References

Theory of scales

  1. C. Callender, I. Quinn and D. Tymoczko, Generalized voice-leading spaces., Science, vol. 320, no. 5874, 2008, pp. 346–348. [bibtex] [pdf]
  2. N. Jacoby et al., Universal and Non-universal Features of Musical Pitch Perception Revealed by Singing., Current biology, vol. 29, no. 19, 2019, pp. 3229–3243.e12. [bibtex] [pdf]
  3. S. Konar, The Sounds of Music: Science of Musical Scales. III: Indian Classical, Resonance, vol. 24, no. 10, 2019, pp. 1125–1135. [bibtex]
  4. M. C. LoPresto, Measuring Musical Consonance and Dissonance, Physics Teacher, vol. 53, no. 4, 2015, pp. 225–229. [bibtex]
  5. F. Loosen, The Effect of Musical Experience on the Conception of Accurate Tuning, Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 12, no. 3, 1995, pp. 291–306. [bibtex]
  6. M. Braun, The gamelan pelog scale of Central Java as an example of a non-harmonic musical scale, 2002. [bibtex] [pdf]
  7. J. M. McBride, T. Tlusty, Cross-cultural data shows musical scales evolved to maximise imperfect fifths, 2020, pp. 1–31. [bibtex] [pdf]
  8. J. H. McDermott, A. J. Lehr and A. J. Oxenham, Individual differences reveal the basis of consonance., Current biology, vol. 20, no. 11, 2010, pp. 1035–1041. [bibtex] [pdf]
  9. J. N. Oppenheim, M. O. Magnasco, Human time-frequency acuity beats the Fourier uncertainty principle., Physical Review Letters, vol. 110, no. 4, 2013, pp. 044301. [bibtex] [pdf]
  10. D. Tymoczko, Dualism and the Beholder's Eye: Inversional Symmetry in Chromatic Tonal Music, Oxford University Press, 2012. [bibtex]
  11. S. C. Van Hedger, H. C. Nusbaum, Individual differences in absolute pitch performance: Contributions of working memory, musical expertise, and tonal language background., Acta psychologica, vol. 191, 2018, pp. 251–260. [bibtex] [pdf]

The harmonic series

A sound wave of well-defined pitch is by definition a periodic function of time $t$ with a corresponding spectrum $\{\alpha_n\,:\,n=1,2,\dots\}$ based on a fundamental frequency $\omega$:
$$\phi_\omega(t)\,=\,\alpha_0+\sum_{n=1,2,\dots}\alpha_n\cos\bigl(2\pi n\omega (t-\tau_n)\bigr)~.$$
The set of frequencies which appear in this formula is called the harmonic series: frequencies ${\omega, 2\omega, 3\omega, 4\omega, \dots}$ are respectively called the fundamental ($n=1$), first harmonic ($n=2$), second harmonic ($n=3$), etc. We can think of each component of the wave as an additional note above the fundamental as in Figure 1.

The harmonic series of C. Numbers above the staff are deviations with respect to the actual tempered note.

The frequency $\omega$ gives its name to the resulting wave, for example any wave with fundamental frequency $\omega=440$ [Hz] is an A irrespective of which other coefficients appear in the series. When fundamentals of two notes are in a ratio of $2$ ($\omega_2=2\cdot\omega_1$) , they form an octave and share the same name. Therefore notes with $\omega = 110, 220, 440, 880$ [Hz] are all called A. Notice that the harmonic series of A$=880$ [Hz] is entirely contained within the harmonic series of A$=440$ [Hz] and similarly for any harmonic of any other note in the series (for example harmonics of E$=1320$ [Hz] or C♯$=2200$ [Hz] are all harmonics of A$=440$ [Hz]). These notes would however be considered “out of tune” in a perfectly equal temperament (which imposes E$=1318.51$ [Hz] and C♯$=2217.46$ [Hz]).