (the last or fourth edition 1883) Longmans, Green, & Co. A German translation of this work, entitled Der Schall, edited by H. Helmholtz and G. Wiedemann, was published at Bruns- wick in 1874. *** [The marks U in the outer margin of each page, separate the page into 4 sections, referred to as a, h, c, c/, placed after the nuinber of the page. If an) section is in double columns, the letter of the sccond column is accented, as p. 13cZ'.]