Abstract
ACCORDING to Helmholtz's well-known theory1, the consonance or dissonance of a chord depends on the extent to which its component fundamental tones and their overtones produce beats. Even a cursory study of the methods of musicians, however, and the experience of listening to music, make it seem possible that in actual practice the degree of harshness of dissonances varies considerably according to the way in which they are used and on their context of surrounding chords. A short experiment was planned to test this possibility.
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References
Myers, C. S., "A Text-book of Experimental Psychology" (3rd Ed.), Pt. 1, 52–55 (1928).
Fisher, R. A., "Statistical Methods for Research Workers" (8th Ed.), 186–187 (1941).
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GARDNER, P., PICKFORD, R. Relation between Dissonance and Context. Nature 152, 358 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/152358a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/152358a0
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