# Tentamen novae theoriae musicae



## Uncle Peter (May 11, 2014)

A long shot here - but does anyone know where you can get a copy of Euler's 'Tentamen novae theoriae musicae' in English? I can only find the original Latin text on Amazon. 

Amazing. Leonhard Euler - one of the greatest mathematicians in history writes a paper on music theory and no one pays the slightest bit of interest. o[])


----------



## brunodegazio (May 11, 2014)

I've looked for an English translation of this text a couple of times over the years, without success. 

Good luck. Please post back here if you find anything.


----------



## brunodegazio (May 12, 2014)

Found some interesting material here: 

http://eulerarchive.maa.org/pages/E033.html

including the following statements: 

"An excellent paper about Euler's music theory (and focusing on the Tentamen) by Patrice Bailhache at l'Université de Nantes is available in French and also in an English translation. (Professor Bailhace also has papers about the music theory of d'Alembert, Leibniz, and others available at his web site.) "

"An English translation of the Tentamen was done by Charles Samuel Smith for his Ph.D. dissertation at Indiana University in June 1960, and is available at some libraries. "

There is also a list of about a dozen other papers discussing Euler's music theory.


PS - An English translation of the Bailhache paper mentioned above is available online here: 
http://www.tonalsoft.com/monzo/euler/euler-en.aspx


----------



## Uncle Peter (May 12, 2014)

Thanks very much Bruno - I'll take a look at that. I'll let you know If I find a complete translation.


----------



## Uncle Peter (May 19, 2014)

By the way Bruno you may know already -but apparently both Bach and Euler were at the court of Frederick II in Berlin at the same time and therefore they possibly met o-[][]-o . 

Interestingly Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Kolof a student of Bach's and founder of the Correspondierende Societät der musicalischen Wissenschaften (de) (or “Corresponding Society of the Musical Sciences”) translated part of the work into German. Both Bach and Handel were members. The entry requirements of this society resulted in both the famous 1746/1748 Haussmann portrait of Bach and his Canonic Variations on “Vom Himmel hoch da komm’ ich her” for organ, BWV 769. I reckon Bach would therefore have been familiar with this paper.

It's interesting because Euler came up with some great stuff in mathematics relating to number theory and the distribution of the primes. I did a maths degree actually - I particularly enjoyed number theory and Euler's work. I'm SURE he had some interesting stuff to say about music theory. 

I read Marcus Du Sautoy's 'Music of The Primes' recently and it re-sparked my interest in number theory but also math/music - Great book btw. 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Music-Primes-Unsolved-Mathematics/dp/1841155802
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgqEaUT8Qo0

Like for instance a theory of melody. Why is it certain sequences of notes (fractions of the root) played in certain fractions of the time unit (some measure of tempo and timesig) sound good? Take the Rolling Stones - I can't get no satisfaction guitar riff. Great melody - so simple and catchy it just has to fall into some kine of melody generator formula. I reckon the whole thing has to do with the distribution of the primes and the solutions of Riemanns Zeta function. The solutions of this thing - which give rise to the distribution of the primes are basically frequencies (hence the title of the book). Primes are the building blocks of numbers - hence it would make sense for them to be somehow at the root of music. 

Don't know about you but whenever I've written a melody that i think sounds good - I feel like I've discovered a combination that works, rather than having invented it.

Still haven't found an English translation - Maybe I'll get someone to translate it.


----------



## MA-Simon (May 21, 2014)

Do you mean this:

Leonard Euler's Tentaman Novae Theoriae Musicae: A Translation and Commentary
Autor:	Charles Samuel Smith
Verlag:	Indiana University, 1960
Länge:	720 Seiten

http://books.google.de/books?id=8w-2NwA ... CFAQ6AEwBA

It says there are 2 copies avaiable:

University of Chicago Library 
Chicago, IL 60637 United States

Univ D'Ottawa/Univ of Ottawa 
Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5 Canada


Edit:
I went into reserch a little bit, because its a hot day, and I'm bored.
(Also I never researched something like this, so its also interesting)

http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/using/ill/

There is a service avaiable to scan & deliver books.
The book is avaiable in both Print & Microfilm format...

...but unfortunally only for teachers & students. It also says here:

http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/scananddeliver


> In addition, staff will not copy material placed on course reserve, held in the Special Collections Research Center, or that are in microform. Staff will copy up to 75 pages of a requested item as long as this does not exceed the above copyright policy. Staff will process one chapter or article per request. Please submit requests for two articles or two chapters on separate requests.



So you probably have to go and visit the place yourself.


----------



## Uncle Peter (May 29, 2014)

Thanks for the info


----------

