rkipp Posted December 7, 2001 Share Posted December 7, 2001 A friend of mine is working on a project, and they e-mailed me, hoping that I would know how musical frequencies were measured before the creation of the Hertz (cycles per second) system. If anyone knows a thing or to about this, I would be most appreciative if you could respond (now that I am interested in hearing the answer as well). Thanks in advance for any responses. P.S. Just got back last weekend from Montreal, went up to see the Musical Box again, this time performing the Selling England by the Pound tour, what a show! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coren Posted December 8, 2001 Share Posted December 8, 2001 I dont think that frequency was measured differntly before cycles per second or hertz, they sorta go hand in hand "frequency: the rate at which an acoustic generator, electrical signal (such as ac powers lines, 60hz) or vibrating mass repeats a cycle of positive and negative amplitude is known as the frequency of that signal" i would imagine that it all came about at the same time. but as to how music was measured before frequency/hertz, i am at a loss to know. maybe someone specializing in classical knows how the managed tuning back then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skynare Posted December 8, 2001 Share Posted December 8, 2001 "how musical frequencies were measured before the creation of the Hertz (cycles per second) system" I don't know much about historical site of musical frequencies, but I found that there is some universal phenomenon called octave equvalancy(Sorry for my Eng.)so every scale of the world has an octave even though different culture divides octave differently. My point is people might measured frequencies according to distance among a base note, an ovtave high note, and a target note only by ear. S K Y N A R E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slowly Posted December 9, 2001 Share Posted December 9, 2001 Maybe this will jog somebodies memory. I do know the TUNING FORK was around almost like forever. And they probably used a lot of realive pitch instead of absolute. Like in band class in high school we always had to tune our brass to whatever the woodwinds were at, might be why I don`t have perfect pitch now. Casey P.S. As I was typing this I do remember something I read on the 'net' that concerns this. I will find it. This is pre- electrical age stuff here. http://www.casaninja.com/christi/academic/classicaltuning.html [ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: kcbass ] "Let It Be!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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