This book clearly and concisely presents essential concepts to provide a historical, theoretical, and practical understanding of tuning systems and a strong foundation for future study.
Contents Include:
• Basic theory of vibrations and relationships of frequencies of musical intervals clearly and simply explained.
• Construction of musical scales using Pythagorean, meantone, equal-temperament, and well-temperament systems.
• All of the mathematical relationships, frequencies, and beat rates for each of the above systems.
• The historical and practical reasons for using each of the above systems.
• Methods of actually achieving each of the above tunings and temperaments on a harpsichord or piano.
• A complete mathematical derivation and explanation of the use and ways of calculating cents of various intervals and commas.
• Many exercises for readers to test and reinforce their understanding. Answers to these exercises are in the back of the book.
• An explanation of why the piano keybord has its conventional pattern.
• Methods of muting and tuning-hammer techniques.
• A high-precision method of tuning a guitar using beats of harmonics.
