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temperament

🔗Christian Sabat Montiel <esabat@...>

10/10/1995 5:17:41 AM
>Harpsichords and Related Topics
>Tom Parsons
>Subject: Re: temperaments

> I read somewhere once (in Barbour?) that e.t.
> was first worked out by a Chinese mathematician incredibly far back in
> the past. And the author pointed out that in the Chinese musical
> system there was no need for it.
> (If someone knows more recent scholarship on this, I'd be interested
> to hear of it.)

On 27 Nov - 1 Dec 1978, there was an ASA Joint Meeting at Sheraton-Waikiki
Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii, where I spoke on Dynamic Gamut. (See JASA, Vol. 64,
Supplement No. 1, Fall 1978, p. S151 CCC8, Dynamic Gamut).

Inmediately before my lecture (p. S151, CCC7) Mr. George W. Mulder spoke
((National Music Camp Division of the Interlochen Center for the Arts,
Interlochen, MI 49643)) on " A striving toward equal temperament: Prince Tsai-
yu in 1595 at Peking, Simon Stevin shortly thereafter at Amsterdam.

ABSTRACT
"Did East meet West in 1595? Equal tempered approximations 1595, Peking and
Amsterdam or the riddle of the abacus and logarithms. Both Tsai-yu and Stevin
set down the mathematical figures for equal temperament. Tsai-yu calculated
the 12th root of 2 by means of the abacus, carefully computing the appropriate
root for each note separately - correct to nine decimals. Stevin's
calculations on the other hand, finding 11 mean-proportional parts between 2
and 1, were based upon the 45th proposition of his French arithmetic."

--Eduardo

Eduardo Sabat-Garibaldi E-mail : esabat@chasque.apc.org
Simon Bolivar 1260 Phone: (05982) 78 09 52
11300 Montevideo FAX : (05982) 29 83 91 (Automatico)
Uruguay

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