On Nov 14, 2008, at 9:08 PM, John Howell wrote:
At 2:03 PM -0500 11/14/08, Andrew Stiller wrote:
James McKinnon, who taught a course on this at SUNY Buffalo back in
the '70s, made the important distinction of "realistic, but not
real." A major example of this is a famous painting of St. Cecilia at
the organ, in which the lengths of the pipes increase linearly from
low to high instead of exponentially from high to low.
Ah, but that's because the artist needed a diagonal line going in that
direction! But exponential? I don't think so. Or perhaps I don't
understand how exponential applies in this case.
The length of a tuned pipe is w = 1/(2^p * n), where w is the
(wave)length of the pipe, p is the pitch in octaves above n, and n is
an arbitrary reference pitch (440 Hz, e.g.). This is an exponential
equation.
And of course the portatif organ she's often shown with didn't exist
in her time, but did exist in the artists' times!
And she didn't like or play music either!
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://www.kallistimusic.com/
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