Book on microtonal scales?

August 3, 2005 7:30 AM

Can anyone recommend a book on musical scale systems/microtonality?

I’m looking for something that doesn’t assume the reader has a lot of knowledge already, and explains the maths in a clear way, but is complete enough to use as a practical guide for experimenting with the scales. I’d like it to spend time on modern tunings and scales from around the world, rather than loads about the history of even temperament.

If there’s anything on the web along these lines I’d be interested as well.

posted by lunkfish to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Tonal Harmony by Kostka is one place to start.
posted by caddis at 8:32 AM on August 3, 2005

I've been looking for something like this.
posted by bshort at 8:41 AM on August 3, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks, but “Tonal Harmony” doesn't look like it's on the right lines. That seems to focus on standard music theory. To clarify, what I’m after is something that goes into how ratios are related to pitches, the harmonic series and how scales are constructed, with information on ‘Xenharmonic’ scales and other systems such as ragas.
posted by lunkfish at 8:58 AM on August 3, 2005

I took in a great lecture from Dave Benson on synthetic scales and overtone series. He has a big PDF of lecture notes on his site and promises it will become a book to be published next year. You may find the material in chapters five and six particularly interesting, or at least the bibliography should lead you to something up your alley.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:20 AM on August 3, 2005

I'd recommend Kyle Gann's web page Just Intonation Explained and the book The Just Intonation Primer. You should also check out two good Yahoo discussion groups: MakeMicroMusic and Tuning.
posted by DaveSeidel at 3:14 PM on August 3, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks guys
posted by lunkfish at 1:17 AM on August 4, 2005