Our experience of musical intervals and the uncanny “sameness” of octaves is encoded in our neuroanatomy. The neuroscience of music is rich, complex and not without controversy. But some things are ...

One scale that goes from C to B, with five equivalent flats and sharps in between, makes up pretty much all the melodies in Western music – but how did we get to these 12 notes? All melodies and ...

This awesome musician proves there are more than just eight notes in an octave. In Western tonal music, we generally say a full major or minor scale is made up of eight notes (although there can be up ...

“Beauty in music,” wrote the composer Charles Ives, “is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair.” Ezra Sims, a pioneering Boston-based composer, did more than ...

Previous correspondence on this topic refers to the different patterns of overtones that enable us to distinguish one instrument from another. This isn’t the only factor involved. Many years ago when ...