scientific article; zbMATH DE number 222425

The authors start with the following two examples: (1) The octave is the interval between two tones with frequencies \(2:1\). To the ear two such tones have the same character. Any musical scale should contain such tones. (2) The musical fifth is the interval between two tones with frequencies \(3:2\). Two such tones sound very nice together. Any musical scale should therefore contain such tones. The list is of course longer. -- In contrast to this, the intervals in a musical scale should be such that transposition from one key to another is just a parallel translation (i.e. leaves the number of intervals between the notes invariant). This means that we want a logarithmic scale, where an octave is divided into \(q\) parts, such that \(p\) parts approximately make up a musical fifth; i.e. \(2^{p/q}\approx 3/2\). It is therefore natural to use regular continued fraction approximants \(p_ n/q_ n\) of \(\log_ 2(3/2)\) to choose the number \(q\). However, \(| p_ n/q_ n-\log_ 2(3/2)|\) smallest in the continued fraction sense does not automatically mean that \(| 2^{p_ n/q_ n}-3/2|\) is smallest in the similar sense. The authors give sufficient conditions. They also treat the case of modified approximants.

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