Measured Tones: The Interplay of Physics and Music, 3rd Edition, by Ian Johnston

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Measured Tones: The Interplay of Physics and

Music, 3rd edition, by Ian Johnston
Article in Contemporary Physics November 2010
DOI: 10.1080/00107514.2010.482245
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Stephen H Ashworth
University of East Anglia
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Measured Tones: The Interplay of Physics and Music, 3rd edition, by Ian
Johnston
Stephen H. Ashwortha
a
University of East Anglia,
First published on: 31 August 2010
To cite this Article Ashworth, Stephen H.(2010) 'Measured Tones: The Interplay of Physics and Music, 3rd edition, by Ian
Johnston', Contemporary Physics, 51: 6, 552, First published on: 31 August 2010 (iFirst)
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00107514.2010.482245
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2010.482245
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552
Book reviews
personal purchase by physicists and nonlinear dynamicists, especially those working or teaching in the
area of self-organisation.
Professor Peter V.E. McClintock
Lancaster University
[email protected]
2010, Peter V.E. McClintock
Downloaded By: [Ashworth, Stephen] At: 15:53 28 October 2010
Measured Tones: The Interplay of Physics and Music,

3rd edition, by Ian Johnston, Boca Raton, CRC Press,
2009, 454 pp., $59.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-42009347-6. Scope: monograph. Level: general reader.
Musical notes permeate our society today. My car
indicates that the lights have been left on with a
pleasant dinging, my mobile phone attracts my
attention with a polyphonic melody and my computer
complains to me with a peremptory beep. This is even
before we start to consider more traditional music with
its dierent styles and the instruments which are used
to produce it. If you have ever wondered why we use
the notes we do, why instruments sound dierent and
why they are constructed as they are, look no further:
Measured Tones will answer many, if not all, of your
questions.
Ian Johnston has managed to appeal to a physicist
with an interest in music, to a musician with an interest in
physics or even a general reader who is merely interested.
The subtitle is particularly apt as the book takes a
more or less historical path to consider the interplay of
physics and mathematics with the music of the period.
The rst question to be tackled is why we use the
scales we do. The second is how and why scientic
method and music are inextricably linked. To make
measurements and draw conclusions a given level of
scientic ability is required. It is from those early
measurements and the associated conclusions that the
story starts. It continues in an historical context with
short biographies of the key gures and well thought
out descriptions of their achievements. Very simple
mathematics is dealt with in the text with slightly (and
only very slightly) more involved treatments relegated
to the appendices.
The strict chronological stream of the narrative is
broken up with a series of Interludes which are
interleaved between chapters. Each interlude deals
with a particular type of instrument. There are thus
interludes on brass, the piano, the violin, acoustics in
architecture, woodwind, percussion, electronic instruments and the voice. This structure may appear at rst
sight to be very fragmented but it works surprisingly
well. A given interlude is chosen to illustrate and
develop ideas which were introduced in the chapter

immediately preceding.
I was particularly intrigued by the links that were
drawn out between the frequency components present
in chords, especially what we hear as pleasant, and
how these relate to the anatomy and physiology of the
ear itself. Towards the end of the book we are in a
position to put all these ideas together and consider
dissonances in music in order to account for why music
may have developed the way it has in other cultures,
such as the gamelan music of Indonesia.
The text is accompanied by gures and tables
which are clear and consistent throughout (except for
one small exception). Some of the illustrations are
familiar reproductions of historical pictures. The
original diagrams, however, are extremely clear and
add signicantly to the text.
I was irritated by one or two small things but
fortunately they do not detract signicantly from this
fascinating and well-written book. The author, for
example, has a habit of referring to spectrums
rather than spectra and there is a small inconsistency in the labelling of tables. We are also, in one
case, referred to the wrong appendix but it is
reasonably obvious where one should look instead.
Finally I suspect that cochlear transplant should
read cochlear implant.
The most jarring note for me, however, is unlikely to
be noticed by many readers. In the interlude on brass
instruments the comment is made that . . . in the 20th
century it [the trombone] gained a new prominence in
jazz groups and swing bands, mainly for the thing it can
do that others cannot, play spectacular glissandos. As a
trombone player myself I naturally took exception to
this: the trombone is popular for much more than
merely a glissando, whether spectacular or not!
I devoured the book from cover to cover and
thought overall that it was a wonderful read. It is
exactly the sort of book that I hope someone would
buy me as a present (if I did not already have a copy).
It is now a treasured part of my personal library.
Dr Stephen H. Ashworth
University of East Anglia
[email protected]
2010, Stephen H. Ashworth
Building Scientic Apparatus, 4th ed., by John H.

Moore, Christopher C. Davis, Michael A. Coplan and
Sandra E. Greer, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2009, 662 pp., 45.00 (hardback), ISBN 9780521-87858-6. Scope: reference. Level: anyone using,
designing, modifying or specifying scientic apparatus.

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Measured Tones: The Interplay of Physics and

Available from: Stephen H Ashworth

This article was downloaded by: [Ashworth, Stephen]

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:

First published on: 31 August 2010

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Downloaded By: [Ashworth, Stephen] At: 15:53 28 October 2010

Measured Tones: The Interplay of Physics and Music,

develop ideas which were introduced in the chapter

Building Scientic Apparatus, 4th ed., by John H.

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