Talk:Monochord

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[edit] Pythagoras' monochord?

I've heard the monochord attributed to Boethius, amd Guido certainly makes reference to it, but Pythagoras? Do we have a source for this? - Rainwarrior 02:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't believe Pythagoras has a monochord attributed to him until extremely late in the M.S. tradition. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 19:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mersenne

I've removed the following:

The monochord was also used to determine Mersenne's laws (Mersenne prime, Mersenne conjectures?), which determine the frequency of a string depending on its tension, mass, and length.

Neither of the suggested ideas of Mersenne are relevant here, but it is true that he studied tuning, and may be true that he used a monochord in his experiments. However, the statement as it is appears to be too vague to be useful. - Rainwarrior (talk) 02:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

Why does the monochord pictured in the article have two strings? JSC ltd (talk) 18:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Many have two strings because it makes the comparison of tones easier. It does go against the main parsing of the name of the instrument, agreed. It would also be great to a picture of a simpler version of the instrument that emphasizes the movable bridges more. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:02, 26 March 2008 (UTC)