» Harmonograph: A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music (Wooden Books)

Harmonograph: A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music (Wooden Books) Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Really Music but Interesting All the Same
Comment: Let me first say that I like this book and the visuals are incredible. But a harmonograph is essentially a spirograph with a PhD and the resulting pictures will not teach you about music. What they are is a fantastic example of how something both absolutely certain and very abstract like a musical third, which is just a ratio, can be represented graphically. Its almost like being able to make a graph of an emotion. They are beatuiful and artistic but not really an analytical tool in the traditional sense of a graph.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Sound Made Visible
Comment: Humans have known or intuited that sound not only has form but it organizes matter.
Throughout history individuals have found ways to demonstrate (and make visible) this profound fact.
We know that music & sound is vibration. (within the audible range)
Scientists and mystics understand that EVERYTHING is vibration.
Therefore Everything is Sound.
The notion that EVERYTHING is in perfect order & can ultimately be understood by number is purely a Pythagorean notion. "Harmony of the Spheres" were his expression that "our solar system, the cosmos, everything that IS... IS a perfect symphony".
The "Harmonograph" is a simple classic for the individual interested this subject.
I recommend it for children and adults alike.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A delightful little book
Comment: I didn't know what quite to expect with this book; I wasn't familiar with the term "harmonograph" before getting this text.

This is a small book with about 25 topics, each discussed on 1 or 2 pages. It links together many concepts from our past (including the 19th century harmonograph) and the mathematics underneath them. This is one book which satisfyingly explains the concept of an even-tempered scale -- something I had been pondering for a long time.

You could say this book is a group of different stories about the vibrations in music, and the relationship between those vibrations. Vibrations are important for us to understand: our bones float; our bodies are springy and resilient. The math and physics of vibrations -- scientists call it "simple harmonic motion" -- can get rather tricky. Most of use stop our math classes before they get to this point. On the other hand, there are many topics in this field that are understandable without all of those complicated scribbles; this book lovingly explores many of them.

My main gripe is that there are few links for the DIY types to go try this stuff hands-on. There must be some websites which have virtual harmonographs; the author should have found these. And it's a darn shame that so few of these machines are around. I make it a point of seeing lots of science museums; I've never seen a harmonograph.

We forget how many wonderful things before we had computers. Things like the harmonograph have a delightful physicality; that's something we've lost in our "modern" society.

I highly recommend this book to a young high-school student. There are hidden delights in the drawings and historical references. For such a small book, there is a surprising depth of detail.

I can't wait to explore the rest of this series.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Comment: Short and easy to read with beautiful illustrations, this is a nice addition to your collection if you are interested in the connections between sounds and visuals.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: huh ???
Comment: After about 5 pages into this thing I found myslelf becoming more and more baffled, as the author continually threw out various terminology with no explanation of it. I kept at it for a while and it didn't get any better. He has all sorts of drawings and diagrams, but again -- he does not define his terms or even give you a clue as to where find any definitions. If the book had a glossary this would be marginally tolerable, but it doesn't and it isn't. This is too bad, because the topic is fascinating and the author is obviously very knowlegeable. Unfortunately he seems incapable of sharing this knowlege with the reader.

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