Monochord in the context of "Fingering (music)"

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⭐ Core Definition: Monochord

A monochord, also known as sonometer (see below), is an ancient musical and scientific laboratory instrument, involving one (mono-) string (chord). The term monochord is sometimes used as the class-name for any musical stringed instrument having only one string and a stick shaped body, also known as musical bows. According to the Hornbostel–Sachs system, string bows are bar zithers (311.1) while monochords are traditionally board zithers (314). The "harmonical canon", or monochord is, at its least, "merely a string having a board under it of exactly the same length, upon which may be delineated the points at which the string must be stopped to give certain notes," allowing comparison.

A string is fixed at both ends and stretched over a sound box. One or more movable bridges are then manipulated to demonstrate mathematical relationships among the frequencies produced. "With its single string, movable bridge and graduated rule, the monochord (kanōn [Greek: law]) straddled the gap between notes and numbers, intervals and ratios, sense-perception and mathematical reason." However, "music, mathematics, and astronomy were [also] inexorably linked in the monochord." As a pedagogical tool for demonstrating mathematical relationships between intervals, the monochord remained in use throughout the Middle Ages.

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In this Dossier

Monochord in the context of Cent (music)

The cent is a logarithmic unit of measure used for musical intervals. Twelve-tone equal temperament divides the octave into 12 semitones of 100 cents each. Typically, cents are used to express small intervals, to check intonation, or to compare the sizes of comparable intervals in different tuning systems. For humans, a single cent is too small to be perceived between successive notes.

Cents, as described by Alexander John Ellis, follow a tradition of measuring intervals by logarithms that began with Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz in the 17th century. Ellis chose to base his measures on the hundredth part of a semitone, , at Robert Holford Macdowell Bosanquet's suggestion. Making extensive measurements of musical instruments from around the world, Ellis used cents to report and compare the scales employed, and further described and utilized the system in his 1875 edition of Hermann von Helmholtz's On the Sensations of Tone. It has become the standard method of representing and comparing musical pitches and intervals.

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Monochord in the context of Scolica enchiriadis

Scolica enchiriadis is an anonymous ninth-century music theory treatise and commentary on its companion work, the Musica enchiriadis. These treatises were once attributed to Hucbald, but this is no longer accepted.

The Scolica enchiriadis is written as a tripartite dialogue, and despite being a commentary on the Musica enchiriadis, it is nearly three times as long. Much of the theory discussed by the treatise is indebted to Augustinian conceptions of music, especially its affirmations of the importance of mathematics to music as kindred disciplines of the quadrivium. Later sections draw heavily on the music theory of Boethius and Cassiodorus, two early medieval authors whose works on music were widely read and circulated hundreds of years after their death. The treatise makes use of the monochord to explain interval relations. The treatise also discusses singing technique, ornamentation of plainchant, and polyphony in the style of organum.

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Monochord in the context of Franz Melde

Franz Emil Melde (March 11, 1832, in Großenlüder near Fulda – March 17, 1901, in Marburg) was a German physicist and professor. A graduate of the University of Marburg under Christian Ludwig Gerling, he later taught there, focusing primarily on acoustics, also making contributions to fields including fluid mechanics and meteorology. He began in 1860 as Gerling's assistant at the University's Mathematical and Physical Institute, succeeding him in 1864.

Standing waves were first discovered by Melde, who coined the term "standing wave" (stehende Welle) around 1860. What is known as "Melde's experiment", "a lecture-room standby", demonstrates standing waves and their patterns on a string, is used to measure the speed of transverse wave, and to determine the effect of tension, length, and mass on the transverse waves of a string. In 1859 Melde generated parametric oscillations in a string by employing a tuning fork to periodically vary the tension at twice the resonance frequency of the monochord string.

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