In Search of Sound: Authenticity, Healing and Redemption in the Early Modern State

Gouk, Penelope

doi:10.2752/174589307x233530

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 31 publications

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“…Academic focus on the eye may itself reflect a bias in Western perception, but it does mean that there is a huge gap in early modern sensory history that is only slowly being filled by sensory studies in general (Smith, 2007) and sound studies in particular (Burnett et al, 1991;Johnson, 1995;Smith, 2004;Cockayne, 2007;Gouk 2007). Musicologists have shown that some striking changes took place in musical practices in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a process involving new instruments and modes of performance as well as new ways of listening to and responding to music (Butt & Carter, 2005).…”

Section: Sound and Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Music and the emergence of experimental science in early modern Europe

Gouk

2012

SoundEffects

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The seventeenth century witnessed major advances in physics and experimental science. This paper argues that while the role of new visual technologies (e.g. the microscope) has been well studied, less attention has been paid to acoustic technologies in early modern natural philosophy. In particular, I attend to the relationship between making music, a specific form of organised sound mediated through instruments, and the production of new scientific knowledge. On the one hand, this relationship developed in the context of acoustics, a new discipline first mapped out by Francis Bacon. On the other hand, music’s relationship to natural philosophy was also more fundamental, since harmony was understood as an organising principle of the universe, the laws of musical strings providing a model for other forms of vibrative motion. I also show the importance of musical training for Galileo’s experiments and the significance of harmony for Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke.

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Section: Sound and Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%