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/lp/university-of-california-press/disciplinary-culture-artillery-sound-and-science-in-woolwich-1800-1850-MXsrqx0lqv
- Publisher
- University of California Press
- Copyright
- © 2015 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.
- ISSN
- 0148-2076
- eISSN
- 1533-8606
- DOI
- 10.1525/ncm.2015.39.2.87
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
The rise of military music around 1800 offers a suggestive context in which to examine the connections between science, music, and the military. Olinthus Gregory was representative of a community of reform-minded mathematicians and astronomers who sought to introduce greater precision and more mathematics into science, applying mathematical calculation to music and the sciences. His proposal to regulate tempo with a pendulum followed what was no doubt a familiar sight for him at the Woolwich Arsenal—the use of the pendulum by the drum-major to regulate marching music. Indeed, a number of such projects converged on Woolwich, an experimental space where new scientific and musical regimes emerged. The “calculating eye” secured authority by presenting science as objective and freed of emotions, but music's ability to evoke emotions was powerful. Thus, while music was a resource for the exact science promoted at the Arsenal, it could also threaten it.
Journal
19th-Century Music – University of California Press
Published: Nov 1, 2015