Bibliography & method
Read past
the interface.
Run each experiment to verify its claim. This page holds the sources behind all of them. Everything here sits inside Western tonal theory, one deep tradition among many.
Book · lecture ILeonard Bernstein
The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard
“Musical Phonology” supplies the opening architecture: the child’s call, vibrating string, sympathetic resonance, harmonic series, octave, fifth, triad, and the analogy between musical and linguistic universals.
Harvard University Press · lectures delivered 1973Book · chapters III–IVArnold Schoenberg
Theory of Harmony
“Consonance and Dissonance” supplies the argument that near and remote partials differ only by degree, because they all belong to one series; the next chapter explores scale and chord as horizontal and vertical interpretations of a tone.
First published 1911 · English translation by Roy E. CarterCore reference layer
Wikipedia reading trail
Used as the public, linkable backbone for definitions, equations, and chronology. Each article points onward to specialist sources.
1Interval (music)Definitions, naming, ratios, cents, classification↗2Harmonic series (music)Partials, tuning variance, timbre, combination tones↗3String vibrationLength, tension, density, wavelength, harmonic modes↗4Consonance and dissonanceHistorical, psychoacoustic, and cultural accounts↗5Pythagorean tuningStacks of fifths, commas, wolf intervals↗6Just intonationWhole-number interval ratios and tuning practice↗7Equal temperamentOctave division and modern keyboard compromise↗8Music and mathematicsHistorical relationship between number and sound↗ ExploreThese pages sit behind the interval names.