On Sep 15, 2010, at 10:28 AM, James Patrick Draine wrote: > Joseph Needham compiled a massive encyclopedia (really an entire > series of books) on science and inventions in China over the > centuries. Your university probably has a copy of this particular > volume. Thanks, Patrick. As it happens, I have a certain amount of familiarity with ancient China myself, having cobbled together a major in college I called Comparative Greek and Chinese Classical Studies. So I am well aware of Needham's massive work, and I believe it is the original source of the claim that the Chinese "invented equal temperament." Murray Barbour wrote one sentence noting this: "The first known appearance in print of the correct figures for equal temperament was in China, where Prince Tsai- yu's brilliant solution remains an enigma^ since the music of China had no need for any sort of temperament." I believe many people writing subsequently simply relied on Barbour, and repeated this in a less precise way. From what I have gathered, it was more a matter of mathematics than anything else, and it had to do with ritualistic matters, something to do with creating a set of temple bells (whether real or simply designed), tuned correctly so that they mirrored "heaven." But that is about as far as the sources I have read have got me. Perhaps it is far enough, as I haven't troubled to dig deeper. Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu http://www.createculture.org/profile/FredSturm
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