Musical Intervals Quotes

In accordance with the foregoing investigations on mathematical principles, let bronze vessels be made, proportionate to the size of the theatre, and let them be so fashioned that, when touched, they may produce with one another the notes of the fourth, the fifth, and so on up the double octave.

Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic.

I am the rest between two notes which are somehow always in discord.

Music assists him in the use of harmonic and mathematical proportion.

At its heart, music is all higher mathematics.

I played trumpet in the school bands. I learned things I liked to play on my trumpet, but I didn't learn why this note goes with this note and why it produces that sound. Or how to create tension in the composition.

A lot of people don't realize that guitar playing is very much like singing or playing any of the glissando-type instruments - you have to do it in tune.

I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.

I do remember, though, when I discovered the third! I was about five years old - it was a very pleasing sound. I remembered that if I hit one note, then skipped one and played the next, I could get this really good sound.

There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.

There's something mathematically satisfying about music: notes fit together and harmony and all that. And mathematics has to do with abstractions and making connections.

Harmony is an obscure and difficult musical science, but most difficult to those who are not acquainted with the Greek language; because it is necessary to use many Greek words to which there are none corresponding in Latin.

A lot of music is mathematics. It's balance.

I've approached music with the understanding that knowledge is available regarding tones and their effect upon the body. I think the father of that knowledge was the mathematician Pythagoras who lived several thousand years ago. Pythagoras was also a fine musician and he knew specifically what tones would affect which parts of the body.

They flat their fifths, we drink ours.

Nevertheless, one doesn't have time to think, oh, well, this is a quarter tone sharp, or flat.

How much can you do with two voices? You can sing thirds or you can sing fifths or you can do a background harmony.

Music is a science, in many ways it's mathematical.

I found a favorite chord, which is B flat 7 - that's my favorite chord.

I don't know one note from another.

You can sightread better if you know your scales and arpeggios.

Music is mathematics, the mathematics of listening, mathematics for the ears.

As a melody instrument player, it's all about getting from one note to the next, and those intervals and how you navigate your way through these vertical structures of chords. You realize that everything's moving forward, and it's all linear.

Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.

I'm a guy where my perfect pitch has been altered by the fact that I usually tune up to what's going on. When I was a kid, it was horrible! If two notes were playing right next to each other, and they were dissonant, it would drive me nuts. If it was something that sounded like it was in between notes, it'd make me cringe.