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Barker - Nicomachus

Acústica y organología

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51 views13 pages

Barker - Nicomachus

Acústica y organología

Uploaded by

adaycr2001
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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244 Greek Musical Writings through perception, and he né postulate with which perception will not agree. For he says that music is not only a rational (logikos] branch of learning, but is perceptu Harmonic Elements." So let that complete our account of the difference between the criterion of the Pythagoreans and that of Aristoxenus, an account that has also related, in a more general way, the postulates of other musical ‘experts about these matters." CHAPTER 10 Nicomachus \Nicomachus belongs to roughly t Greek achievements inthis eld, Among were an introduction to geometry and a biography of his certainly derived from ce presentation of Pythagorean theories ‘of numbers, such as are tet out much more ics has the honour of being the only work red complete from the period licomacho. Programme ofthe Enchiniondifers markety fom tat of any Arisosng treatise, and has litle in common Pythagorising cocentrie and incomplete, lying the workings ofthe universe at large. Such an approach isto be expected from the writer of the Theologoumena Arithmeticae. Nicomachus’ 245; 246 Greek Musical Writings reverence towards number and his bel though he makes no use here of the mi nothing. These, it can fairly be ass the concord and the tone). Chapter 6 iscovery of these basic ratios, and speaks of their chords, the sizes ofthe intervals involved, and an account ofthe conjunctions and disjunctions berween tetrachords. The terminology here is mainly Aristoxenian, but a Nicomachus 247 farther details chat the last sentences ofthe chapter mention and postpone satment elsewhere, is division of the kann’ in proper Pythagorean syle, chapter. Perhaps Nicomachus wat merely uneasy at having so far ai explicate these apparently important notions, and fited them in here as best he could. that once again promises a fuller treatment ‘of Nicomachus’ teatite are sometimes muddled, often naive, But branch ofthe tradition differs sharply from that which through Eratosthenes and Didymus to Prolemy (see the Appendix hy, could find in Nicomachus a straightforward hich others had surrounded with mathematical I commentaries on the dialogues of Plato. ‘and works of Nicomachus see expecially D'Ooge (1926). The most suber study ofthe Enchidon in Eng is Lovin 79 10 The Enchiridion Chapter 1 That this book is a manual serving as a memorandum of the elementary teachings of Harmonics ‘Though the description involved in the elements of harmonics is her in a single memorandum, and though I especially, because of the restlessness and hurry of a travellers life, am unable to devote myself with unruffled attention and mental concentration to the teaching of these matters, whose proper clarification demands above all both an opportune moment and careful ae 248 Greek Musical Writings reasoning, with leisure and without distraction, nevertheless, best and noblest of women, I must arouse my greatest efforts, since it is you who have bidden ‘me at least to set out the major propositions for you in simple form, without elaboration or complex demonstrations, and to do so at once, so that by having, these propositions collected in a single synopsis, and and more accurate introduction to these ma a fully reasoned argument, as the saying got I be in several books, and shall send it to you at the first opportunity, wherever I am told that you are living.* But now, to make my exposition easy to follow, I shall begin from the ‘same place where I began my instruction when I was expounding these things to you in person. Chapter 2 Concerning the two forms of vocal sound, the intervallic ‘and the continuous, and the spaces occupied by each ‘Those belonging to the Pythagorean school used to say that there are two types of human vocal sound, standi changes between each of its pa which is articulated and divid magnitudes which go with each note, beside one another as it were aggregation, not in a blended tinguished, and in no way ro one another.* For sound in song is such as to display all the notes clearly to those who understand the subject, showing, Nicomachus 249 hhow great is the magnitude possessed by each. Anyone who employs sound ‘otherwise is said not to sing, but to speak. The other kind, the continuous, is that by which we converse with one another or read aloud, when we have no ‘need to make clear the pitches of the notes and to distinguish them from one another, but string out our speech continuously until we have completed what we are saying.* Anyone who, while conversing, or recounting something, or ns between the magnitudes associated ing the vocal sound from one to the next, is + then human vocal sound is of two kinds, they believed quite reasonably here are also two spaces, each occupied by one of them in the course of its motion.” The space occupied by the continuous species is by nature in magnitude, and takes its own particular limit from the point at which the speaker starts to ch: is the space between the first utterance and Hence the greater part of it to grasp and to ‘compare the magnitudes of sounds and the differences between them from the Point at which our hearing is first found to operate, though it is possible for there to be produced in nature still fainter sounds, not yet perceptible by us, and for these to escape our notice." In the same way, for instance, there are 4 This paraphrases the content of 7 Avstox. Bl Harm. 819-25, 21-24 * This sentence may refer eo the third "intermediate" sor of veal movement introduced os) in which the voice moves e, machus" main source here) 250 Greek Musical Writings bodies which reveal no weight on a balance ~ bits of chaff or bran or other such things ~ but when under the addition of a number of such things the beginning cof movement is detected, we say that we have the first candidate for the science In the same way, when faintness in sound is gradually augmented ether we relate this account ips, oF to that made by instruments, whether stringed, blown or percussive, which are constructed by way of imitation of the sound we make ourselves." Let us pass over the distinction between them for the time being, to avoid fragmenting our exposition right at the outset. Chapter 3 That the first music among sensible things is studied in connection with the planets, and that the music that exists among us is studied as an imitation of that one That the names given to the notes have been taken from the seven stars which irades with higher pitcher: se expecially chapter 1, tnd the penultimate sentence ofchaper€. Then iis by augmentation i 4 tound is brought up to pitch that we can antes (compare the analogo ideas of 8 Buck Sect. Can. 148-3). "> Thi final limit is evidently the upper boundary ofthe range of pitch that x melodially able "4 What Nicomachus would say on this issue isnot clear, given that some instruments can thatthe vice 24 point upper Tie of melody falls ‘origin of some ofthe names isin doubo) Nicomachus 251 medium that is readily stirred into waves must make noises differing from one another in their magnitude and in the range of their sound,"*in relation either to their respective masses or to their particular velocities or to the positions in which the swinging movement of each is completed, such positions being either hhas been entitled a ‘god’ [theos] and ‘aether’ ‘Now from the course of Saturn, which is highest in relation to us, the deepest note in the octave was named “hypate’ (‘uppermost’), for what is highest is Uuppermost.”° From that of the Moon, which is furthest down of all and circles " \They are the Pythagorean: ef for example, 1.6 Arist. De Calo agob, ‘Range’ word rendered a apace that a given ote can occupy. The ler seems tobe the seme here se 17 below. "The fe ‘whose orbits shift, sometimes coming closer to a0 adjacent sable orbit sometimes ‘moving further away (ie the ‘The emda ometio aeeel fac. Nicomachus now seek fo ato ‘38-5, Niomachut!

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