3 The Experimental Approach

CHAPTER 3
THE EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH
In the preceding chapter we investigated the results of the mathematical

approach to the problem of consonance as defined by Zarlino. In the hands
of Kepler this new approach led to a geometrical theory of harmony, while
it induced Stevin to deny that the consonances are defined by the first few
integers at all. However idiosyncratic the consequences were that Stevin was
willing to draw from his argument against the supposed excellence of the
first few integers, these do not dirninish the basic soundness of his starting
point. In terms oi number alone, the argument was valid. It lost its relevance,
however, from the moment the phenomenon of consonance was placed on
a new, physical basis. In fact, a first step in this direction had already been
taken some forty years earlier.
3.1. GIOVANNI BATTISTA BENEDETTI
Giovanni Battista Benedetti (1530-1590) is the prototypical forerunner,

aperson, that is, whose work appears significant onIy in the light of that
of a later one who did better. In Benedetti's case the successful successor was
Galileo. As far as mechanics is concemed (projectile motion, free fall), this
has been known for a long time.! In the case of music the discovery is much
more recent. It was not until 1961 that Palisca called attention to a particular
passage in one of two letters written around 1563 by Benedetti to the
composer Cipriano de Rore. In 1585 Benedetti inserted the letters in his
Diversarum speculationum mathematicarum et physicarum liber ('Book of
Various Mathematical and Physical Ideas').2
The content of the letters makes it c1ear that Benedetti was quite know-
ledgeable about music; in fact he appears to have been a composer hirnself.
His second letter ends with abrief, 40-line theory on the generation of the
consonances through the 'cotermination of percussions'. (A brief overview of
the other subjects treated in the letters is to be found in Note 3.)
Benedetti's discussion of consonance runs as follows. When the string of,
for example, a monochord is plucked, it regularly strikes ('percusses') the
surrounding air; the resulting air waves generate sound. When the string .is
halved, both parts will emit equal-pitched sounds, because in the same time
75
H. F. Cohen, Quantifying Music
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1984
76 CHAPTER 3
both will make the same number of percussions. Hence they constitute a
unison. The air waves do not cut through each other, or break each other, but
they concur entirely. When one part of the string is twice as long as the other,
the resulting octave is obviously formed by percussions that have a ratio of
2: I, since in the time the longer part needs for one percussion the shorter
one will have performed two. In other words, every percussion of the longer
string coincides with every second percussion of the shorter one, "since
there is no one who does not know that the longer the string, the slower
its motion".4 In the case of the fifth, too, the number of vibrations per unit
time is inversely proportional to the respective string lengths, hence their
ratio is as 3: 2. Here coincidence will not occur until the shorter string has
performed three vibrations, and the longer one two. As a result the product
of the numbers for the length and the vibrations per unit time of the shorter
string (2 X 3) will equal the product of the corresponding numbers for the
longer string (3 X 2). Extending this result to all consonances, we get the
fol1owing se ries ofproducts (Figure 34):
Unisonll octave IfIfth I fourth I major sixth I major third I minor third I minor sixth
[
1 2 6 12 15 20 30 40
Fig.34.
which numbers correspond with each other in a wonderful proportion [non absque
mirabili analogia]. Now the pleasure that the consonances give to hearing comes from
their softening the senses, while, to the contrary, the pain that originates from the
dissonances is born from sharpness, as you can easily see when organ pipes are tuned. s
With these words the letter ends.

In the light of al1 the ideas that later were to branch out from theories
sirnilar to this one, it is easy to overestimate the importance of the theory
in the form Benedetti gave it, and to read into it a meaning that is not yet
there. Palisca observes that "Benedetti's discovery was potential1y a fatal
blow to [Zarlino-style] number symbolism". 6 This is true only if the word
'potentially' is emphatically stressed. For apparently Benedetti's operations
with the product of a string's length and the number of vibrations it makes
per unit time do not differ so fundamentally from Zarlino's mode of thought
as Palisca, would have it. According to Palisca, Benedetti multiplies these
numbers in order to draw up a table in which degrees of consonance are
compared (as was to be done later by Mersenne; see Section 3.5.3.). But
this aim is not stated anywhere. In fact, Benedetti's only concern was to
THE EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH 77
demonstrate that the ratios of the consonant intervals are also to be found
in the proportions of their products. (For instance, the product for the
fifth is to the product for the fourth as 6: 12 = 1: 2, which is the ratio of
the octave.) But this is just empty number speculation, devoid of any physical
or musical significance. 7
The historical importance of Benedetti's remarks on consonance is to be
found in another aspect of it (which Palisca certainly did not overlook,
though). It has to do with Benedetti's introducing some properties
of sound into his theory of consonance. What he had to say on sound was
in itself far from new. Greek Antiquity had yielded two distinct accounts
of the production and the propagation of sound. One of these was intimately
connected with atomism. It centered on the idea that the voice or the musical
instrument emits little sound particles that fly through the air and eventually,
in reaching a listener's sense of hearing, are turned into audible sound. The
riyal account conceived of sound as originating in the air being regularly
shocked, or struck, by the voice or the musical instrument. The mode of
propagation of these strokes was held to be similar to the way little waves
are brought forth by throwing a stone into quiet water. The chief point of
both theories was to make it clear how sound can be transmitted from the
source to the listener's ear without the medium that carries the sound being
transmitted at the same time. The emission theory achieves this in a very
straightforward manner, while the point of the wave analogy is that it provides
a mechanism by means of which not the air itself, but only its to and fro
motion is being transmitted from the sound-producing agency to the ear. 8
Benedetti evidently adopted the latter explanation, which had always been
the more popular one. He states explicitly that the air waves do not intersect,
nor break each other, though he does not tell us why this is so.
What is really new in Benedetti's account is his linking up, in a quantitative
fashion, this ancient wave analogy with the problem of consonance. Before,
the musical intervals had always been primarily associated with string lengths.
Differences in pitch had been quantified in terms of the ratios of these
string lengths. Benedetti now takes as his starting point the regular strokes
that are produced by a vibrating string. He realizes that at different intervals
the number of these strokes per unit time is inversely proportional to the
lengths of the strings that are sounded. Apparently he takes this property
to be self-evident, as there is no trace in his ac count of even an attempt to
prove it (such as was to be done later by Galileo and by Beeckman; see
Sections 3.3.1. and 4.1.1.).
From the connection that has thus been established between the musical
78 CHAPTER 3
intervals and the vibrational motion of the sounding string, Benedetti derives
his coincidence theory of consonance. And this explanation of consonance
is not based on numerology, like Zarlino's, nor on geometry, like Kepler's:
for the first time in the history of musical theory consonance is explained
in physical terms. This is why the passage is historicaHy important, even
though no one at the time appears to have noticed this, and even though
Benedetti himself used his theory only for proving something trivial, and
thus appears hardly to have been aware o[ the theory's real explanatory
power.
Yet, despite this very serious limitation, the fmal sentence of Benedetti's
letter displays some understanding of the fact that, if the coincidence theory
of consonance was to explain anything at aH, it should not be restricted to
a purely physical description, but that human sensation should somehow
be accounted for as weH. This Benedetti does by referring to the 'softness'
the ear is made to feel by the vibrations coming from the consonant intervals,
and the 'sharpness' caused by the dissonances. Obviously such a statement
betrays an awareness of the problem rather than provide the solution. But as
a first step it certainly deserves to be noticed.
Summing up, then, Benedetti's contribution to the theory of consonance,
we are certainly entitled to regard him , as Palisca c1aimed, as the first pro-
pounder of what we have termed the coincidence theory of consonance.
However, to use an expression coined by Kepler far Copernicus, 'he had no
idea how rich he was'.9 He hardly saw what problems the theory was able
to solve, and he had an even dimmer awareness of the problems the theory
would run into itself. But such is the fate of those whom history terms
'forerunners' .
3.2. VINCENZO GALILEI
Of aH the musico-scientists discussed in this book, Vincenzo Galilei (c.

1520-1591), was the only one whose main occupation was the composition
and performance of music. Significantly, he was drawn into science as a result
of a musical controversy.
As a composer Galilei's farne rests on his pioneer work in the Florentine
Camerata, a group of musicians who created a new musical style that, by
hindsight, provided the beginning of the Baroque period in music. 10 Charac-
teristic for this style, which did not unfold its fuH strength until Monteverdi
was converted to it, is the attempt to make the music express the most
minute affects that are to be found in the text. This ideal results in a freer
treatment of dissonance and in a freer-flowing melody that is no longer part

of an intricate polyphonie structure, but is sustained only by chords built
upon a steadily progressing bass, or basso continuo. The most radical appli-
cation extant of the sort of music that was composed in conformity with
these principles is Peri's opera Euridice (1600), that is really one endless,
extraordinarily beautiful recitative. ll
Though this ideal of 'monody' gave rise to a new musical style, its pro-
pounders advocated it as areturn to ancient music, of which, however, they
knew virtually nothing. 12 Their early manifesto was the Dia/aga della musica
antica et della moderna (1581), written by Galilei. This book contains,
among other things, a fierce attack on Galilei's former master, larlino, about
singing in just intonation.
3.2.1. The Singer's Dilemma
As has been shown on pp. 40/1, musical theory teaches that every singer has
to face the dilemma of either adjusting the purity of at least some consonant
intervals or continually changing pitch by one or more syntonic commas.
Now what does she or he do in practice?
larlino solved the dilemma by evading it. Galilei's solution, despite (or
perhaps because of) his stridently polemical style, is so ambiguous as to
admit rather different interpretations, provided by Palisca (1961) and Walker
(1978). Palisca interprets the controversy as a clear-cut one between obscu-
rantist number mysticism and the modern experimental method. In contrast,
Walker is mainly concerned to show that the conflict resulted from "the
basic agreement between [larlino and Galilei], coupled with the desperate
wish to contradict each other" .13
On the origin of the controversy both historians agree. Galilei, up to
around 1572 a faithful upholder of larlino's ideas on just intonation, came
to doubt these as a result of his correspondence with the Florentine humanist
Girolamo Mei (discovered and edited by Palisca). Mei's main points were,
in Walker's brief summary:
first, that mathematical theory and musical practice were unlikely to coincide exactly,
since the ear could tolerate considerable divergences from any mathematically exact
scale; secondly, that it was more likely that singers airned at Pythagorean intonation
[ ... I ; and, finally, in a later letter, he suggested that Galilei should test this empirically
by tuning two lutes in the two scales and then comparing intervals on them with those
actually sung. 14
These points induced Galilei to address larlino directly.

80 CHAPTER 3
The ensuing controversy is interpreted by Palisca as folIows.

According to Palisca, Zarlino's rejection of the notion of tempered singing
follows from his rationalist elassification of the consonances. Admittedly,
Zarlino says, in the artificial musical instrument some deviation from the
natural consonances is inevitable. But if in singing, that is, in natural music,
the pure consonances were to be tempered as well, this would mean that the
natural consonances would be nothing but theoretical constructs that are
never realized in practice. But since nature never does anything in vain, and
all potentialities are at least sometimes actualized, natural singing cannot
but be done in natural consonances, that is, the consonances as given in the
senario. So far Zarlino's argument (which is Aristotelian rather than 'mystic',
as Palisca calls it).
As against this, Galilei (in Palisca's rendering) makes two distinct points.
First he observes that just intonation is inherently unstable (this is the
property we have already seen demonstrated on p. 40). Next, he states
emphatically that there is no reason to consider 'natural' only those conso-
nances that are in simple ratios:
Now those musical intervals are as natural (as I have said) that are contained in the ratios
of the Senario, as are the others that are outside those ratios, and the major third that is
contained in 5: 4 is as natural as the one that is contained in 81: 64. Just so is it also as
natural for the octave to be consonant in the ratio 2: 1 as it is natural for the seventh
to be dissonant in the ratio 9: 5; and let Zarlino trouble his head about this as much
as he wishes. 15
This argument, Palisca says, reflects Galilei's overall rejection of rationalist

constructions in a field where in fact only sense experience can make valid
judgments. In other words, Galilei would be quite right in rejecting the elose
connection between the consonances and the first few simple integers. Thus
in Palisca's view Galilei's approach stands for progressive empiricism, in
contrast to Zarlino's obsolete numerological apriorism.
According to Walker a different issue is at stake here. To begin with,
Galilei did not disagree with Zarlino, in that he admitted, after hundreds
of pages of violent invective directed against his former master,
that well-trained singers do indeed sing an intervals in just intonation, and that, since
their system of intonation is therefore necessarily unstable, it is very complicated and
difficult to describe - Galilei would need another whole book to do so. Thus Galilei
too evades any attempt at solving the problem of instability, though he at least admits
its existence. But what is peculiarly exasperating for the historian is that he nowevidently
agrees with Zarlino and that the whole controversy has been a bogus one. Moreover,
he even explicitly admits this agreement: if Zarlino will abandon his distinction between
THE EXPERIMENT AL APPROACH 81
natural and artificial scales and instruments, Galilei says, "I will at onee admit that
what we sing today agrees more with this syntonon of Ptolemy than with any other
distribution" .16
Walker then goes on to consider that much of the confusion that marks this
particular polemic between Galilei and Zarlino comes from the ambiguous
use both made of the words 'natural' and 'nature'. If 'natural' is meant in the
sense of 'given as a universal psychological datum', then the just consonances
cannot but be regarded as natural, since all musically sensitive people have
always agreed that these particular intervals are by far the sweetest. But if
human sensation is left out of the definition of the concept of nature, so that
only what is given in the external world is to be called 'natural', then, Walker
assures us, Galilei was perfectly right in refusing to consider the just conso-
nances as natural. For in his time, when the true physical cause of consonance
had not yet been discovered, the connection between sound and number was
necessarily to be seen as fortuitous. 17
So now we see, surprisingly, that not only the controversy between
Zarlino and Galilei on intonation in singing was imaginary rather than real:
Palisca and Walker, too, now appear to disagree only on a minor point, both
taking for granted the fundamental issue at stake here. In attempting to show
why Galilei's argument was better than Zarlino's, they in fact demonstrated
only what prevented Galilei from replacing the senario by a new, physical
explanation of consonance. For both historians' idea of the consonances
being given only in human experience 18 is tantamount to denying the validity
of the central issue the history of which we are pursuing in this book, namely,
where does the apparent match between the simple ratios of the consonances
and the human sensation of musical beauty co me from? Zarlino had at least
attempted to explain the match. So had the Pythagoreans. So would be done
by Kepler and a plethora of other scientists in the centuries to come. But
evidently Galilei, reasoning along lines quite similar to Stevin, believed he
could get rid of the problem of consonance by rejecting it. According to both
Palisca and Walker this is sound musical empiricism; from the point of view
developed in this book it is nothing but premature scepticism. The fact that
the gap between the externally given ratios and the psychic experience of
beauty is not easily to be filled (as noted before, the gap is still with us) does
not imply that it could not at least be narrowed by trying in some way to
redefine the issue involved. Surprisingly, Galilei himself unintentionally
contributed to such aredefinition.
82 CHAPTER 3
3.2.2. Smashing the Senario
Walker is surely right in his contention that not genuine disagreement, but
personal hatred provided the central motivation for Galilei's attacks on
Zarlino. For Galilei's pronouncing 'natural' an intervals, whatever their
ratios, was not his only attempt to destroy the senario. He tried to smash
it in another way as wen, that is in fact incompatible with the first one, and
thus reveals that his main concern was to contradict Zarlino at all costs.
Galilei's argument is basically very simple. It had always been supposed
that Pythagoras' demonstration of the simple ratios of the consonances was
not only valid for string lengths, but also for string tensions (doubling the
weight allegedly yielding the octave), or for the volumes of bells. (According
to some surely apocryphal tradition Pythagoras would even have discovered
his laws by listening to, and subsequently measuring the weights of, several
hammers that in being banged on an anvil by a blacksmith whose shop
he passed by happened to give the consonances).19 But Galilei, in his 1589
Discorso intorno alle opere de Giosello Zarlino, and also in several unpub-
lished manuscripts, demonstrated "by means of experiment, the teacher of
all things" ,20 that the ratios for the consonances as given by string lengths
are by no means universally valid. Galilei observed that if one compares
not the lengths of strings, but their tensions, the traditional ratios do not
hold at all. For experiment shows that, when one and the same string is
stretched successively by different weights, in order to get the octave one
has to suspend from the string not a weight twice as heavy as the first one,
but lour times as heavy; similarly, in order to get the fifth, the weights have
to be in the ratio 9: 4 = 3 2 : 2 2 • In other words, in terms of string tensions
the intervals are in a squared proportion to the weights. Thus the senario
is exploded: the consonances are not necessarily contained in the first six
integers.
This was a very good, and, in Galilei's time, irrefutable argument (even
though it is incompatible with his own previous rejection of all natural
regularity for the consonances; also we shall see shortly that Galilei's own
son was to succeed in reinstating the senario, albeit in a way decisively
different from Zarlino's). However, Galilei partly spoiled his argument
at once, in that he could not withstand the temptation to make the symmetry
complete. He stated that, just as the one-dimensional string length gives a
direct proportionality, and the two-dimensional weight gives a squared
proportionality, just so the pitches of three-dimensional bodies like pipes
correspond to the cubed proportionality. Thus an organ pipe of a volume
of 1 would give the octave against a pipe of volume 8. But, as Walker has
pointed out, this is simply not true; in fact every organ builder could have
told Galilei that the pitch of a pipe, given its material and shape, is roughly
proportional to its length, not at al1 to its volume. In Walker's words, "the
mathematical scheme has been elaborated without even the most rudimentary
empirical check, and it has gone wrong". 21
String tension was not the only variable beside string length of which
Galilei discovered experimentally that it influenced pitch. He described several
other experiments in an unpublished manuscript that has been analyzed
by Palisca:
Galilei noted the results of testing strings of various materials. He found that to produce
a true unison two strings had to be made of the same material, of the same thickness,
length, and quality, and stretched to the same tension. Ir any of these factors was absent,
the unison would be only approximate. Moreover, he discovered that if a lute were
strung with two strings, one of steel and one of gut, and these were stretched to the best
possible unison, the tones produced by stopping the strings at various frets would no
longer be in unison. 22
It is these results above all that mark the transition that was gradual1y taking
place from a purely mathematical towards a more empirically oriented
treatment of musical matters.
3.2.3. Summary and Conc/usions
Vincenzo Galilei's contributions to musical science may be summed up in

the following statements:
- Unaccompanied singers tend to take all consonances as pure.
- There is no point in calling 'natural' only those intervals that are charac-
terized by simple ratios of string lengths.
- As string tensions give squared ratios, and pipe volumes give cubed
ratios, the senario does not hold.
- Not only the dimensions of the sounding parts of musical instruments,
but also their quality and the material they are made of influence the result-
ing pitch.
Now what to make of all this? It has been claimed by Palisca and, in his
footsteps, by Drake (1970), that Galilei was the first experimentalist in
musical science. Is this claim corroborated by the four statements above?
Let us first consider the issue of just intonation.
The reader may have been awaiting patiently adescription of how Galilei
carried out the advice given to him by Mei, which was to determine experi-
84 CHAPTER 3
mentally what unaccompanied singers do, rather than endlessly ratiocinating

about it. For how could a problem of what happens in practice be solved
by theorizing only? The reader may be surprised to learn that to this day
there is by no means a gene rally accepted answer to such a seemingly ele-
mentary question. It may even be true that the fact that usually singers
accommodate to the tempering practiced by their instrumental accompanists
influences their intonation habits to such an extent that it is no longer possi-
ble to determine what they would do if used to singing a capella an their
life. In other words, an outcome showing that they sing in tempered intervals
would not prove anything. There are some indications that Galilei was aware
of this state of affairs. 23 But whether or not he was, it is clear that, if Galilei
was an experimentalist, the proof of that contention cannot possibly be
found in the realm of intonation practices.
Nor is it to be found in his views on intonation theory. For it has already
been argued above that Galilei's rejection of the senario as 'natural' betrays
a sceptical rather than a 'modern empiricist' view of musical science. His
view is highly characteristic of the professional musician, who has always
tended to stress the autonomy of the musical experience and its fundamental
irreducibility to scientific analysis. It seems to me worth emphasizing on ce
more at this point that, irrespective of the possible ultima te validity of such
aposition, giving in to it leads to the stand-still of an pertinent scientific
research. For the progress of science consists, not in closing the gap between
regularity in external nature and human sense experience (for that may weIl
be unattainable), but in na"owing it. Though our knowledge will always be
incomplete (the gift of perceiving essences being denied to us), this does
not constitute a sufficient reason for despairing of the attainment of any
knowledge whatsoever.
In Chapter 1 we defined the experimental method as the creation of
an 'artificial nature', and in discussing Galilei's musical theories under the
heading 'the experimental approach' we suggested that that is what he did.
Our discussion of the way he smashed the senario has made it clear that,
indeed, here was an experimentalist at work, but still a fairly half-hearted
one.
When looking at Benedetti we found that he was not an experimentalist
at an. His 'experiments' were limited to a few operations with the monochord
that in no way went beyond common practice of many previous centuries.
Benedetti's real achievement was the application of some widely-known
common-sense ideas regarding the production and propagation of musical
sound to the problem of consonance. But Galilei's case is different, in that
he re for the first time the musical instrnment was made the subject oi theo-
retical analysis. Now the musical instrument constitutes a piece of 'artificial
nature' par excellence. What is valid for the Scientific Revolution as such
applies to the new musical science as weil: theorists began to make use of
the treasures of empirical evidence hidden in the workshops of the instrument
makers. This development, which would find a first culmination point in the
work of Mersenne, was clearly adumbrated by Vincenzo Galilei. He inferred
from elementary musical practice with string instruments that pitch can be
varied by changing not only the length or the tension of astring, but also
its thickness or the material it is made of.
However, here was also the limit of Galilei's experimentalism. For, as we
have seen, he could not withstand the temptation to round off his rejection
of the senario by a ne at schema that, however, ran counter to e~mentary
fact.
So two basic results remain: the consonances had appeared to correspond
equally to other ratios than just those of string lengths, and a beginning had
been made at tapping the information the musical instrument had in store
for musical science. It was from this starting point that Vincenzo's son was
to transform the science of music.
3.3. GALILEO GALILEI
More than any other scientist's, Galileo's work marks the transformation
from Aristotelian to modern science. 24 Though he made important contri-
butions to a great variety of fields, such as observational astronomy, his work
in mechanics above all provided the essential break-through. This applies in
particular to his law of inertia (used for defending the Copernican theory),
and to his laws of free fall and projectile motion, published in 1638 in the
Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno iz due nuove scienze attenenti
alla Mecanica & i Mo vimenti locali ('Discourses and Mathematical Demonstra-
tions Concerning Two New Sciences, Pertaining to Mechanics and Motion').
To a large extent Galileo's work on moving bodies turned into a model for
many other fields affected by the Scientific Revolution. It became exemplary
in two essentially different, though related respects:
- it is mathematical in that the relationships between the parameters
are quantitative, in that the proofs are geometrical, and, above all, in that
the properties of falling and projected bodies are logically derived from a
set of apriori postulates;
- it is experimental in that not daily experience, but nature subjected to
86 CHAPTER 3
GALILEO GALILEI
artificial manipulation provides both the starting point and the final empirical
check of the axiomatic system.
Thus Galileo's work on motion combines the defining features of the
mathematical and the experimental approaches to nature. This combination,
however, occurs almost nowhere else in his work; in other fields his experi-
mental approach is much more evident than the mathematical. This applies,
for instance, to the brief passage in the Discorsi that is devoted to music:
there is hardly a vestige of mathematization to be found in it, but it is c1early
pervaded by a sense of how the manipulation of nature can reveal its hidden
properties. In how far this sense corresponded to experiments carried out in
reality we shall see presently.
3.3.1. Pendulums and Resonance
The Discorsi consist of four 'Days' mIed with learned conversations between
Salviati (Galileo's mouthpiece), Sagredo (a mixture of second mouthpiece,
intelligent layman, and representative of earlier enlightened viewpoints),
and Simplicio (the Aristotelian whose lack of understanding gives occasion
to explaining the issue on ce more in the simplest terms conceivable). The
discussion of music occurs at the end of the First Day, in the context of a
discussion on pendulums. Though brief, it is packed with information.
The aim of the discussion is stated at the outset: Salviati wants "from easy
and sensible Experiments, [to] deduce Reasons of the wonderful Accidents
of Sounds",25 and Sagredo begs him to concentrate on the explanation of
sympathetic resonance and of the consonances and their ratios. In order to
do so, Salviati starts from pendulums. He states three properties of a swinging
pendulum.
First, through whatever arc a given pendulum is made to swing to and
fro, the duration of one complete vibration is always the same. This property
(known as 'isochronism') is - wrongly - c1aimed to be exact1y valid for
anyarc.
Second, the longer the pendulum, the fewer the number of vibrations per
unit time, such that the lengths are inversely proportional to the squares
of the numbers of vibrations. A numerical example is given that illustrates
the idea, but is not intended to refer to an experiment actually performed.
Here, as in many other places, Sagredo stops to marvel at such unexpected
properties of nature, contradicting both daily experience and apriori expec-
tation, but nevertheless true.
The third property is that every pendulum has a natural vibrational duration
88 CHAPTER 3
of its own: "it is impossible to make it vibrate in any other Period than that
which is natural to it". 26 This is demonstrated by reference to the common
experience that only one definite pushing rhythm is capable of reinforcing
the swinging motion of a pendulum. By carefuUy pushing or pulling at the
proper moments (namely, precisely at the end of each complete vibration)
is it possible for one man alone to raise, for instance, enormous beUs.
This third property of pendulums is then invoked to explain the phe-
nomenon of sympathetic resonance. Galileo's explanation is quite similar to
Kepler's. He founds it on the analogy between the proper frequency of a
pendulum and of astring, and then goes on to show that the vibrational
pulses of a plucked string, after being transmitted through the air, tend to
reinforce, and thus to sustain, the vibrational motions of another string
tuned at the unison, whereas the induced vibrations of a differently tuned
string are immediately dampened by lack of correspondence. Just as Kepler
had done, Galileo extends the explanation to strings tuned at the octave
and the fifth, thus again leaving it unclear why after the fifth dampening
overtakes vibrating.
Next, the explanation of sympathetic resonance by the correspondence
of vibrations is illustrated by an experiment with a glass placed in avessei,
and filled nearly to the rim with water. If with the top of a finger the rim
is gently rubbed, a musical note is produced and simultaneously the water
is made to undulate very regularly;
but the Tone of the Glass happening sometimes to rise an Eighth higher, I have seen
at that very Instant every one of the said Waves to divide themselves into two: which
Accident most plainly proves the form of the Octave to be the Double. 27
So suddenly an illustration of resonance has turned into a demonstration of

the 2: I ratio of the octave. Walker had pointed out how questionable it is
that this experiment has ever really been performed,
first because, if the vibrations of a string are too fast to be clearly seen, so will be the
waves in the water, and secondly, because I have not yet succeeded in making asounding
glassjump an octave. 28
And neither have I.

Then Sagredo states with great clarity the traditional account of the
ratios of the consonances as established by the monochord, and observes
that this 'a~count constitutes insufficient proof for the claim that these
ratios are indeed the naturaiones. The arguments in favor of this contention
are very similar to Vincenzo's. For "there are three Ways by which we may
sharpen the Tone of a String, viz. by shortning it, by stretching it, or by

making it thinner" .29 The point of this is that pitch and string tension,
and also pitch and string thickness, are in squared proportion: in order to
raise pitch by an octave one should halve the length of astring, but quadrupIe
the weight tending it, or take i
part of its thickness (Iater a correction is
made in that not the thickness but rather the weight of astring of given
length, tension, and material is said to be the relevant parameter). So should
the 1: 2 or rather the 1: 4 ratio of the octave be considered natural?
Given the fact that the number of vibrations made by the sounding string
is much too fast to be counted, it would seem that it is impossible to deter-
mine the true ratios of the musical intervals. However, two experiments
solve the dilemma. The first is that of the water-mled glass already referred
to in connection with the explanation of sympathetic resonance. The second
is described by Salviati, who considers it even more demonstrative than the
first, as here the vibrations do not last just as long as the agent operates,
but are made visible on a permanent basis:
The Discovery was merely accidental [ ... ]. Scraping a Copper Plate with an Iron
Chizel to take out some Spots in it, upon moving the Chizel quick to and fro, amongst
the many Attritions or Rubbings, I, more than once, heard it send forth a whistling
Noise or Sound; and then looking upon the Plate, I espied a long Row of small Streaks,
parallel to one another, and exact1y equidistant. 30
It turned out that the higher the sound was made by moving the chiseI
faster, the closer the little lines got to each other; also the experimenter feIt
the chiseI tremble in his hand.
Thus here, with the help of an early forerunner of the gramophone reeord,
a method has been found to eount vibrations, and, as a resuIt, to determine
exaetly the true ratios of the eonsonances. And lo! when the ehisel was
induced to give asound of a certain pitch and then one a fifth higher (both
tuned to harpsichord strings), in the same space they produeed 30 and
45 little lines, respeetively, "which, indeed, is the Form attributed to the
Diapente [Fifth]". 31
Walker has pointed out (the first to do so in 340 years) that this famous
experiment is very unlikely to have been performed in reality:
Galilei had thus discovered a means of recording musical vibrations exactly, permanently
and in a form that enabled one to compare frequencies precisely. Why did no one eise
use it? Why has no one ever used it? Leaving on one side mechanical problems, such as
what made the chiseljump so regularly, we can see that there is a flaw in the experiment,
even if we accept all the facts as Galilei recounts them. He counted the spaces of the two
strokes within the same distance and found the required ratio of 3: 2. But on his own
90 CHAPTER 3
saying he moved the ehisel faster when produeing the higher note; it therefore traversed
this distanee in less time than the stroke producing the lower note, and, if the ratio
of frequencies was 3: 2, should have made less than forty-five lines eompared with the
lower stroke's thirty. The experiment eould only possibly have produced valid results
if he had eompared the number of lines or spaees made during the same unit of time, not
within the same distance.
One can only suppose that this was one of Galilei's so-called 'thought-experiments',
about which he had not thought quite enough, though he tells the story with wonder-
fully eonvincing realism. I was greatly relieved to notice this mistake, since otherwise
I should have had to waste a lot of time ineffeetively seraping brass plates with ehisels. 32
3.3.2. The Coincidence Theory ofConsonance
Having established that pitch is not only determined by the number of

vibrations per unit time (or frequency), but is also proportional to it, the
interlocutors are now in a position to explain the phenomena of consonance
and dissonance. Salviati first states the explanation in general terms:
The Offenee [the Dissonanees) give, proceeds, I believe, from the diseordant and jarring
Pulsations of two different Tones, whieh, without any Proportion, strike the Drum of
the Ear: And the Dissonanees will be extreme harsh, in case the Times of the Vibrations
are ineommensurable. [ .. . ). Those Pairs of Sounds shall be Consonanees, and will
be heard with Pleasure, which strike the Timpanum in some Order; whieh order requires,
in the first Plaee, that the Pereussions made in the same Time be eommensurable in
Number, that the Cartilage of the Timpanum or Drum may not be subjeet to a perpetual
Torment of bending itself two different Ways, in submission to the ever disagreeing
Percussion. 33
As a first example he discusses the octave, that (since the unison is really
only one sound) is "the first and most grateful Consonance". 34 Here every
second pulse of the upper string coincides with a pulse of the lower one;
something comparable is true for the fifth (3: 2) and the fourth (4: 3).
But in the case of the whole tone (9: 8) only one of nine pulses coincides,
"and all the rest are Discords, and fall upon the Timpanum irregularly and
troublesomely, and thence by the Ear are esteem'd as Dissonances". 3S
At this point Simplicio requires a more detailed exposition of the mecha-
nism involved, which Salviati gives for the octave and the fifth. These
demonstrations being exactly similar, it suffices here to summarize only
the discussion of the fifth, which runs as follows. A vibration is supposed
to 'strike' ('percuss') at its beginning and at its end. Now let AB represent
the vibration of the string that emits the lower note, and CD the higher (see
Figure 35). AB is divided into three equal parts, and CD into two. The time
needed for passing from A to E counts for one moment:
A E- o B
I
.
I 4
,
C D
Fig.35. From: Discorsi, p. 104.
After two moments the higher string strikes in D, but the lower one, having
arrived in 0, does not yet strike. When it does, at the third moment, in B,
the other one is half-way DC, so again there is only one stroke that reaches
the ear; also during this third moment the directions of the vibrations are
opposite. At the fourth moment again there is only one stroke, in C, and not
until six moments have passed do the strokes finally coincide; the procedure
is then repeated for as long as the vibrations go on. This, Sagredo is made
to exc1aim, explains not only why the octave is more consonant than any
other interval, but it also ac counts for the peculiar nature of the fifth, which
"produces such a Titillation upon the Cartilage of the Timpanum, that,
allaying the Sweetness by a Mixture of Tartness, it seems at one and the same
Time to kiss and bite".36
Finally Salviati describes an experiment in order to demonstrate visibly
what happens to the ear when struck by consonances and by dissonances;
here the first two laws of the pendulum mentioned at the beginning of the
previous seetion come in. Let three lead balls hang by strings of lengths 16
(=4 2 ), 9 (=3 2 ), and 4 (=2 2 ) respectively, and let them swing simultaneously
through arbitrary ares. Then the vibrations will coincide at every fourth
vibration of the longest string, and "this Mixture of Vibrations is the same
with that which being made in Strings of Instruments, presents to the Ear
an Eighth with an intermediate Fifth". 37
And so, by varying the lengths of the strings, all sorts of combinations
of intervals can be made visible. Thus it is confirmed that, when the ratios
are incommensurable, and therefore never coincide, or when the vibrations
coincide only after long intervals of time,
then the Sight is confounded by the irregular and confus'd Order of irregular Inter-
mixtures, as the Ear with Regret receives the intemperate Impulses of the Air's Tremu-
lations, which, without Order or Rule, successively strike its Timpanum or Drum. 38
On this conc1usion the First Day ends.

Costabel and Lerner (1973) have pointed out that this third and final
experiment cannot possibly have been performed in reality. Though very
convincing at first sight, it contains a subtle mental error: as the rates of vibra-
tion are in inverse squared proportionality to the lengths of the pendulums,
92 CHAPTER 3
they stand to each other not as 4: 3: 2, but rather as {- : t :t = 2: ~ : 4.

Hence it would indeed have been possible to give the required demonstration
with two lead balls hanging from strings of lengths in squared values, but not
with three. 39
3.3.3. Conclusions
The brief, lI-page passage on music summarized in the two previous sections
derives its capital importance for the history of our problem from its form
and style rather than its originality. Here the coincidence theory was stated
briefly, compactly, authoritatively, iri a brilliant and convincing style that
succeeded even in hiding so me of the weaker spots for more than three
centuries to come. 40 Together with Mersenne's work, this passage would
become the starting point of all subsequent musico-scientific inquiry for at
least half a century.
In this section we shalllook into three aspects of Galileo's musical theory:
its originality, the nature of the vibrations he posited, and the nature of the
experiments he invoked in order to clarify his thought.
First, the rather involved problem of originality. Clearly the co re of
Galileo's musical discourse consists of the combination of ideas of Benedetti's,
who had applied the vibrational nature of musical sound to the problem of
consonance, and of Vincenzo Galilei's, who had shown that there is more
than one type of 'natural' ratios for the consonances. As to the latter, it is
fairly obvious that Galileo took the argument froIll his father: he shared his
father's musical interest (he was himself an accomplished lutanist); he lived
at horne at the time Vincenzo did his experiments with strings; he inherited
and preserved the latter's unpublished manuscripts; he put the argument in
the mouth of Sagredo, thus more or less disclaiming priority. With Benedetti
the situation is different. Though the 1585 Diversarnm speculationum ...
Liber contains important adumbrations of Galileo's work on both motion
and music, Galileo appears not to have known it. 41
Whether or not Galileo owed much to his father and to Benedetti, he
certainly handled the legacy in an independent way. As compared to Vin-
cenzo, he carefully avoided his mistake of the cubed ratio for the intervals
produced by the organ pipe; he also defmed much more explicitly the func-
tional dependence of pitch on both thickness and material (taken together
as 'weight'). Finally, he used in a more outspoken way the musical instrument
as a sour ce of experimental evidence for the musical theorist. And unlike
Benedetti, Galileo at least attempted to prove the proportionality of pitch
and frequency that the former had just taken for granted.
Another difference with Benedetti's account is that Galileo was much

more explicit regarding the acoustical properties of the musical intervals
whose frequency ratios he compared. Yet the basic notions with which they
operated were the same. The production of a musical note was ascribed to
a regular succession of strokes, or pulses, and their mode of propagation was
compared to the c1assic ripples occasioned by the c1assic stone being thrown
into the c1assic pond. Now it would be highly misleading to equate this par-
ticular conception of musical sound with the wave theory, according to which
sounds of diverse pitches result from the regular succession of periodic
condensations and rarefactions of the air, that is, from 'longitudinal waves'
of diverse and definite lengths. And even though it is true that, in the course
of the second half of the 17th century, the latter theory was to branch out
from concepts taken from the former, they are by no means identical. 42
Therefore it seems better to reserve the term 'wave theory' for the latter,
and to refer to the conception embraced by Galileo and his predecessors and
contemporaries as the 'pulse theory of musical sound'. What both theories
had in common was the idea of vibrational frequency, and the notion that
this particular magnitude determines pitch. For the purpose at hand, the
physical explanation of consonance, this was good enough.
Finally, we have to assess the experimental nature of Galileo's work on
music. The problem whether, and if so, to what extent Galileo actually
carried out the experiments he described, and, also, whether or not he derived
his theoretical discoveries from experiment, belongs to the most heatedly
debated issues in the entire history of science.43 There can be no question of
trying to resolve it here, only to add some perspective from the history of
the science of music.
As we have seen, in the sense in which 'the experimental approach' is used
throughout this book, as far as music is concerned Benedetti was no experi-
mentalist at all, and Vincenzo Galilei only a half-hearted one. To what extent
was Galileo?
In the first place he never bothered to determine experimentally quanti-
tative values for the parameters that figured in his formulas. Just as he never
tried to measure the actual acceleration rate of falling bodies, he did not
attempt to determine the frequency of a specific musical note.
Secondly, none of the three musical experiments he described so vividly
could have been carried out in reality, the first one (the water-filled glass)
because it appears to be unrepeatable, and the two other ones for the inherent
reason that they are based on mental errors. Neverthe1ess, there is a decisive
difference with Vincenzo's mistake ofthe cubed ratio: while Vincenzo stated
94 CHAPTER 3
a property of nature that simply does not hold, all three fictitious experi-
ments 01 Galileo's illustrate in themselves valid propositions. So here we
have found some material that confirms a characteristic often attributed to
Galileo: the incredible 'intuition', or 'sleepwalking' quality that enabled hirn
so often to derive basically correct insights from totally wrong arguments.
So, as far as musical science is concerned, Galileo was an experimentalist
in that 'artificial nature' (in this case: the musical instrument) underlay many
of his theories; he was also an experimentalist in that the properties he
derived from it were essentiaIly correct; but he was not, insofar as he did
no quantitative measurements, and preferred a beautiful description of an
experiment to actually doing it. We shall see presently that Mersenne was
to overcome these fmallimitations of the experimental method.
3.4. THE NATURE OF THE COINCIDENCE THEORY
SO far as to Galileo's presentation of the coincidence theory. Let us pause

for a moment to reflect on the extent to which the theory was capable of
solving the problem of consonance.
As we have seen, Benedetti had had hardly an idea of the explanatory
power of the theory. But Galileo had, and he stated it in no uncertain terms.
However, the fertility of a theory depends not only on its explanatory
power (as we have seen in the case of Kepler, whose theory of consonance
could 'explain' all known relevant data), but also in the encouragement it
gives to look for new data, and in the new problems it raises in its turn. In
this sense, the coincidence theory performed three important functions.
First of all, it implied and at the same time solved a problem that had
never been stated before, namely that of providing ascale of degrees 01
consonance. Since consonance is supposed to come from the frequent co in-
cidence of pulses it seems obvious to infer that the more often the pulses
coincide the more consonant the interval in question iso Therefore a scale
of degrees of consonance is given simply by multiplying the terms of the
frequency ratios of the consonant intervals. As we have seen, Benedetti had
indeed calculated the products, but with another, purely numerological
purpose in mind. Galileo explicitly announces that his theory makes it
possible to grade the consonances, but he does so only for the octave and
the fifth. The complete list would have yielded the following scale (see
Figure 36).
Ihis neat table, which follows inexorably from the coincidence theory,
in its turn creates a host of problems, all blissfully ignored by Galileo (who
Ratio (frequencies) Product
[unison 1: 1 1]
octave 2: 1 2
fifth 3: 2 6
fourth 4: 3 12
major sixth 5: 3 15
major third 5: 4 20
minor third 6: 5 30
minor sixth 8: 5 40
Fig.36.
may weIl have neglected to draw up the table because he was aware of the
new difficulties it entailed):
- As noticed before on pp. 63-5, in musical practice the status of the
fourth as a consonance had become rather questionable, and certainly it
was considered by most musicians to be less consonant than the major third.
However, the above table places the fourth higher in the hierarchy of the
consonances than its riyal. So how to account for that?
- The order given by the table for the thirds and sixths is much more
explicit than musical practice warranted. In particular, musical experience
provided no reason for giving the major sixth a higher status than the major
third. So, again, how to match theory and practice?
- A more fundamental objection that could be made (Galileo did not
make it) is the following. If the above table is valid, the intervals represented
by the frequency ratios 7: 4 and 7: 5 should be considered consonances
as weH, the former in preference even to the minor third (as 28 < 30), the
latter preceding the minor sixth (as 35 < 40). But these intervals had always
been considered as very harsh dissonances. (Kepler had succeeded in getting
rid of them through the inconstructibility of the heptagon). We shall see that
for adherents of the coincidence theory there were three ways out of the
dilemma: to dec1are it insoluble, to manipulate the table, or to pronounce
the intervals with 7 to be consonances after all. Either way, they would
become a touchstone for every theory of consonance, and they have remained
so to this very day.44
- The problem of the intervals with 7 only highlights an even more fun-
damental problem implicit in the coincidence theory: there is no longer a
clear-cut distinction between consonance and dissonance. For to allow the
96 CHAPTER 3
product for the minor sixth to determine the boundary between consonance
and dissonance is just as arbitrary as Zarlino's senario: it is as unjustified to
stop at 6 (or, if need be, 8) as it is to stop at 40. The coincidence theory
cannot possibly explain why the coincidence of every 8th vibration of the
upper string is still perceived as pleasant, but no longer every 9th vibration.
So now we can see why Kepler was to remain the only one ever to state a
clear-cut scientific distinguishing criterion between consonance and disso-
nance: within some- 10 to 20 years after Hannonice Mundi the distinction
had become irrevocably blurred. And again, this development coincides with
what happened in musical history : the new treatment of dissonance in early
Baroque music instigated by, among others, Galileo's father, made obsolete
any sharp theoretical distinction. In musical practice as in musical theory
the boundary between consonance and dissonance had become fluid; the
problem of consonance had undergone a fundamental transformation, occa-
sioned by music and science alike.
Another important function of the coincidence theory was that it naturally
gave rise to a search for hosts of new facts, such as the quantitative deter-
mination of the frequency of a musical note; the various factors that influence
change of pitch; tone production in pipes and drums, and so on. In other
words, the coincidence theory of consonance became the origin of the
science of acoustics, as will be demonstrated more extensively in the next
section.
Finally, even apart from the many problems raised by the sc ale of degrees
of consonance that followed from the coincidence theory, the theory itself
was confronted with two very serious obstacles.
- The first, obvious as it may seem to be, was to be neglected for more
than a century. Galileo had correctly observed that incommensurable terms
of a ratio cause the vibrations, after the simultaneous beginning, never again
to coincide. Hut such is precisely the nature of all tempered intervals. So
how can we possibly perceive tempered consonances as still rather agreeable?
The theory predicts that any tempering would totally destroy the consonant
effect; so how to reconcile theory with practice?
- As if all this were not enough, the coincidence theory suffered from one
more defect, that had been predicted by Kepler (see pp. 31/2). For what
precisely was the connection between the regularity with which the eardrum
was struck by the vibrations generated by the consonant intervals, and the
musical beauty perceived by the human soul? ür, formulated differently,
did not the coincidence theory leave completely unexplained what happens
in between the eardrum being subjected 'to a perpetual Torment of bending
itself two different Ways, in Submission to the ever disagreeing Percussion',

and the experience of dissonance within us? This was the very gap that Kepler
had attempted to ftll by means of his theory of Sensile and Intellectual
Harmony. But Galileo chose to ignore the gap, in that he apparently con-
sidered the mode of affection of the eardrum a sufftcient explanation of
human auditory sense experience. In doing so he left it to other scientists
to fmd out whether the coincidence theory of consonance was able to f111
the gap.
In the face of this long list of difftculties it seems a miracle that anyone
aware of at least some of them had the courage to embrace the theory and
pursue it further. Yet this sort of courage was vital for the Scientiftc Revolu-
tion. Galileo, Mersenne, and Beeckman were so impressed by what the theory
could explain that they were not sufftciently deterred by what it stillieft
open to give it up. Their insight that giving it up would be tantamount to
prematurely cutting off al1 kinds of exciting new scientiftc inquiry can serve
as a sign of their greatness.
Let us sum up. Zarlino's senario, destroyed as a deftnition of the problem
of consonance by Vincenzo Galilei, was, paradoxical1y, reinstated by the
latter's son: again the ftrst few integers defmed the ratios of the consonances.
However, they did so in a decisively different way. For the age-old problem
could now be reformulated as follows: why is it that the simple ratios of
the vibrational [requencies of sounding bodies correspond to the human
sensation of pleasure and beauty in hearing the consonant intervals? The
original question had thus undergone a striking transformation in that now
an empirical physical phenomenon rather than, as before, an abstract mathe-
matical ratio appeared to be responsible for our sense experience. In the
course of the centuries the problem was to be transformed again and again;
but no transformation could be so radical as the one described above: having
once entered the realm of the empirical, it was never to leave it again.
3.5. MARIN MERSENNE
Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) was, as it were, the secretary ofthe Scientiftc

Revolution in its fust stage. In aperiod when the only means of communi-
cation between scientists were visits, books, and letters, Mersenne made
himself the focal point of the last. He carried on a voluminous correspon-
dence, constantly informing the addressees of what he had just learned
from his other correspondents, _among whom may be mentioned Descartes,
Gassendi, and Beeckman. He also served as an indefatigable propagandist
98 CHAPTER 3
MARIN MERSENNE
for Galileo. However, his scientific style was quite different from Galileo's.
In the words of Crombie:
Mersenne concluded that the only knowledge of the physical world available to men
was that of the quantitative externals of effects, and that the only hope of science was
to explore these externals by means of experiment and the most probable hypotheses.
[ ... ] [Galileo and Descartes] aimed at certainty in physical science; Mersenne, dis-
believing in the possibility of certainty, aimed at precision. 45
Both features resulting from these convictions, namely an un-Galilean

interest in exact quantitative determination and an at times maddening
inconc1usiveness, are abundantly evident in his major scientific pursuit,
the science of music, which, for the first time, inc1uded acoustics. In a way
both similar to and quite different from Kepler, for Mersenne music had a
universal significance - not by chance he entitled his main book Harmonie
universelle (1636/7). Music, in his view, reflects a harmony that pervades the
world; listening to and playing music as well as investigating it scientifically
lead to the amelioration of man, and, ultimately, to GOd. 46 Innumerable
are the occasions when he interrupts his discourse on such a subject as the
relative sweetness of the consonances in order to insert an edifying com-
parison with, for instance, God's relationship with the angels, man, and His
other creatures. 47
Unfortunately, this is not the only thing that is innumerable in Mersenne's
work on music. Its sheer bulk makes it even more inaccessible than the
perpetual digressions and hesitations that mark his style. At a time with the
c. 1500 folio pages of Harmonie universelle he wrote the Harmonicorum
Ubri XII ('Twelve Books on Harmony'), not to mention one later and some
seven earlier treatises (the first one dating from 1623) that deal part1y or
wholly with music. And then there is his correspondence, the modern edition
of which now comprises 14 solid volumes (up to the year 1646). No one
knows to what extent Harmonie universelle and the Harmonicorum Ubri
run parallel (the latter supposedly only being a condensed version of the
former); no one has given an account of the development over time of his
musical thought - a task complicated not only by the number of pages to
plow through, but also by Mersenne's perpetual unwillingness to commit
himself. 48 The only portion of Mersenne's work on music that has been
investigated at all thoroughly is the part of Harmonie universelle devoted
to musical instruments, which is a veritable goldmine of information on
early music practice.49 On musico-science there is only Ludwig's 1935
monograph that probably just scratches the surface. The following brief
100 CHAPTER 3
account is based on a perusal of Harmonie universelle, for the acoustical

part of which Ludwig and Dostrovsky (1974/5) served as guides.
3.5.1. The 'Abstract ofMusical Theory'
We have suggested before that the science of acoustics grew out of the experi-
mental approach to the problem of consonance. The analysis of consonance
in terms of the coincidence of vibrations transmitted through the air to
the ear generated a host of new questions, and the first answers constitute
together the beginnings of the science of sound, in particular, but not exclu-
sively, of musical sound. Though it is both customary and practicable to
divide Mersenne's work into an acoustical and a musical part, to him they
were but different aspects of the one science of harmony. The fact that
Mersenne's acoustical researches were primarily aimed at reinforcing his
theory of consonance is perhaps nowhere made more evident than in the two-
page summary of Harmonie universelle he added during the last stages of the
press, under the title Abrege de la Musique speculative, for the benefit of the
(undoubtedly numerous) readers "who do not have the leisure to read our
Treatises in their entirety". 50 This unusually succinct abstract summarizes
the theory of music in five points:
(1) "Sound is nothing but a percussion [batternent] of the air, taken up
by the sense of hearing when it is touched by it". 51 Loudness is determined
by the violence of the percussion, which in its turn is proportional to the
amount of air struck; pitch is proportional to the velocity of the percussions,
that is, to their number per unit time.
(2) The relative sweetness of the consonances is deterrnined by how often
the percussions that make up their sounds coincide. All simple consonances
are comprised in the first six integers; "they represent the number and
comparison of their percussions". 52
(3) The relative sweetness of the consonances is calculated as folIows.
If the percussions of a certain interval unite, for example, every second time
(the octave), it is sweeter than if they unite, for instance, every third time
(the fifth). But if the percussions unite equally often, as is the case with the
fifth (3: 2) and the twelfth (3: 1), the smaller number of vibrations of the
string that ernits the lower note makes the interval sweeter than the other;
thus the twelfth is a sweeter consonance than the fifth.
(4) Given astring of a certain length, thickness, and material, quadrupling
its tension makes its sound rise one octave.
(5) The velo city of straight sound is 230 'toises' (453 meters) per second,
independent of loudness and the direction of the wind; the echo's velocity
is 162 'toises' (319 meters) per second.
Thus for Mersenne the essential consequences of the analysis of sound
in tenns of percussions of the air are the explanation and the grading of
consonance, the laws of sounding strings, and the quantitative determination
of sound speed. Some other acoustical results are discussed briefly in the
next section.
3.s.2. Some Properties of Sound
Sparked off by the new interest in the properties of the vibrational motion
of the air occasioned by the new, physical explanation of consonance, in
Mersenne's hands the science of sound at once became an autonomous and
independent discipline in its own right. Among the most basic properties
of sound stated by Mersenne are the following:
- Frequency and pitch. After having established, once and for all, that the
number of vibrations per unit time defmes pitch, and the amount of vibrating
air loudness, Mersenne proceeded to determine quantitatively the frequency
of a note of given pitch - a task Galileo thought impossible, since the vibra-
tions are too rapid to be counted by sight. He immediately put his results
to practical use by proposing to standardize pitch, which was a sensible idea
in an age when 'standard pitch' varied per musical genre, per city, and per
guild. Mersenne also established which frequency defmes the bottom limit
of audibility for the human ear. (In the Aristotelian universe, all phenomena
are unreflectingly considered as perceivable; part of the Scientific Revolution
consists of the growing realization that nature hides many phenomena beyond
our immediate sense perception, such as microbes, or the moons of Jupiter,
or inaudible vibrations ofthe air).
- Vibrating strings and air columns. Mersenne discusses extensively the
variables that detennine the pitch of sounding strings, and fonnulates their
quantitative relationships in a set of proportions that, taken together, come
down to the following fonnula: frequency is proportional to the square root
of string tension, and inversely proportional to string length as well as to the
square root ofthe string's thickness. 53
This result does not differ substantially from Galileo's, yet it is rightly
known as Mersenne's law. For, while Galileo just stated it, Mersenne carried
out a great many experiments in order to establish, not only the law itself,
but also the deviations from the ideal phenomenon to be observed in practice,
and even, to fmd a general second order correction factor accounting for
the deviations.
102 CHAPTER 3
Attempts to find equally dear-cut laws describing the tone production

in aerophones, particularly in organ pipes, however, failed. As Mersenne
suspected that the total amount of air vibrating in the pipe was the crucial
variable, he hoped to establish empirically the cubed ratio proposed by
Vincenzo Galilei. But in fact the then current visualization of the vibrational
motions of the air as 'percussions' preduded any understanding of the
vibrating mode of the organ pipe, whose pitch is primarlly determined by
the length of the longitudinal waves sweeping through it. But the concept
of wave length was to be developed later, intuitively by Huygens, explicitly
by Newton. 54
In Mersenne's hands a process was completed that had started with father
and son Galilei: the musical instrument was turned into a scientific instru-
ment, capable of revealing nature's hidden properties. Not the least important
reason why the Traite des instrumens in Harmonie universelle contains such
important information is the fact that Mersenne used the instrument makers
themselves as a direct source of knowledge. It was one thing to speculate
freely on what happens in an organ pipe; it was something different, and, for
the theorist, new, to inquire of the organ builders after the secrets of their
trade. Of course the latter could only provide the raw material for theoretical
reflection, but the point is that without it no sensible theory formation was
at all possible.
- Overtones. An extremely interesting border line case between Aristo-
telian 'natural nature' and the 'artificial nature' revealed and investigated in
the course of the Scientific Revolution, is the phenomenon of overtones. On
the one hand, they can be heard without the help of any special apparatus
- as Mersenne insisted, only silen ce and concentration are required for
observing that any tone produced by astring, a voice, a pipe, or a bell actually
consists of a mixture of a fundamental tone with a lot of higher pitched,
but much weaker partial tones. On the other hand, but for the apriori
expectation that there is more to nature than is revealed by daily experience,
there would have been no reason to try and listen in the first place. Thus
Mersenne was the first to improve Aristotle's vague observation that, in some
undefined way, any given note contains its higher octave. Apart from the
fundamental Mersenne clearly distinguished four upper partial tones, at
frequencies defined by the first few integers (Figure 37).
Ci
li
') o
4
Fig. 37.
Though completely at a loss to explain where the overtones came from,

Mersenne clearly (albeit only in passing) perceived the musical significance
of his discovery: "the sound of any string is the more harmonious and agree-
able, the greater the number of different sounds it makes heard at a time". 55
- Natural tones. A related phenomenon is produced by the trumpet, an
instrument that (in its pre-valve form, of course) produces only a lirnited
number of notes, defmed, again, by the first few integers. To Mersenne this
phenomenon constituted proof "that the order of the Consonances is natural,
and that the way we count them, starting from unity up to the number six
and beyond is founded in nature" .56 The meaning of the vague phrase 'and
beyond' we shall discover presently.
- Beats. Mersenne noticed, when observing organ pipes, that small devia-
tions from purity in the consonances make themselves heard by beats -
slow alternations in loudness, which disappear when the consonance in
question is tuned exactly in accordance with its true ratio. He made no
attempt at a quantitative determination, nor at an explanation, apart from
noting that the phenomenon should not be confused with the coincidence
of the pulses that made up the beating notes. However, he was aware that,
if it were possible to establish the number of beats per unit time, this would
provide an exact measure for deliberate mistuning, in other words, for
temperament. 57
3.5.3. The Coincidence Theory Put to the Test
In Section 3.4. we enumerated half a dozen new problems that faced anyone
embracing the coincidence theory of consonance, and we also noticed that
Galileo ducked them all. Mersenne, in contrast, confronted them head-on. In
doing so, he applied his acoustical findings discussed above to the explanation
of consonance. Thus with Mersenne an extremely fruitful interplay began:
the coincidence theory of consonance, which through its internal develop-
ment had brought forth the science of acoustics, immediately began to be
reinforced by its own offspring.
As we have seen, four of the new problems arose from the table of degrees
of consonance that foIlowed from the theory. Mersenne's adopting the
coincidence theory thus forced him to accept the table as weIl.58 However,
he feIt very unease ab out it, precisely because of those four problems - the
relative degree of consonance of the fourth and of the thirds and sixths, the
place of the intervals with 7, and the distinction between consonance and
dissonance. Nearly the whole Livre des consonances in Harmonie universelle
104 CHAPTER 3
HARMONIE
VNIVERSELLE
Nam & ego confitebor tibi in vatis pfalmi veritltc tuam:

Deus pfallam tlbiin Cithara, [an aus !frael. . rpfolme 7°·
is characterized by attempts, on the one hand, to account for these problems

by means of physical explanations, and, on the other, simply to propose
two different tables, a scientific and an aesthetic one, the latter representing
the order of consonance as established by musical practice. In fact he did
draw up such a table, distinguishing between 'sweetness' (defined by the
number of coincidences per unit time), and 'agreeability' (representing
auditory pleasure; see Figure 38).59
Table of sweetness Table of agreeability
[Unison) [Unison)
Octave (2: 1) Octave
Fifth (3: 2) Fifth
Fourth (4: 3) Major third
Major sixth (5: 3) Minor third
Major third (5: 4) Major sixth
Minor third (6: 5) Minor sixth
Minor sixth (8: 5) Fourth
Fig.38.
Drawing up these two separate tables implied, of course, giving up the attempt
at scientifically explaining the musical phenomena in question. Proposing
two different tables derives from the sceptical attitude we already came
across in the case of Vincenzo Galilei (pp. 81, 84), and thus fell on fertile
soU in the case of Mersenne, whose attitude towards science was marked by
scepticism to begin with. But Mersenne kept vacillating, despite the pressure
brought to bear on him, by, of all people, Descartes, who urged hirn radically
to separate sweetness and agreeability (more on this in Section 4.2.2.).
Though in the end giving in to Descartes, Mersenne nevertheless did not give
up the attempt to make the two match after all. His continuing doubts are
reflected by the inconclusiveness that characterizes nearly all solutions he
proposed. These solutions were as follows.
The Degree ofConsonance ofthe Fourth
The problem whether or not the fourth is more consonant than the major
third, says Mersenne, is one of the greatest difficulties in the science of music,
106 CHAPTER 3
since he re reason and experience seem to contradict each other. Mersenne

finally decides in favor of the major third, on the ground that "one should
not judge the quality of the Consonances by considering them in their simple
form only, but one should to some extent consider their replicas".60 For in
every tone its upper octave is 'represented' as weIl; thus when listening to
the fourth ~ we hear at the same time the eleventh~, which is much less
sweet than the first upper partial of the major third, namely the major
tenth ~, whose pulses obviously coincide much more often than those of~.
And the total effect of this is to make the major third altogether more
consonant than the fourth, q.e.d.
For the subsequent history of the theory of consonance this is a very
interesting passage, in that here, for the first time, the overtones were used
for explaining a particular aspect of the problem of consonance. On the
other hand, their application is obviously ad hoc, as Mersenne appeals only
to the first upper partial of the strings producing the two intervals. But since
this sufficed for solving the problem at hand, namely the relative degrees
of consonance of the fourth and the major third, it provided no incentive to
pursue this mode of analysis further, and to take into account all other partial
tones he had himself discovered. Another reason for this omission may have
been that the original solution had been suggested to Mersenne by Beeckman
and Descartes, who at the time were aware of the existence of one upper
partial only (more about this on p. 198).
The Degree 01 Consonance 01 the Thirds and the Sixths

Mersenne's treatment of the relative sweetness of the thirds and the sixths
is entirely inconclusive. In comparing them pairwise he first recalls their
places in the 'scientific' table, and then proceeds to cite reasons why, perhaps,
the order should be different after all. For example, reasons for preferring
the major third %over the major sixth ~ are the fact that the former results
from the harmonie and the arithmetical divisions of the fifth; that the latter
is only a kind of repetition of the former (namely, its complement with re-
spect to the octave), and that the trumpet produces the major third as the
first interval after the fourth, whereas the major sixth is not produced by the
trumpet in one single jump at all. Similar arguments are adduced for the other
pairs of thirds and sixths. The proposition in which this matter is dealt with
is the one that ends with the juxtaposition of the scientific and the aesthetic
tables of degrees of consonance shown in Figure 38. Mersenne does not try
here to make the two tables match by applying the upper partials to his
analysis of relative degrees of consonance.
The Intervals with 7 and the Distinction Between Consonance and Dissonance
These elosely interlinked problems are treated in one and the same proposi-
tion, called "Why there are only seven or eight simple consonances".61 As it
is so elose to the heart of the problem of consonance (in asense, it is the
problem of consonance), and at the same time provides such an excellent
sampIe of Mersenne at his best, it seems worthwhile to follow his argument
in some detail.
Mersenne first disposes of the contention that there are only seven con-
sonances because of. the special properties of the number seven, e.g. the
fact that God rested on the seventh day of the Creation. For in the first
place there are eight rather than seven simple consonances (the unison being
a consonance as weIl), and, even if this were not so, appeals to properties
of numbers should be discarded anyway: many numbers occur in nature
that surpass seven. (The summary way he deals with this sort of argument
illustrates once more the width of the chasm separating the new approach to
science from Zarlino's and Salinas' only one generation earlier).
Mersenne then intro duces an extremely interesting consideration that
tends to abolish any distinction between consonance and dissonance whatever.
Just as the telescope reveals the existence of celestial bodies previously
unknown, a purer ear and mind and imagination than those of the practicing
musician at present may be needed in order to discover new consonant
intervals. Man's limitations in this respect are due to his sense of hearing, not
to his reason, for ratios in themselves do not hurt, and since all intervals,
consonant or dissonant, consist of some ratio, an ear that could judge by
reason alone would never be hurt, and would therefore perceive all intervals
as consonant. Logically this argument (that is more compelling in French
than in English, since in French both 'reason' and 'ratio' are rendered by
'raison') should have led Mersenne to a detailed inquiry into the degree of
reasonableness of our actual sense of hearing; but, as we shall see presently,
he hardly did so.
Back to the ratios of the simple consonances. Why do they stop after
6: 5? Why do we perceive 7: 6 and 8: 7 as unpleasant; what is wrong with
7: 1, whlle 16: 1 is clearly consonant? The argument that in 7: 1 the pulses
do not coincide often enough is invalid, since in 16: 1 the coincidence is
even less frequent. Nor is Kepler's solution any better. Surely the sides of
the heptagon are incommensurable to the radius of the circumscribed circle,
but this is completely irrelevant in the case of musical notes, which consist
ofpercussions ofthe air:
108 CHAPTER 3
There is no number of motions or percussions of the air that is not commensurable to

all other numbers of motions. Which is why I am surprised that Kepler has dared to
introduce the comparison of [geometrical] figures with the Consonances, with the aim
of deriving from them their number and their quality; which could have been tolerated
if he had been content with comparing the said figures with the Consonances and the
Dissonances by way of analogy and for entertainment .... 62
Plato argues that the hannonic ratios have been engraved into the soul
at its creation, and that it rejoices whenever it comes across representations
of the hannonic Ideas; but this leaves unexplained why 7: 6 ete. had not
been engraved into the soul in the first plaee. The same objection applies to
explanations of consonance in tenns of the 'temperament' of those parts of
the ear and the brain that receive musical sound, or in tenns of the disposi-
tion of eertain 'animal spirits' in the nerves that allegedly are affected in a
more fitting way by the eonsonances than by the dissonanees: none of these
and similar explanations of eonsonanee can account for the fact that there is
a distinction between consonance and dissonance and for why this distinction
occurs where it oceurs.
Thus no sufficient distinguishing criterion has been found. "Nevertheless
we can stick to this nu mb er [of only eight simple consonances] , since practice
confonns to it." 63 Also these intervals are the first ones given by the trumpet,
and they are the ones that display the strongest sympathetic resonanee,
because of the more frequent coincidence of their vibrations.
Nevertheless an these reasons do not satisfy me entirely, the more so since, if musical
pleasure derives from considerations of the mind, which is capable of contemplating all
sorts of ratios, one should be able to say why the dissonant intervals displease it [the
mind] in the case of sounds, since they do not displease it in the case of lines and
[geometrieal] flgures. 64
But in fact musical pleasure does not derive from the mind, as it is not at all
neeessary to be aware ofthe musical ratios in order to enjoy music. Therefore
musical pleasure appears to be natural, hence it does not basically differ
from pleasures provided by the other four senses. The only difference is that
in the case of music we are able to quantify the natural phenomena that are
responsible for our sensations, and therefore "sounds ean shed more light on
Philosophy than any other quality, which is why the seienee of Music should
not be neglected, even if all singing and playing were eompletely abolished
and forbidden" .65
A final eonsideration coneems the intervals with 7:
Since prolonged exercise tends to make sweet and easy what at first seemed rude and
annoying, I do not doubt at all that [ ... ] the ratios of 7: 6 and 8: 7, that divide
the Fourth, may become agreeable if one gets accustomed to hearing and enduring them,
and if one uses them properly in melodies and in part-music for evoking the passions,
and for several effects lacking in ordinary Music. 66
Let us try to summarize tbis argument, with due consideration for the
fact that the ideas put forward here by Mersenne are more striking because
of their intrinsic value than because of their logical place in a compelling
chain of arguments leading to adefinite and unhesitatingly stated conelusion.
As to the distinction between consonance and dissonance, Mersenne
first explains that for an ideally 'reasonable ear' the distinction simply would
not exist. Then Kepler's criterion is firmly rejected on physical grounds.
A number of competing explanations of consonance, ineluding the coin-
cidence theory, is found unable to provide a distinguishing criterion at all ,
and in the end Mersenne is forced to admit that no criterion satisfying the
perceptions of the normal human ear can be found.
As to the intervals with 7, they are left in the darkness of dissonance on
the practical ground that there is no room for them in actual music making,
but it is conceded at once that, as soon as such room will be found, they
will be perceived as consonances in their own right. (In Section 6.2.3. we
shall discuss Huygens' discovery that tbis room had already been available
for ages).
One fmal re mark on the intervals with 7. Why is it that the discoverer
of the overtones, the first musical theorist to call attention to the natural
tones, never appeals to these phenomena in order to establish the consonance
of the intervals with 7? For there is a seventh partial tone in the series of
overtones, and the trumpet does sound the seventh natural tone in between
the sixth and the eighth one. But Mersenne is not aware o[ this. He flatly
denies that the trumpet does so, and he even devotes an entire proposition
to explaining why the trumpet leaves tbis gap instead of following the arith-
metical series 1,2,3, ... up to and ineluding 7 (the answer, in a neat logical
cirele, being, of course, that the seventh natural tone would make, after all, a
dissonance with all others).67 And in the case of the overtones, Mersenne
did indeed distinguish the seventh partial, but he gave its ratio to the fun-
damental not as 7: 1, but rather as 20: 3, thus interpreting it as the major
sixth upon two octaves rather than as the natural seventh. 68 In other words,
Mersenne was so convinced of the actual dissonance of the intervals with
7, that he misinterpreted his own pioneer observations, instead of adducing
them in favor of the consonance of these same questionable intervals.
110 CHAPTER 3
Accounting [ar Temperament
As we have seen on p. 96, the coincidence theory cannot account for the
fact that the human ear is affected nearly as pleasantly by the completely
incommensurable ratios of slightly tempered consonances as by the simple
ratios of the pure consonances. It is important to notice that the former
phenomenon (our accepting tempered intervals) does not contradict the
latter (the auditory purity corresponding to the simple ratios). Rather, the
task of a theory of consonance is to account for both phenomena at the
same time. It might be expected that one of the first theorists to discuss
the phenomenon ofbeats was in an excellent position to frame such a theory.
But, though he certainly was aware of the issue, he preferred to fall back on
his well-tried escape position: "our understanding always follows the just
ratios and proportions, though it suffices to approximate them in order to
satisfy the senses" .69
Obviously, rather than an answer this is only a more general formulation
of the original question, for why is it that the senses can be satisfied by
approximate values, whereas the soundness of the theory depends on their
being exact? Solving this basic problem apparently did not belong to Mer-
senne's research program.
The Ear and the Soul
Another topic which did not belong to it was the even more fundamental
problem of how the regular striking of our eardrum manages to evoke in our
soul the experience of musical beauty. True, Mersenne leads us slightly
farther into the cavity of the ear than the drum that satisfied Galileo, but
fairly so on the soul takes over again:
... the external air excites the air inside the ear, and it impresses astate of motion upon
the auditory nerve that resembles the one it received; and the mind that is present in
each part of the body, and consequently in the said nerve, perceives at once the move-
ment of the organs of the ear, and thereby judges the qualities of the motion of the
sound, and of the external objects that produce it. Now one could imagine that the
mind is like an indivisible and intellectual point, to which all sense impressions taper,
like an lines of a circle towards their center, or like an the threads of the web of the
spider that spins and weaves them .... 70
So Kepler's 'tribunal of the soul' has now been seated at the exit of the
auditory nerve, but for the rest the analogies drawn by Mersenne in this only
passage he devoted to the problem of hearing are quite as powerless to solve
it as Kepler's turned out to be. The question whether perhaps the explanatory
principles that guided the pioneers of the Scientific Revolution were struc-
turally insufficient to deal with the problem of sense perception will be
discussed at the end of the next chapter, after a review of what Beeckman's
and Descartes' mechanistic principles were able to achieve in this crucial
domain of science.
3.5.4. The Division ofthe Octave

For the true lover of tuning lore Harmonie universelle makes indispensable
reading; probably no system of tuning or temperament ever put down to
published writing before c. 1630 failed to be mentioned in Mersenne's en-
cyclopedic work. Even the one obscure reference that Stevin, in his 1605
Mathematical Memoirs, had made to his commitment to the equal division
of the octave does not escape Mersenne. He mentions it in the context of
a much more general discussion on the possibility of achieving certainty
in physical science, and he uses it for underpinning his customary scepticism:
even a preference for the consonances as defmed by the equal division cannot
conclusively be disproved, these matters ultimately being subject to personal
taste. 71
However, Mersenne's treatment of equal temperament elsewhere in Har-
monie universelle reflects the fundamental change in attitude to temperament
that had taken place between 1605 and 1636. As we have seen on p. 43,
for Renaissance music the equal division of the octave was practically relevant
only insofar as it provided a suitable temperament for fretted instruments like
the lute. Therefore it is not at all surprising to fmd that Mersenne discusses
equal temperament extensively when dealing, in the TraUe des instrumens ,
with the lute. But he discusses it also in the Book on the organ, an instrument
for which up to the time mean tone temperament had always been considered
sufficient. So what had changed?
The change had taken place in music, and we are by now quite familiar
with it: it is, once more, the rise ofthe Baroque style. For a defining feature
of the new style was the use composers began to make of the accidentals
(chromatic notes) for expressing the affects. But on keyboard instruments
tuned in mean tone temperament only five accidentals are available: C#,
Eb, F ~ , G# (or Ab), and Bb . Renaissance organ and harpsichord music could
do with these five, but after the turn of the century composers increasingly
feIt the need to overstep the narrow limits imposed by traditional tempera-
ment. 72 There are several means for achieving this (they will be discussed
112 CHAPTER 3
more extensively in Section 6.2.2.). One of them is equal temperament, that

makes possible unlimited modulation through all keys, at the expense of the
purity of, above all, the thirds and sixths. Mersenne does not commit himself
unambiguously to equal temperament (for which he gives five different
calculations, some of them much more accurate than the two made by
Stevin).73 He is clearly aware of its one great advantage;
... composing will be the more easy and agreeable, and a thousand things will be per-
mitted that many people believe to be forbidden .... ~
But at least in the case of the organ the one great drawback of equal tem-
perament deters him even more, witness his statement "that it is better to
leave pure the major Thirds", 75 in other words, to maintain some form of
mean tone temperament. Thus Harmonie universelle marks the beginning of
the battle between the two temperaments for keyboard instruments, a battle
that was to go on until, more than a century later, the rise of a new keyboard
instrument, the piano, would fmally decide the outcome.
3.5.5. Quantifying All Possible Music
For anyone who starts a new science, or who applies fundamentally new
methods to an old one, it is impossible to know at the outset what natural
limits are set to their application. As a result there is an inherent temptation
to overextend them. Thus we have seen how Stevin overapplied his axiomatic
method to the science of music; similarly Mersenne did not restrict himself
to the quantification of musical sound and to the concomitant physical
'requantification' of consonance, but he tried to quantify music as well
in domains that would seem, to us, totally and obviously unquantifiable.
However, how could one know before trying?
Such seems to be the idea behind Mersenne's attempts to fmd a method
for, as he once calls it, "composing the best melody of all those that can be
imagined".76 We shall not follow him on his path towards such an 'algebra of
sounds' (in Lenoble's apt phrase), 77 but restrict ourselves to merely noticing
it, and observing that it has something to do with Mersenne's penchant for
mathematical combinations. Just one example of this is his writing out, on
four folio pages, all 720 possible permutations of Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La,
resulting iri breath-taking type pages like the one reproduced in Figure 39.
How it is possible that the same man who was so sceptical about the
explanation of consonance could be so incredibly optirnistic as to fmding
means for mechanically producing beautiful compositions, is a riddle that
114 Lime Second

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Lc, v r ,hJul.rc,mi. LJ,vr,b,lül,lIl1,rc, L3,H,loJ,I c'lIlJ,b. 1.,. H.f,,! ,I C,f,,1Il1.
L.:,vt,fol,nu ,rc,b. L." H,lül,m!,ta,re. LJ,vr,tol,tJ, rC,ml. LJ,\'c ,t(,I.t'.IIlI,rc.
La,re.vI,mi,ra,lo!. Le, rc,nilll ["l.t:" L. rc,vcJJ.mJ.!ol. L3 rr, vr 13,1(,1 "'I ..
La.rc,vrJ"l.mi,b. Ln,rc, vt,l(,!.t:',llll. La, tC.I11M'r.t., I,,!. L.,.re,nll'\'[,r.,l.tJ.
La,te,r11l,ta,vr.!;,1. La, re, Illi,t.dol,vr. L:I. tC , ml 101"'1 11. L, re.ml 101 h \ r.
L",dJ,vc,1Il1 !01. .LJ,rc.lJ,vr.!ül, Illl, Lue,tl 1lI1,\'[ [,,1. l.a.rdo.Il1I.(,I,vr.
La·rc,["tol,vr,mi. L,. re,f.dol.ml,vr. L:I, re, lül,vr,nll.t.,. I..l tr 10IvI,f.l n",
La're.rol, mi,vr,h La. rrlol,nu'[a, vt. La, re.!oU:l,Vt,ml. L"rc.tül.f.l,ml n.
La,mi,vt,rc'[aJol. La, ml, vt,rc/oIS" La, In!, v[.fJ'I<,,(;'1. L.,.rTl,\'[.fafol,rc ..
La,mr,vr-,fol.,e,r.1. La, mr.vrJol.fa, rc. LJ,nll,rc.\ t.fa.fo!. L" ml,rc. \'[ !o 1.1.1.
La,ml.rc,(J,vc,(ol. La,mi,r<' ,fa,[ol,vr. La.l1l1,lr ,fol,VT ,h La,nll,rc,f,,! ,fl. \ I.
La,mi,~J>vt,rc,fo!. La,mi,fa,vt'[ol,rc. La,ml,tJ,rc,n J,.1. LJ,IIlI,fl.re,li,l,v['
LJ,ml,b'{ol, vr,rc. La.mi,b.,fol,rc ,vr. La,nll ,lol,\'t ,I e,t:'. LJ,ml,I,,1 ,vc ,fJ,ro,
L~,ml,fol,rc,vr,fJ. La,ml'[ol,rc,fa,vt. La,ml.{ül,fa,vr,re. LJ,nn,fol,h,rr,\ r.
La,fa,vr.re,mi,fol. La,fa,v r.rr.fol,ml. La'(J,vr ,mi ,rc,[o I, LJ,tJ'\'I,lTlr,fol,rr,
La, fa,vc,fol,rr,mi. La,tQ,vt.rol,mi,rr. La.ta,rc,vc,ml,I,)l.l.J,r:"rr,vf,f()l ,I»i.
La,fa,rc,mi,vc,f(,I.La,fa,n:,mi,fol,vc, u,f"n:,lol,~r,lIll. La,fa.rr,lol,IIlI,\ r.
La,fa,tUl,vr,rr,fol. La,fa.mi,vc'[ol,rr. L:l,IJ,Il1I,r(",n ,(.,1. La,b,ml,,·<, ,1,,1,\ r,
LJ,f.l,nufol,vt.rc. La,fJ.nll,[ol,rc ,Vf. La,b,I;,l, vr,rr,ml. L."ftJ"I,vr .mi,!:.
L1,f.l,rol,rc,vr,mi. La,f."fol,rc,ml,vr. La,f.,,r,,r,l11l,vr,re. LJ,tJ.I;,J,I111,rr ,\ r.
1. \. I;:.
Fig. 39. From: Harmonie universelle, Livre second des chants, p. 114.
114 CHAPTER 3
only a more profound inquiry into Mersenne's musical thought will be able
to solve.
3.5.6. Conclusions
Mersenne's was the first full-fledged application of the experimental method

to the science of music. Though inferior to Gallleo as a theorist, in the field
of music he far excelled him as an experimenter. Through his experiments
he established quite a few new acoustical phenomena, like overtones and
beats, that later would turn out to be indispensable ingredients for a new and
better theory of consonance than the coincidence theory. In fact Mersenne
was better equipped for devising such a theory than any of his contem-
poraries, owing to his impressive command of the whole field as well as to
his awareness of the shortcomings of the current theory. However, he failed
to frame a new theory that would be able to account for all those obstinate
facts that were known to no one better than to Mersenne himself. This
ultimate failure was due, above all, to two different factors.
The first was inherent in the natural phenomena under consideration.
As long as the vibrations of the air were interpreted as pulses rather than as
successive condensations and rarefactions of the air, resulting in longitudinal
waves, further progress in acoustics was severely impeded. In particular it
remained impossible to account for the phenomenon of overtones and to
understand tone production in organ pipes.
But in the fmal analysis it was Mersenne's doubting attitude regarding the
possibility of ever satisfactorlly explaining consonance Ca posture ultimately
deriving from his scepticism as to the explanatory power of science itselt)
that precluded his improving the coincidence theory, whose shortcomings he
was so c1early aware of. Owing to this scepticism he feIt insufficient incentive
for inventing hypotheses that would be able to fill the gaps in his original
theory. For he could always fall back on the good old dichotomy between
scientific and aesthetic analysis, and hesitatingly assure his readers that never
the twain would meet.

3 The Experimental Approach

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3 The Experimental Approach

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CHAPTER 3

THE EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

In the preceding chapter we investigated the results of the mathematical

3.1. GIOVANNI BATTISTA BENEDETTI

Giovanni Battista Benedetti (1530-1590) is the prototypical forerunner,

With these words the letter ends.

3.2. VINCENZO GALILEI

Of aH the musico-scientists discussed in this book, Vincenzo Galilei (c.

treatment of dissonance and in a freer-flowing melody that is no longer part

3.2.1. The Singer's Dilemma

These points induced Galilei to address larlino directly.

The ensuing controversy is interpreted by Palisca as folIows.

This argument, Palisca says, reflects Galilei's overall rejection of rationalist

3.2.2. Smashing the Senario

3.2.3. Summary and Conc/usions

Vincenzo Galilei's contributions to musical science may be summed up in

mentally what unaccompanied singers do, rather than endlessly ratiocinating

3.3. GALILEO GALILEI

3.3.1. Pendulums and Resonance

So suddenly an illustration of resonance has turned into a demonstration of

And neither have I.

sharpen the Tone of a String, viz. by shortning it, by stretching it, or by

3.3.2. The Coincidence Theory ofConsonance

Having established that pitch is not only determined by the number of

On this conc1usion the First Day ends.

they stand to each other not as 4: 3: 2, but rather as {- : t :t = 2: ~ : 4.

Another difference with Benedetti's account is that Galileo was much

3.4. THE NATURE OF THE COINCIDENCE THEORY

SO far as to Galileo's presentation of the coincidence theory. Let us pause

Ratio (frequencies) Product

itself two different Ways, in Submission to the ever disagreeing Percussion',

3.5. MARIN MERSENNE

Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) was, as it were, the secretary ofthe Scientiftc

Both features resulting from these convictions, namely an un-Galilean

account is based on a perusal of Harmonie universelle, for the acoustical

3.5.1. The 'Abstract ofMusical Theory'

Attempts to find equally dear-cut laws describing the tone production

Though completely at a loss to explain where the overtones came from,

3.5.3. The Coincidence Theory Put to the Test

Nam & ego confitebor tibi in vatis pfalmi veritltc tuam:

is characterized by attempts, on the one hand, to account for these problems

Table of sweetness Table of agreeability

The Degree ofConsonance ofthe Fourth

since he re reason and experience seem to contradict each other. Mersenne

The Degree 01 Consonance 01 the Thirds and the Sixths

There is no number of motions or percussions of the air that is not commensurable to

Accounting [ar Temperament

The Ear and the Soul

3.5.4. The Division ofthe Octave

more extensively in Section 6.2.2.). One of them is equal temperament, that

3.5.5. Quantifying All Possible Music

114 Lime Second

Sol, rc,ml.f.l,V[,iJ. Sol,rc'l\u,t:,.b, vt. Sol, rc,mb!."vr fl. \ol,rc.ml>l.,.h·\ 1.

Mersenne's was the first full-fledged application of the experimental method

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