Talk:Cent (music)

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This article is part of the WikiProject Tunings, Temperaments, and Scales to improve Wikipedia's articles related to musical tunings, temperaments, and scales.

I pulled this from the article, where it is not appropriate. It seems to be part of a copy and paste - but is it a copyvio? Ian Cairns 17:37, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• QUESTION:

Hello, I once saw a formula for converting from a ratio or a frequency to cents that did not involve the use of the logarithmic function [log] on the web, but the site it was on has since vanished, after doing an extensive search on the web and in an encyclopedia and several "physics of music" books, I've come up empty handed. If some one can help out I would be very appreciative and it would be a welcome addition to this short page for such a contrived topic as this. Thanks in advance.

I'm sorry, but you're talking about mapping from a geometric scale (frequency) to an arithmetic scale (cents) and there's no other way to do that except with logarithms. Contrived topic?

Ian, why would you think this is a copyvio? It's just a question. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:02, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The measure was developed by A. J. Ellis around the 1870s

Hi, I am reading in this little book by M. le Baron de Prony, Instruction Elémentaire sur les moyens de calculer les intervalles musicaux ("en prenant, pour unités ou termes de comparaison, soit l'octave, soit le douzième d'octave,..." Firmin Didot, Paris. 1834) where he introduces a notation for intervals using logarithmic tables and writes about "centièmes de demiton" comparing just intonation to equal temperament. Bosanquet also proposes that semitones are convenient expressing intervals but cedes De Morgan's precedent for the method of calculation used in On the Theory of the Division of the Octave. Mireut 20:55, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I found a relevant passage from Ellis: "The first person to propose the measuring of musical intervals by equal Semitones was, I believe, de Prony, but I have not been able to see his pamphlet ; the next was the late Professor de Morgan ("Cam. Phil. Trans.," x, 129), from whom I learned it, and I employed it in the Appendix of my translation of Helmholtz, by the advice of Mr. Bosanquet. Having found that two places of decimals sufficed for most purposes, I was led to take the second place, or hundredth of an equal Semitone as the unit, and I have extensively employed this practice, here for the first time published, with the greatest advantage. In fact, I do not know how I could have expressed the results of the present investigation in any other brief and precise, and at the same time suggestive, method." (Ellis, A. (1884) Tonometrical Observations on some existing Non harmonic Musical Scales.) Mireut 15:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)