The use of 12 tone intervals in the music of many human cultures is rooted in the physics of how our vocal anatomy produces speech, according to researchers. The particular notes used in music sound ...

Have you ever looked at a piano keyboard and wondered why the notes of an octave were divided up into seven white keys and five black ones? After all, the sounds that lie between one C and another ...

What are microtones, and why are they not an everyday part of classical music? We explore the history and mysteries of the ‘notes in between the notes’. Music is broadly defined as humanly-organised ...

At the heart of any scientific explanation of music is an understanding of how and why it affects us. In the first of a nine-part essay series, Philip Ball explores just how far we can hope to achieve ...