Physics and Music

From the primitive reed pipe to modern music "written" by computers is quite a journey. Here, in informal text and about a score of plates, is a story that takes the teenage layman on this interesting trip. The younger reader, like a good musicologist, follows the steps in the evolution of the most important instruments that make up today's symphony orchestra, and the development of music itself (scales, modes, keys, and temperaments). Physics and music is also a source, although, of necessity a modest one, of information about the music research that has been underway in the Soviet Union, especially in the scientific manufacture of the violin, and in electrophonic and synthetic music. This why the foreign reader might think of a degree of "bias" on the part of the author. Yet, it gives him an insight into what is going on in a country that has given the world quite a number of great composers. Read more