FM, dynamics and notes on Da Vinci

摘要

A ragbag of comments, corrections and clarifications this month, starting with my February reference to Leonardo da Vinci. This triggered several enquiries concerning the suggestion that he might have been able to put Gaffurius right in the matter of string tensions. It's true that there's no evidence of Leonardo having tackled the subject, yet he was investigating various modes of sound generation at around that time and had designed several stringed instruments, so could perhaps have been tempted into examining the pitch/tension link if the subject had been raised. But I was only speculating.