Library Music Book

On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music

Helmholtz's foundational treatise on acoustics, timbre, and the perception of tone.

Cover of On the Sensations of Tone by Hermann von Helmholtz

Helmholtz’s foundational treatise on acoustics, timbre, resonance, and the physiological perception of tone. Year given is the original German publication; the linked copy is a later English edition. Harry Partch discovered a translation in 1923, an encounter he credited as the turn that led him to just intonation.