On the Sensations of Tone (Dover Books On Music: Acoustics)

A gift for my sone; I expect that he will enjoy it,

This book covers a lot of material in a lot of detail. It is amazing to me how Helmoltz was able to explore acoustics in such depth despite how crude the instrumentation was that was available in that era (more than a century ago). No computers. No oscilloscopes. No function generators. No loudspeakers. No microphones. He had to invent his own instrumentation, but he was incredibly imaginative in doing that. My wife and I were fighting over the book so we bought an extra copy! She's a music student and I'm an engineer, so we we drawn to different parts of the book. But it is only suitable for people with a strong academic background.

This is an absolutely wonderful book. Not only does it lay the foundations for psycho-acoustics, but it documents the brilliance and creativity shown by Helmholtz in devising experiments to understand the nature of sound and its perception that relied purely on Victorian pre-electronic technology. Why only one star? Because Dover has botched the current reprinting.I have a Dover printing from the 1980s, which I love, and bought a couple of new copies to give to musician/techie friends who hadn't heard of it. Alas, while the current printing (which can be identified by an orange colored spine, where the older Dover printings had a spine the same grey-green color as the front cover) still contains the statement on the copyright page "This Dover edition, first published in 1954, is an unabridged and unaltered of the second (1885) edition of the Ellis translation", it's not true. Some of the illustrations have been vandalized! This is quite obvious on page 40, where there's an engraving of a resonator box with a tuning fork on the top. On my 20th century copy, and on the digital version on Google Books, it's very clear. In the orange-spined 21st century reprint, someone took it on themselves to modify the image to make the tuning fork unrecognizable and the diagram incomprehensible. I don't see how it could be a printing error - it's not a distortion of a single image, nor a doubling of the whole image, but a small amount of graphic copy-and-pasted over the original. The best guess we have is that it was done for copyright protection, but in a book like this, that would amount to scientific and historical vandalism.

Outstanding service.

"On The Sensations of Tone," by Hermann Von Helmholtz is a classic treatise on the physics of sound. and how it is the foundation of musical structure. For many years I have wanted this book, and now Ihave it. The science of sound is the same today as it was in the 1800's when this book was written. Itis a must have for anyone involved in audio or musical instruments. This is a big book, lots of valuable material. The fact that it is still available is a blessing. I can't put it down. Jackie Jones

This book deals with the physics of music, requires familiarity with musical terms and with at least basics of physics /math. It could be challenging to read, but for those interested in physics behind perception of musics it is essential reading.

This is a beautiful book, containing Helmholtz's limpid descriptions of the experiments he designed to elucidate the neuroscience of music. It is written for the interested non-specialist and succeeds admirably. From the physics of wavelengths to the aesthetics of harmony, a layperson such as myself with no background in music theory is led through a journey into the deepest mysteries of the human brain.

This is a reprint of the 1954 Dover edition, which is in turn a reprint of the 1885 edition. The font is small and a little hard to read, and the margins are too wide. I wonder if the size has been reduced compared to the original.

There is so much information packed into this book that it is worth a purchase, but the language is very boring and monotone. I know this is an essay in the sense that it needs to be written in a biased manner, but it just sounds so scientific and monotone; the words and sentences are basic, there's no life in them. This is an English translation, so I don't know if it is the author, or the translator.Speaking of the translator, the footnotes were not very useful. I found that they did not help add anything to the work, or explained much. Not to mention, they are so lengthy that it spills over to the next page, making it an unpleasant task to look back and forth.

Quick and as described - always a pleasure

Very good book to read.