Music as Divine Order
Read MoreVitruvius' discussion of theatre design provided the context for a survey of ancient Greek harmonic theory. These diagrams show the arrangements of notes within the Greek system of tetrachords. (A tetrachord is a series of four notes separated by three intervals and spanning a perfect fourth (4:3)). According to the Greeks, tetrachords fell into three categories, determined by the intervals between the notes within them. The three categories of tetrachord were: diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic. Vitruvius argued that the human voice undulates according to the musical intervals contained in tetrachords and that knowledge of the mathematical basis of these musical intervals was relevant to the acoustic and design of theatres.
Author: Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
Title: De architectura libri decem decem [Ten books on architecture] (Venice, 1567)
Shelfmark: F.2.24
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