Tuning the World tells the unknown story of how the musical pitch A 440 became the global norm. Now commonly accepted as the point of reference for musicians in the Western world, A 440 hertz only became the standard pitch during an international conference held in 1939. The adoption of this norm was the result of decades of negotiations between countries, involving a diverse group of performers, composers, diplomats, physicists, and sound engineers. Although there is widespread awareness of the variability of musical pitches over time, as attested by the use of lower frequencies to perform early music repertoires, no study has fully explained the invention of our current concert pitch. In this book, Fanny Gribenski draws on a rich variety of previously unexplored archival sources and a unique combination of musicological perspectives, transnational history, and science studies to tell the unknown story of how A 440 became the global norm. Tuning the World demonstrates the aesthetic, scientific, industrial, and political contingencies underlying the construction of one of the most “natural” objects of contemporary musical performance and shows how this century-old effort was ultimately determined by the influence of a few powerful nations.

The soundscape--a term coined by the author--is our sonic environment, the ever-present array of noises with which we all live. Beginning with the primordial sounds of nature, we have experienced an ever-increasing complexity of our sonic surroundings. As civilization develops, new noises rise up around us: from the creaking wheel, the clang of the blacksmith’s hammer, and the distant chugging of steam trains to the “sound imperialism” of airports, city streets, and factories. The author contends that we now suffer from an overabundance of acoustic information and a proportionate diminishing of our ability to hear the nuances and subtleties of sound. Our task, he maintains, is to listen, analyze, and make distinctions. As a society we have become more aware of the toxic wastes that can enter our bodies through the air we breathe and the water we drink. In fact, the pollution of our sonic environment is no less real. Schafer emphasizes the importance of discerning the sounds that enrich and feed us and using them to create healthier environments. To this end, he explains how to classify sounds, appreciating their beauty or ugliness, and provides exercises and “soundwalks” to help us become more discriminating and sensitive to the sounds around us. This book is a pioneering exploration of our acoustic environment, past and present, and an attempt to imagine what it might become in the future.

A riveting guide to the energy that surrounds us and how tuning into the power of frequencies can help us heal ourselves, and the planet. Can you feel it? Energy is Everywhere. From the light, sound, and electromagnetic waves that flow all around us to the intricate electrical networks that flow through us, energy is a frontier as exciting as it is uncharted. Every year new science suggests that harnessing the extraordinary power of these invisible frequencies may be the key to a variety of innovations to improve our health and wellbeing, and to repair our struggling ecosystems. In Tuning into Frequency, the minds of Sputnik Futures explore cutting-edge discoveries from doctors, physicists, healers, ecologists, technologists, and thought leaders and explore how we can employ frequency to improve not only our physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing, but the health of the planet. For example, did you know: -That your heart and your brain share an electromagnetic field? -That trees can talk to each other? -That sound can heal the body? -That color affects your mood? -That the sun can help fight depression? With expert voices, bold discoveries, and engaging visuals, this entry in the captivating Alice in Futureland series is a riveting guide to the forces that energize our bodies, our minds, and the planet.

David Michael Hertz explicates the rela­tionship between the music and poetry of the Symbolist movement, tracing it from its inception in Baudelaire’s verse and Wagner’s music to its final transformation into Modernism in the works of Schoen­berg. Hertz begins by examining the con­cept of the period, the well-rounded phrase of verse or music, which was at­tacked first in Wagner’s use of the leitmo­tif and unusual intervals such as the tritone. ­Such musical elements created a feel­ing of emotion directly expressed, un­hampered by convention. This approach was further developed by Mallarmé, who stripped his verse of its conventional framework in an attempt to create images of pure emotion. Mallarmé in turn in­fluenced Debussy. Hertz shows that in setting Mallarmés verse, Debussy moved further away from the standard har­monic structures of the nineteenth cen­tury, particularly in his use of tonal ambiguity. ­Hertz explores the aesthetic of the Symbolist movement as embodied in the unique forms that characterized the era, the tone poem and the lyric play. He dem- onstrates the particular importance of Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mé1isande, which was scored by Debussy. A revolutionary work difficult to characterize, it speaks gracefully of the transformation of Ro­manticism into Modernism. Citing examples of art, literature, and music, Hertz finds ultimately that the Symbolist aesthetic came to encompass the entire artistic world. Only a scholar thoroughly at home in both the literary and musical realms and possessing a sov­ereign command of the cultural climate and currents of the period would be able to deliver exactly what his subtitle prom­ises: a musico- literary poetics of the Sym­bolist movement.

Few music lovers realize that the arrangement of notes on today’s pianos was once regarded as a crime against God and nature, or that such legendary thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, da Vinci, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and Rousseau played a role in the controversy. Indeed, from the time of the Ancient Greeks through the eras of Renaissance scientists and Enlightenment philosophers, the relationship between the notes of the musical scale was seen as a key to the very nature of the universe. In this engaging and accessible account, Stuart Isacoff leads us through the battles over that scale, placing them in the context of quarrels in the worlds of art, philosophy, religion, politics and science. The contentious adoption of the modern tuning system known as equal temperament called into question beliefs that had lasted nearly two millenia–and also made possible the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, and all who followed. Filled with original insights, fascinating anecdotes, and portraits of some of the greatest geniuses of all time, Temperament is that rare book that will delight the novice and expert alike.

The first ever book on American composer and sound-art pioneer Maryanne Amacher, with letters, manifestos, notes and more elucidating her eclectic thinking on sound and perception Maryanne Amacher (1938-2009) was a composer of large-scale fixed-duration sound installations and a highly original thinker in the areas of perception, sound spatialization and aural architecture. She is frequently cited as a pioneer of what has come to be called "sound art," although her thought and work challenges assumptions about the limitations of that genre. Maryanne Amacher: Selected Writings and Interviewsrepresents the first ever book-length collection devoted to the composer, whose life and work are as vast as they are as yet unknown. From personal notes and letters to program notes, manifestos and unrealized project proposals, the documents are framed by longer interviews with Amacher that discuss corresponding periods of her life. Because Amacher worked across nearly every imaginable media format, this book will be of tremendous interest to theorists and practitioners in media and communications, urban design, contemporary art history, music studies, sound studies, film, radio, art criticism and performance studies.

Tuning engines can be a mysterious art, all engines need a precise balance of fuel, air, and timing in order to reach their true performance potential. Engine Management: Advanced Tuning takes engine-tuning techniques to the next level, explaining how the EFI system determines engine operation and how the calibrator can change the controlling parameters to optimize actual engine performance. It is the most advanced book on the market, a must-have for tuners and calibrators and a valuable resource for anyone who wants to make horsepower with a fuel-injected, electronically controlled engine.

How can we rethink teaching practices to include and engage the whole student? What would student experience look like if we integrated silence and feeling with empirical analysis? Tuning the Student Mind is the story of one teacher's attempt to answer these questions by creating an innovative college course that marries the spiritual and the theoretical, integrating meditation and self-reflection with more conventional academic curriculum. The book follows Molly Beauregard and her students on their intellectual and spiritual journey over the course of a semester in her class, "Consciousness, Creativity, and Identity." Interweaving personal stories, student writing, and Beauregard's responses, along with recommendations for further reading and a research appendix, it makes the case for the transformative power of consciousness-centered education. Written in a warm, engaging voice that reflects Beauregard's teaching style, Tuning the Student Mind provides an accessible, step-by-step template for other educators, while inviting readers more broadly to reconnect with the joy of learning in and beyond the classroom.