| Summary: | "The object of the present treatise is to show what the science of Physiological Acoustics has done, and can do, for the theory of music; to prove that musicians cannot get on without Acoustics; and to supply them with the necessary knowledge. This is accomplished by an experimental determination of the nature of the material with which musicians have to work, its constitution and its laws. The two first parts of this work are indispensable to all who would understand the nature of sound, how its various qualities of tone are distinguished by the ear, and how they react on each other when combined. While, therefore, they convey information which is of special importance to the physicist, the phonetist, and the musician, they are as well adapted for the purposes of general education. The third part is more strictly musical. It enters upon the history of the different kinds of music, and then, taking up the harmonies dependent on Octaves, Fifths, and Thirds, and their inversions and extensions, determines the proper method of tuning for producing their best results, that is, just intonation, and traces the effect of altering the positions of notes in a chord, the introduction and resolution of discords, the laws of progression of parts, and all those troublesome points on which ordinary treatises are prolific in rules, and, when not absolutely silent, scanty or inaccurate in explanation. This part is as necessary to musicians as grammar is to writers"--Book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).
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