Helmholtz’s 1885 roughness theory of dissonance still holds today

Evidence

Helmholtz’s 1885 book, On the Sensation of Tone, was a huge step in this direction by an intellectual giant. Helmholtz devoted a chapter of this great work to his now well-known theory of dissonance. This theory holds much of its original ground today, in spite of many unsuccessful or only partially successful attempts to provide alternatives. For the author’s Western ears, at least, the Helmholtz approach is quite compelling. It has been not so much displaced as augmented by knowledge of the role of the critical bandwidth, a property of the cochlea that affects our perception of loudness, dissonance, and masking effects. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2321

Categorization

• XREF: The theory is augmented by critical bandwidth, connecting to the cochlea mechanics discussed in earlier hearing chapters and to how we perceive loudness and masking.