Dictionary:
mon·o·chord (mŏn'ə-kôrd') 
|
[Middle English monocorde, from Old French, from Medieval Latin monochordum, from Greek monokhordon : mono-, mono- + khordē, string; see cord.]
| Music Encyclopedia: Monochord |
An ancient single-string instrument first mentioned in Greece in the 5th century bc, said to have been an invention of Pythagoras. It remained a viable musical device, for teaching, tuning and experimentation, until the advent of more accurate instruments in the late 19th century. In its earliest form its single string was stretched across two fixed bridges erected on a plank or table; a movable bridge was then placed under the string, dividing it into two sections. The marks indicating the position of the fixed bridge were inscribed on the table beneath the string. The length of the instrument was about 90-122 cm. Monochordbased diagrams and directions for determining the consonances abound in medieval treatises.
The monochord is cited in Greek and medieval writings as an ensemble instrument; in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it is often mentioned as a tool in the design or measurement of bells and organ pipes.
| Wikipedia: Monochord |
A monochord is an ancient musical and scientific laboratory instrument. The word "monochord" comes from the Greek and means literally "one string." A misconception of the term lies within its name. Often a monochord has more than one string, most of the time two, one open string and a second string with a movable bridge. In a basic monochord, a single string is stretched over a sound box. The string is fixed at both ends while one or many movable bridges are manipulated to demonstrate mathematical relationships between sounds. With two strings you can easily demonstrate how a consonant just chord sounds. Both open strings are tuned equal and then the movable bridge is put in a mathematical position to demonstrate, for instance, the major third (at 4/5th of the string length) or the minor third (at 5/6th of the string length).
The monochord can be used to illustrate the mathematical properties of musical pitch. For example, when a monochord's string is open it vibrates at a particular frequency and produces a pitch. When the length of the string is halved, and plucked, it produces a pitch an octave higher and the string vibrates at twice the frequency of the original (2:1). Half of this length will produce a pitch two octaves higher than the original—four times the initial frequency (4:1)—and so on. Standard diatonic Pythagorean tuning (Ptolemy’s Diatonic Ditonic) is easily derived starting from superparticular ratios, (n+1)/n, constructed from the first four counting numbers, the tetractys, measured out on a monochord.
Monopipe is a wind instrument which serves the same purpose as the monochord.
In 1618, Robert Fludd devised a mundane monochord (also celestial or divine monochord) that linked the Ptolemaic universe to musical intervals. An image of the celestial monochord was used on the 1952 cover of Anthology of American Folk Music by Harry Everett Smith and in the 1977 book The Cosmographical Glass: Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe (p. 133) by S.K. Heninger, Jr., ISBN 9780873282086.
A modern playing technique used in experimental rock as well as
 |
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Monochord. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
This article related to Medieval music theory is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 |
This article relating to string instruments is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
 | harmonometer |
| Bumbass (music) |
| Hugo Spechtshart (music) |
 | What does monochord mean? |
Copyrights:
 |
 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Monochord". Read more |
Mentioned in
