Article ID: CBB000930026

Hermann von Helmholtz und Carl Stumpf über Konsonanz und Dissonanz (2008)

unapi

Kursell, Julia (Author)


Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Volume: 31
Pages: 130--143


Publication Date: 2008
Edition Details: Part of a special issue: Science and Music
Language: German

Hermann von Helmholtz and Carl Stumpf on Consonance and Dissonance. The article juxtaposes Hermann von Helmholtz's work in the experimental physiology of hearing and Carl Stumpf's tone psychology, focusing on the problem of consonance and dissonance in music. It argues that the experimental set-up plays a major role in the approaches to hearing of both Helmholtz and Stumpf, shaping their redefinition of the musical concepts of consonance and dissonance. Helmholtz, however, explains dissonance as resulting from the beats that are heard when sound waves interfere, while Stumpf explains consonance from the fusion (Verschmelzung) of sounds, noting that two tones, depending on their distance cannot always be recognized as two but are heard as one single tone. Helmholtz's definition of dissonance eventually threatens his own theory of hearing, which is based on the mechanical principle of resonance and considers sound to be composed of sinusoidal waves. Both the physical and the mathematical tools he uses cannot easily be brought into accordance with his experimental findings on beats, which ask for a discrimination of fast changes in intensity. Dissonance thus becomes unrecomendable for Helmholtz, because it overstrains the ear. Stumpf's research, in contrast, has its point of departure in the historically given set of intervals and tries to find a principle that would explain this choice. His tests with experimental subjects who have no conscious knowledge of musical harmony and prove incapable to follow or reproduce music reveals to him a difference between the unity and multiplicity of tones.

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Description “Juxtaposes Hermann von Helmholtz's work in the experimental physiology of hearing and Carl Stumpf's tone psychology.” (from the abstract)


Included in

Article Ash, Mitchell G. (2008) Wissenschaft und Musik -- Einführende Bemerkungen. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (p. 87). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000930026/

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Authors & Contributors
Kursell, Julia
Hui, Alexandra
Stephen W. Link
Flora Willson
Kvicalova, Anna
Zanarini, Gianni
Concepts
Music
Auditory perception
Acoustics
Harmony (music theory)
Human physiology
Music theory
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
Early modern
Renaissance
Places
Germany
United States
Prague (Czechia)
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