This discovery gave rise to the study of the overtone series and the mathematical ratios that determine the specific harmonics in the series and greatly contributed to how we understand Western musical theory, notation, and acoustics today. While this legend has been largely debunked, Pythagorus is credited with discovering that a string exactly half the length of another will play a pitch exactly one octave higher and that if you divide the same string into thirds, you raise the pitch an octave and a fifth and so on. He found that the sizes of the hammers determined their pitch and that they were in direct proportion to each other. He heard that some pitches were higher than others so he went to investigate. Legend has it that Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagorus of the famed Pythagorean theorem was walking past a blacksmith when he paused to listen to the pounding of the hammers. Ready to go see an opera, but want to brush up on and understand all the lingo? Check out this resource for Opera 101 and learn more about the production of specific operas on this opera podcast. You can watch a master teacher and singer in action to learn more about these techniques and learn more about the physiology of the operatic voice. Opera singers work for decades to hone the specific skills necessary to both project and emote their roles. While during much of opera history, castrati were treated like superstars, this tradition fell out of favor and the last castrato singer died in 1922. ![]() For a long time, women were not allowed to sing on stage, giving rise to the tradition of the castrato soprano voices. ![]() Singers were, and are still, categorized by their voice type and trained accordingly for specific styles of singing. As operatic productions grew larger and more advanced, vocal training and pedagogy for opera singers necessarily followed suit. Opera continued to gain popularity and evolve until by the end of the 18th century, it was an international phenomenon. ![]() At its heart, opera relies on music and drama working in tandem to communicate narrative, emotion, and character. Composers in the Baroque period saw opera as a medium through which they could integrate all artforms into a single work thereby appealing to an audience’s every sense and sensibility. The history of opera in Western culture dates back 400 years to Renaissance Italy where a group of musicians, known as the Florentine Camerata, decided to revive the Greek tradition of melodrama and theater, telling a story with musical accompaniment.
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