I liked the sound of this book, but didn't really enjoy reading it. The author offers a ground-up explanation of pitch, scales, harmony, rhythm and beat which was interesting, but the examples were trite. A very short read however, so no huge loss.
For what it’s worth, semitones are constructed such that each note has a frequency roughly 1.059 times higher than the one before it: if we started off with a pitch at 1000 Hz, then one semitone higher would be 1059 Hz, which is 1000 times 1.059, which is obviously very easy to calculate, and gives us a semitone whose absolute length is 59 Hz. But one semitone higher than 1059 Hz would be 1059 times 1.059, which comes out at 1122 Hz, and that gives us a semitone length of 63 Hz (the difference between 1122 Hz and 1059 Hz). The frequency difference that defines a semitone interval gets larger in absolute terms as we get higher and higher.
I'm James—an engineer based in New Zealand—and I have a crippling addiction to new ideas. If you're an enabler, send me a book recommendation through one of the channels below.
