Harmonograph: A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music (Wooden Books)

During the nineteenth century, a remarkable scientific instrument known as a harmonograph revealed the beautiful patterns found in music. Harmonograph is an introduction to the evolution of simple harmonic theory, from the discoveries of Pythagoras to diatonic tuning and equal temperament. Beautiful drawings show the octave as triangle, the fifth as pentagram; diagrams show the principles of harmonics, overtones, and the monochord. Anthony Ashton examines the phenomenon of resonance in Chladni patterns, describes how to build a harmonograph of your own, and provides tables of world tuning systems. This inspiring book will appeal to musicians, mathematicians, designers, and artists alike. more

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From: Amazon
Posted: Dec-30-2008

Not Really Music but Interesting All the Same

Let me first say that I like this book and the visuals are incredible. But a harmonograph is essentially a spirograph with a PhD and the resulting pictures will not teach you about music. What they are is a fantastic example of how something both absolutely certain and very abstract like a...

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From: Amazon
Posted: Feb-08-2008

Sound Made Visible

Humans have known or intuited that sound not only has form but it organizes matter.Throughout history individuals have found ways to demonstrate (and make visible) this profound fact.We know that music & sound is vibration. (within the audible range)Scientists and mystics understand that...

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From: Amazon
Posted: Jan-16-2008

A delightful little book

I didn't know what quite to expect with this book; I wasn't familiar with the term "harmonograph" before getting this text.This is a small book with about 25 topics, each discussed on 1 or 2 pages. It links together many concepts from our past (including the 19th century harmonograph) and the...

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From: Amazon
Posted: Dec-11-2007

Beautiful

Short and easy to read with beautiful illustrations, this is a nice addition to your collection if you are interested in the connections between sounds and visuals.

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From: Amazon
Posted: Nov-12-2007

huh

After about 5 pages into this thing I found myslelf becoming more and more baffled, as the author continually threw out various terminology with no explanation of it. I kept at it for a while and it didn't get any better. He has all sorts of drawings and diagrams, but again -- he does not...

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From: Amazon
Posted: Jul-09-2007

Harmon-amazing

For anyone wanting to learn some interesting math related information without taking classes that make you sweat bullets then the Wooden Books are a great source to turn to. For the series in a whole, the information is easily grasped and the diagrams and pictures are intersting.As far as the...

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From: Amazon
Posted: Jan-06-2007

A rare short account of visual expressions of music.

I was really surprised by looking for the first time the visual appearance of music. It looks to me as the our days fractals, shown in a different way.

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From: Amazon
Posted: Aug-17-2006

Wonderful

I found this book to be extremely helpful. I'm a music teacher and have been interested in the physics of music for years, but I've never seen the physics of frequency explained so clearly and concisely. I'm really impressed with how well the Pythagorean Comma was handled. This book, in a...

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