Bücher von Thomas Donahue

The harpsichord was the standard keyboard instrument for three centuries before the invention of the piano. It enjoyed a revival in the second half of the twentieth century, but because of the interruption in its history as a more regularly used instrument, many details about its construction are lacking. In The Harpsichord Stringing Handbook, Thomas Donahue integrates available historical evidence and modern physical principles-from both musicological and scientific literature-to provide practical quantitative information about the stringing of this instrument.The Harpsichord Stringing Handbook covers the composition and properties of iron and brass wire, the interrelationship of frequency to string length, safety factors involved with stringing, the scaling of string lengths, the calculation of diameters, and the determination of the transition from iron to brass in mixed-strung instruments. Supplemental topics include the elasticity and plasticity of wire, inharmonicity, tension and stress, and the interpolation of string lengths. Additional material includes data on selected historical harpsichords, absolute diameters of historical gauge numbering systems, a generated list of tensile strength values for historical wire, and sizes and tensile strengths of currently available wire.This book offers specific guidance for instrument makers, restorers, curators, technicians, musicians, kit builders, wire manufacturers, and acousticians, filling in critical details that historical treatises and surviving instruments may not clearly address.

In A Style and Usage Guide to Writing About Music, Thomas Donahue presents a collection of guidelines to help express through the written word the special notations, terms, and concepts found in the discipline of music. It concentrates on questions of style and format in the interest of good formal writing within the context of United-States English, so that writers may communicate their ideas clearly and effectively.While compiling the guidelines, Donahue reviewed content from many other music and general guides. He documented the most common formats in order to assist the writer in selecting an appropriate format for the given circumstance when more than one may apply. The book draws on profuse musically-oriented examples and is arranged by topics both musical and typographic, such as the proper use and spelling of composer names and musical concepts; the use of notes, pitches, and octave delineations; letters and numbers employed to describe form and harmony; when, where, and how to apply compound words and hyphenation of terms and names; and the proper citation of musical and audiovisual sources. The book concludes with a glossary of typographic terms, a bibliography, and a comprehensive index, making this a valuable resource for students, scholars, teachers, and writers.