A musicologist's view of the teaching of musical acoustics
Edward L. Kottick · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1976
The teaching of musical acoustics has been dominated by those trained in scientific and technical fields. Many of these people are keenly interested in music and a good number of them are expert performers. But few of them are aware of the body of theoretical and historical knowledge about music that traditionally has been a part of the discipline of musical acoustics. As a result, some acoustical phenomena have been poorly understood and consistently misinterpreted. Scales, temperament, and the evolution of musical instruments are three of these areas. Each can be explained more satisfactorily when music history, music theory, musical style, and organology are taken into account.