the art of listening: perceiving pulse in eighteenth-century france

The Art of Listening: Perceiving Pulse inEighteenth-Century France

INGRID J. SYKES

Abstract: This article examines the importance of sound in medical and musical circles ofthe French Enlightenment. Sound and listening in medicine were highlighted in 1756 bythe Montpellier doctor Théophile de Bordeu, in his work on pulse. Pulse recognition,according to Bordeu, depended not only on the tactile abilities of the doctor but also onhis skills in auditory perception. Doctors were required to memorise various acousticalpatterns, then match them to the ‘live’ pulse pattern of the patient perceived duringobservation. The Enlightened medical physician, like the musician, relied on his ear tocommunicate knowledge and understanding.

Keywords: France, music, medicine, sound, listening, pulse, keyboard

In 1756 the Montpellier doctor Théophile de Bordeu (1722-1776) published his ground-breaking work on pulse Recherches sur le pouls par rapport aux crises (‘Research on the pulsein relation to attacks on health’).1 Scholars have recently acknowledged its importance inthe construction of a new mode of clinical diagnosis.2 Bordeu insisted that pulse-takingrequired the physician to develop a sensitivity of touch together with a clear understand-ing of different pulse types. This, in combination with clinical observation and experience,led to correct diagnosis. Crucial to Bordeu’s diagnostic model, however, was an acknowl-edgement that pulse consists of sound-waves. Seeing and touching were, of course,required to make the final diagnosis. Yet the art of listening was also necessary for com-prehending the nature of the patient’s arterial flow. Bordeu believed listening requiredtraining. In order to select an appropriate acoustical pattern, he demanded that physicianshave a clear sense of rhythm, timbre, melody, form (or genre) and harmony relating to thedifferent pulse types already in their minds. Auditory training occurred not simply byreading the educational literature prior to listening but also through the immediate activ-ity of touch-based experience. Bordeu recognised, however, that touching alone could not,in itself, create comprehension in pulse diagnosis. The physician required the more objec-tive qualities of the auditory system in order to process the oscillation patterns felt by thefingers. This essay will reveal the sophisticated way in which listening is described inBordeu’s text. Listening was often implied rather than stated through the use of medicalvocabulary. Words chosen to describe oscillations were boldly acoustical. Most impor-tantly, Bordeu demonstrates that the desire to create a universal language of pulse typeswas inherently concerned with the materiality of sound. In his desire to classify pulsetypes Bordeu was himself engaged in a form of close listening. Only after this had occurredcould correct diagnosis take place among a common group of physicians, and across timeand space.

Bordeu’s interest in hearing can be situated within a broader Enlightenment context ofauditory cognition.3 His work emerged during a debate over the auditory nature of pulse.Some physicians believed that pulse patterns resembled musical laws and could be

Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies Vol. 35 No. 4 (2012)

© 2012 British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4

2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

matched to notated musical scores. Yet, as I will demonstrate, Bordeu believed that thebody had an organic ability to create its own auditory ‘scene’.4 It was the physician’s roleto identify and interpret this unique feature by listening to different pulse types. Bordeu’swork can also be usefully compared to the work of musicians themselves. Composersand theorists such as Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) promoted the art of listeningthrough the creation of ‘live’ music at the keyboard. Indeed, listening was consideredcrucial in negotiating the plethora of different formal and decorative musical combina-tions available to the accomplished musician. Rameau’s work was, of course, dependenton musical rules and regulations. His belief in listening, however, favoured an intuitivepractice of sound composition that more closely resembled Bordeu’s depiction of theexpressive sound-making body during pulse diagnosis. It cannot be stated enough thatRameau and Bordeu came from very different backgrounds and operated in very differentcircles. Bordeu, a physician and surgeon, was situated at the Montpellier and Parisianmedical schools.5 He can be connected to the later vitalist movement in medicine. Rameau,a musical theorist, presented his work to the Paris Academy of Sciences.6 His work was‘claimed’ by both vitalist and mechanist groups of the medical establishment at differenttimes during the eighteenth century. Despite these differences, however, both figuresencouraged a high level of listening within the practical situation at hand. For both men,listening formed the essence of their ‘art’.

I. Debates on Pulse and Music

René Laennec is generally considered the most important French physician to demon-strate medical listening. His discovery of mediate auscultation around 1816 was ground-breaking in terms of new methods of medical diagnosis.7 Laennec’s work revealed pulse tobe less important in the diagnosis of disease (particularly of the heart and chest) than hadpreviously been thought. Yet French research on pulse during the Enlightenment waspivotal in establishing awareness among physicians of the sonic potential of the humanbody. Different combinations of pulse patterns were shown to produce internal and exter-nal physical affect. Bordeu’s work was a powerful response to a debate in mid-eighteenth-century French medical circles regarding the relationship between pulse patterns andmusical law. He believed that pulse patterns were too complex to be compared to music.Rather, the language of arterial flow required its own set of organising principles.He writes:

Il est très vrai que la marche naturelle du pouls peut être comparée en général et en passant,aux accords qui résultent du mélange bien proportionné de plusieurs instruments deMusique; mais ce ne peut jamais être qu’une comparaison, qui n’a d’autre usage que de faireconcevoir ce qu’il faut exprimer.8

Bordeu believed that the body could express a much more nuanced range of pulse patternsthan the laws of music could define. Musical laws were simply inadequate, and newmethods of description for pulse patterns required further investigation.

In his thesis Observation sur la guérison de la morsure de la tarentule par la musique(‘Observation on the recovery from a bite of a tarantula through music’, 1702), the doctorand chemist Etienne-François Geoffroy (1672-1731) returned to the fifteenth-centuryItalian ‘discovery’ that dancing the tarantella (a piece in 6/8 time) could cure tarantulabites.9 The theory continued to find supporters in France throughout the eighteenthcentury.10 This was partly because of the widespread belief among physicians and

474 INGRID J. SYKES

© 2012 British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

musicians of the ability of oscillations to transform human systems. Music and dancecould supposedly cure the body of poison by regulating the flow of its internal circulatorysystem. In 1747 François-Nicolas Marquet (1687-1759), a doctor in Nancy, published hisNouvelle méthode facile et curieuse pour connaître le pouls par les notes de la musique (‘New, easyand curious method for diagnosing the pulse through musical notes’).11 After his death in1759, a second edition was produced, which included a section on melancholia by thedoctor and botanist Pierre-Joseph Buchoz, also of Nancy.12 Marquet argues that the bodywas a kind of ‘hydraulic machine’13 powered by the heart: ‘Tant et si longtemps que lemouvement du cœur et des artères est réglé, le corps de l’homme reste dans une santéparfaite; mais dès que ce mouvement se dérange par quelque accident, la santé se trouvealtérée par une infinité de maladies.’14 For Marquet, bodily health depends entirely onrhythm and sound. Equality and consonance meant health, while inequality and disso-nance implied ill health.

In his work Marquet divides pulse patterns into two different types. A healthy pulse, lepouls naturel (‘natural pulse’), is one that contained a balance between solids and liquids.It can be placed against the traditional musical minuet and found to sound at the begin-ning of each measure exactly (with six silent quaver beats between each pulse sound-ing). The pouls non-naturel (‘non-natural pulse’) occurs when liquids and solids are notproperly proportioned. It has a different kind of energy from the natural pulse and couldbe simple ou composé (‘simple or compound’). The simple pulses are divided into binaryopposites, grand ou petit (‘large or small’), depending on the thickness of the blood, égalou inégal (‘equal or unequal’), depending on obstructions in the blood vessels, profond ousuperficial (‘profound or superficial’), depending on the strength of circulation etc. Thereis also a category of pulse called le pouls tendu ou élevé (‘stretched or high pulse’), frombroadened arteries, and le pouls mou (‘soft pulse’), blood with too much serous fluid.Finally, there are different categories of quickened and slowed pulses, pouls vite, pouls plusvite, pouls très vite, pouls précipité and pouls lent (‘fast pulse’, ‘faster pulse’, ‘very fastpulse’, ‘quickened pulse’ and ‘slow pulse’), depending on the state of the blood, as wellas more complex pulses, le pouls intercadant (‘irregular pulse’), air in the blood, and poulsconvulsif (‘jerky pulse’), free and uncoordinated blood. All the non-natural pulses can befound in combinations called les pouls composés (‘compound pulses’). Marquet tran-scribes all these pulse types using musical notation (see Fig. 1). Here he uses the minuetas a template, overlaying the perceived pulse sounds over the form of the dance. Themethod allows for the notation of different pitches as well as their different rhythms andlengths. Combinations of pulses resemble musical scores, with different rhythms andpitches heavily juxtaposed. Marquet believed that this system would enable the physi-cian to memorise pulse types more easily. By visualising the sounds of pulse, a betterdiagnosis could be made.

In this edition Buchoz sanctions Marquet’s work, describing it as ‘very ingenious’.15 Hegoes on: ‘On ne peut disconvenir que la Méthode que M. Marquet a donnée sur la connais-sance du pouls, par la Musique, ne soit très ingénieuse et ne puisse servir à acquérir deslumières dans cette partie de la Sémiotique si nécessaire dans les diagnostics et pronos-tics.’16 He then argues that the relationship between ‘natural’ music and the body is sosimilar that it can actually be used to heal the disease of melancholia. This is a disease ofthe blood vessels, which become smaller with fear and sadness, causing ‘oscillations faibleset lentes, et épaissit les liquides par leurs stagnations; or, cet épaississement des liquidesengendre la mélancolie’.17 Buchoz explains that it is necessary to ‘wake up’ the nerves andhelp them regain ‘un ton égal et flexible’.18 Medication will not help. A much betteralternative is to listen to music:

The Art of Listening: Perceiving Pulse in Eighteenth-Century France 475


1. Extract from François-Nicolas Marquet, Nouvelle méthode facile et curieuse pourconnaître le pouls par les notes de la musique, 2nd edn (Paris: Didot le Jeune, 1769).

Wellcome Library

476 INGRID J. SYKES


1. Continued.



La Musique soit vocale, soit instrumentale, ou est diatonique, la plus ancienne de toutes, quimonte ou qui descend par différents tons; ou chromatique, qui ne diffère de la diatonique quepar les semitons dont elle est ornée; ou enfin enharmonique, ornée de dièses et d’inflexions lesplus douces des sens.19

Buchoz advocates active listening by the patient. Sound is described as an extremelypowerful substance which is absorbed by the ear in a sensitive manner. Oscillationsfrom outside the body are able to affect those inside. In support, he cites Joseph Duv-erney’s work on the anatomical structure of the ear: ‘La propagation du son sefait donc très vite, et parvient à l’instant à l’oreille, ensuite par un mécanismeadmirable, dont a si bien parlé M. Duverney, il frappe le nerf auditif, par le moyenduquel il est porté jusqu’au sensorium commune, et là se forme l’idée du son.’20 He thenstates that hearing is similar to touch – ‘l’organe de l’ouïe est une espèce de tact;plus son choc est rude, plus il est offensé; plus il est doux, plus on ressent de plaisir’21 –explaining that certain music will help cure certain conditions. ‘Dry’ melancholiarequires music with a wide gradation of pitches, while ‘humid’ melancholia can becured by fast and loud music. Simple music is most helpful in restoring movementin the blood. It creates agreeable resonances in the ear, which then affect thebody.

Bordeu’s work was a direct attempt to refute the work of Marquet and Buchoz on pulse.Musical laws were inadequate in explaining pulse:

C’est en ce sens-là seulement qu’on peut dire avec Hérophile que les mouvementsdu pouls ont quelque rapport aux lois de la Musique; mais si on voulait appliquer aupouls les règles de la Musique, comme un Moderne l’a entrepris, on ne manquerait pasd’entrer dans des détails pénibles, qui n’en seraient pas pour cela plus utiles ni mieuxfondés.22

Bordeu’s more flexible approach towards pulse pattern was recognised and praisedby doctors who believed in the expressive and creative potential of the vitalistbody. J. de Marque, editor of the edition, suggests in his preliminary remarks thatBordeu demonstrated the coldness of mechanistic appraisals of the body (although hepraised the ‘genius’ of Descartes).23 Mechanists had failed to understand and acknow-ledge the fluid nature of living systems. De Marque highlights the issue of circulation,which had fundamentally confounded recent mechanists. Circulation required newthinking:

Que n’aurais-je pas à dire de la fameuse circulation qui a tant ébloui, et qui est devenue chezles Mécaniciens, un instrument, dont ils se sont servis avec autant de confiance et de libéralité,que les Cartésiens en ont mis dans l’emploi de la matière subtile. Combien cette circulation aoccasionné de mauvais raisonnements! Combien elle a rendu les Médecins inaccessibles auxbonnes et franches observations, faites sur les maladies et sur le corps vivant, qui formaient lefonds de la médicine ancienne!24

Mechanists are portrayed as too rigid in their thinking. Ideally, doctors should thinklike a creative musician who wants to comprehend the actual essence of musical cre-ation: ‘J’aimerais tant qu’un Musicien, pour me faire marcher sur les traces de Rameau,et m’apprendre à présider à un concert, formé d’un grand nombre d’instruments,s’amusât à me détailler, avec une trop savante profusion.’25 De Marque concludes thatthe musician must listen very carefully to diverse sonorities:

478 INGRID J. SYKES


[A]idez-moi à saisir l’ensemble de tous ces divers sons variés, dont la combinaison fait le beau,le grand, le sublime de l’harmonie; montrez à mon oreille les moyens de saisir le plus léger ton,lorsqu’il passe ses bornes. Apprenez-moi l’histoire du corps vivant, dirais-je de même à unPhysiologiste; nous avons tant analysé, tant et tant disséqué!26

Such a description was much more than a flamboyant metaphor used to celebrate vital-ism. It recognised the importance of careful listening in the perception of bodily sounds.Bordeu’s work was considered vastly superior to that of Marquet because it required thephysician to listen more carefully, using his ear directly to form diagnosis rather than anotated musical score. In his Nouveau traité du pouls (1767) Jean-Joseph Menuret, a doctorat Montpellier, criticised Marquet’s methods directly in such terms.27 Marquet’s work isdescribed as ‘qu’un mélange absurde et singulier de quelques dogmes Galénistes, desMécaniciens et des Chimistes’.28 Musical notation might be useful in giving the physicianan idea of the different pulse types, Menuret explains, yet, as a guide, it is far too abstractedfrom the body. Menuret continues: ‘Son ouvrage aurait été sûrement très avantageux, si lesystème, qui en fait la base, eût été moins conforme à celui des Mécaniciens, moinsraisonné, et en un mot, plus rapproché de l’observation.’29 Here ‘observation’ did notsimply refer to a reliance on the visual senses in the medical clinic. Rather, it implied amore multi-sensory approach, incorporating careful listening to fluid internal systems.

II. Bordeu’s Diagnostic Practice

From the very beginning of his work Bordeu demonstrates that problems in defining pulserelate to the general difficulty of defining a complex auditory scene or musical work.30

Pulse is presented as having a multitude of different auditory qualities, which requirecareful streaming out. The oscillations of the body are not only difficult to describe inwords, Bordeu explains. They also require intense concentration to predict, often changeaccording to time and place, are difficult to memorise and have so many different combi-nations that confusion inevitably results. According to Bordeu, both Galen and theancient Chinese approached the problem by using imaginative descriptive metaphors.31

These related to the rhythms and visual forms of the natural world and could be appar-ently universally applied: ‘Il [Galien] prétendit avoir trouvé des pouls qui ressemblaient àla marche des fourmis, il les appela formicans; d’autres qui allaient en diminuant [comme]la queue d’un rat, il les nomma miures; et il appela, d’après Hérophile, pouls caprizans, ceuxqu’il crut représenter les sauts d’une chèvre.’32 Physicians were attentive enough toacknowledge the complexities of pulse, yet in Bordeu’s opinion their categories of classi-fication were inadequate. He explains:

Galien en faisant son Traité du pouls, raisonna beaucoup plus qu’il n’avait observé: il compritpourtant que les différentes espèces de pouls devaient être distribuées en plusieurs classes:mais il y avait de la difficulté à les caractériser, à les rendre reconnaissables, et encore à lesexprimer d’une manière assez intelligible.33

Bordeu explains that more recent practitioners, the Modernes, responded to suchdescriptions by ridiculing them. He makes lengthy reference to the early seventeenth-century Spanish physician Solano de Luques, who, along with other figures, relied mainlyon a more ‘direct’ vocabulary of pulse description. Such a system was considered by theModernes as much more effective than imaginative imagery because it did not distract thephysician with unwanted and bizarre information: ‘Les Modernes s’en sont tenus à des



divisions et à des dénominations plus simples, même en apparence plus significatives: on adivisé les pouls en forts et faibles, fréquents et lents, grands et petits, durs et mous, etc.’34 Bordeucriticises such physicians as merely repeating the error of the Anciens. Just like the Anciens,the Modernes relied on abstract terms which, in themselves, meant nothing, he explains.Even if the physician relied on the new system, there were no fixed reference points fordetermining which descriptive term should be applied:

Mais il est facile d’apercevoir que cette nomenclature adoptée par les Modernes, apresqu’autant de défauts que celle qu’ils ont rejetée, parce que dans le fait ces dénominationsn’expriment rien d’assez précis; il n’est pas possible de déterminer quel signe on doit jugerdans les maladies que le pouls est par exemple dur ou mou, grand ou petit; sa petitesse et sagrandeur, sa mollesse et sa dureté [...] d’ailleurs il n’arrive que trop souvent qu’un pouls qui esttrouvé grand ou dur par un Médecin, paraîtra petit ou mou à un autre: ainsi ces définitions ouces dénominations ne peuvent rien d’exprimer d’assez positif.35

As will be demonstrated, Bordeu chose to apply such descriptive terms directly to partsof the body. Yet his motivation was fundamentally to define sound (specifically, the soundsof the body) in a more accurate way than his predecessors and contemporaries, such asMarquet. He recognised that the auditory elements of pulse had, as yet, no fixed valuesystem. Physicians continued to guess the meaning of pulse. The solution, Bordeubelieved, would be to apply Galen’s vocabulary directly to bodily parts and function(pectoral, nasal, guttural) and to physical bodily manifestations (critiques, non-critiques).

Bordeu explains that the different bodily categories used to classify pulse have threedistinctive rhythms. The ‘inequality’ or ‘equality’ of pulse is the easiest sonic characteristicof pulse to recognise, he continues, but can be more carefully defined alongside an appre-ciation of overall bodily function. He then goes on to describe how his use of functionaldistinctions (devised by Anatomists) is the most detailed of all systems produced. Solano deLuques, he explains, never discussed the issue of ‘critical’ and ‘non-critical’ pulse, orpulses that relate to human spitting, or the issue of pouls simples (‘simple pulses’), poulscomposés (‘compound pulses’) and pouls compliqués (‘complicated pulses’). It should benoted that Bordeu’s use of these terms differed radically from Marquet. While for Marquetthe pouls simples might relate to serious illness, for Bordeu the term refers specifically to aperiod of stability within the illness itself:

Les maladies dont les crises sont précédées et annoncées par des pouls simples, ne sont jamaisdes maladies de mauvaise espérance; celles au contraire dans lesquelles se trouvent les poulscompliqués, sont ordinairement des maladies graves: or, comme il s’en faut de beaucoup queles différents ressorts du jeu de l’économie animale se rendent aussi sensibles, aussi recon-naissables dans de médiocres lésions des fonctions que dans un état de grande maladie; cen’est donc que dans l’exposition des pouls compliqués qu’on a dû placer les examens et lesdiscussions qui ont conduit aux principes féconds et aux importantes règles qu’on a cherchéà établir.36

De Luques also failed to make comments on the pulse of a person in a state of health,Bordeu continues. This, he explains, is essential in understanding the pulse of the ill. Overall, Bordeu emphasises the importance of detail in his own method, including exceptionsto the rule. His aim is to push observations of pulse diagnosis ‘beaucoup plus loin: & lesramener par-là à des principes généraux propres à répandre sur la théorie de l’art, autantde lumière que sur la pratique’.37 Implicit in his desire to improve pulse recognition was theconstruction of a complex auditory soundscape relating to bodily illness. For Bordeu there

480 INGRID J. SYKES


was no division between pulse sound and medical illness. When the physician observedillness, he also perceived its sound.

Bordeu reiterates the problem of abstract sound description and the need for an over-arching system when he begins to explain his method of pulse reading: ‘La dureté, lamollesse, la grandeur, la fréquence, etc. ne sont que des états, des modes relatifs qui ne peuventêtre évalués que par une mesure commune et fixe, à laquelle on puisse rapporter toutes cesvariations.’38 He recognises that pulse sounds are so varied that a more sophisticatedmeasure is required. Before beginning an explanation of his system he reminds physiciansthat there are certain ‘fixed’ sonorities associated with the nature of living systems thatmust be kept in mind. The first category of pulse explanation relates to the age of thepatient: ‘Le pouls naturel des vieillards est beaucoup plus fort, beaucoup plus dilaté, beau-coup plus dur que celui des enfants.’39 The second category relates to the sex of the patient:‘Le pouls naturel des femmes est, en général, plus vif et plus approchant de celui desenfants.’40 He then reiterates the importance of pulse rhythm and frequency – differentfrom la vitesse (‘speed’) and la célérité (‘celerity’) in pulse, he explains. This can be measuredalmost exactly, using a pendulum.41 Establishing the natural pulse of the patient is alsoimportant so that irregularity can be diagnosed: ‘Il y a, par exemple, des pouls qui serontappelés, petits, serrés, durs, pleins, dilatés, développés: c’est comme si on disait qu’ils sont pluspetits, plus pleins, plus mous, pouls développés, que dans l’état ordinaire ou naturel du sujetqu’on examine.’42 Although all these features are significant, they form only an incom-plete picture of the true meaning of pulse: ‘il faut, à l’exemple de tous les Médecins,rassembler, lorsqu’on juge de l’état d’une maladie, tous les symptômes, et peser toutes lescirconstances: dans combien d’écueils ne tomberait-on pas sans cette précaution?’43

Bordeu emphasises the relevance of ‘fixed’ guides to pulse. However, he advocates a muchmore flexible approach to pulse ‘observation’ itself. This includes attention to detail inassessing both the external and internal nature of the patient’s demeanour.

The most important pulse category for Bordeu is ‘le pouls naturel et parfait des adul-tes’.44 This has a very distinctive sound, described as ‘égal, ses pulsations se ressemblentparfaitement, elles sont à des distances parfaitement égales: il est mollet, souple, libre,point fréquent, point lent, vigoureux, sans paraître faire aucune sorte d’effort’.45 Suchelaborate descriptions also extend to other pulse categories. For Bordeu the most signifi-cant categories of pulse are the pouls critique (‘critical pulse’) and le pouls non-critique(‘non-critical pulse’). The non-critical pulse, signalling nervousness or the beginning of anillness, has ‘too much sensibility, [and is] convulsive’, while the critical pulse, preceding‘the critical evacuations’, is ‘dilated, developed, softened, extended’.46 This latter type ofpulse, Bordeu explains, is sometimes combined with inequality. Critical pulse can bedivided into two different types, pouls supérieur (‘upper pulse’) and pouls inférieur (‘lowerpulse’), depending on whether the evacuation relates to parts of the body above or belowthe diaphragm. The pouls supérieur critique (‘critical upper pulse’) has three different types:le pouls pectoral (‘the pectoral pulse’), le pouls guttural (‘the guttural pulse’) and le pouls nazal(‘the nasal pulse’). These pulse types appear on their own (le pouls simples) or together(le pouls composés), or combined with another type of pulse type (le pouls compliqués), suchas a period of le pouls non-critique or le pouls inférieur. Bordeu then continues to describe thesounds of each of the different pulse combinations. The pulse of the pectoral simple et biendeclaré (‘simple, and well-defined pectoral’), for instance, is ‘mou, plein, dilaté, ses pulsationssont égales; on sent dans chacune une espèce d’ondulation; c’est à dire que la dilation de l’artère sefait en deux fois; mais avec une aisance, une mollesse et une douce force d’oscillations’.47 Thepulse of the pouls pectoral guttural (‘guttural pectoral pulse’) is ‘fort, avec un redoublementdans chaque battement, il est moins mou, moins plein, souvent plus fréquent que le pouls pectoral;



il paraît être intermédiaire entre le pouls pectoral décrit dans le Chapitre précédent et le nasal quisera décrit dans le Chapitre suivant’.48 Bordeu then continues to describe the rest of the pulsecombinations along with case studies.

The range of sounds presented in Bordeu’s pulse descriptions is extremely varied.Rhythm is important. However, words such as fort (‘strong’), mol (‘soft’), ramolli(‘softened’), étendu (‘extended’), souplesse (‘suppleness’), brusque (‘brusque’) and plénitude(‘fullness’) refer to the timbre as well as to the volume and length of pulse sounds. Rhythmis not simply a matter of temporal equality or inequality. Rather, it incorporates character,avec une aisance (‘with ease’), and harmonic property, dans chacune une espèce d’ondulation(‘in each one a kind of ondulation’). Bordeu’s vocabulary goes beyond that employed byMarquet to specify the acoustical landscape. He attempts to describe in words the particu-lar properties of the pulse sound-object itself. Bordeu is careful to emphasise the impor-tance of touch, la finesse du tact (‘the subtleness of touch’),49 in recognising the differentpulse types. Yet he also acknowledges that such a special kind of touch-knowledge relieson a memorisation of pulse patterns: ‘Les Médecins les plus clairvoyants et les plus assuréssur ce genre de connaissances, sont ceux dont la tête est la mieux fournie de toutes lesimages des différentes espèces de pouls.’50 The word ‘l’image’ here refers not only to rec-ognition of a pattern through touch. It also refers to the memorisation of a sonic pulsepattern with all its acoustical nuances, as outlined by Bordeu in his different pulse descrip-tions. After connecting with the patient’s pulse, using touch, the physician then listenscarefully, draws on aural memory and visual observation to associate each pulse type witha recognisable pulse category. This complex practice arises, Bordeu demonstrates, becauseof the highly creative and varied nature of different pulse patterns associated with thehuman system. Patients present themselves with many different pulse types. The physi-cian then constructs an entire pulse pattern (often unique and original to the individualpatient), using this special method of diagnosis. Patients sometimes present only oneparticular pulse type – a pectoral pulse, for example – heralding the sputum that ulti-mately ends the illness.51 Others present more complex physical and sonic symptoms,which require the use of two or three sonic ‘images’ memorised by the physician. Apatient, for example, may have a pectoral pulse, which becomes complicated with le poulsd’irritation (‘pulse of irritation’).52

Over all, Bordeu depends on the notion of the body as an expressive space thatdraws on a varied range of acoustical material to create pulse and bodily illness. Thepractical ability to memorise and perceive acoustical patterns is, from this perspective,just as important to Bordeu as personal knowledge of the systems within the medicaltext. The cultivation of informed listening among physicians is a central component ofBordeu’s system of pulse diagnosis and of his overall approach to the improvement ofmedical culture. In Bordeu’s world, medical culture is enhanced through the widespreadimplementation of auditory understanding just as much as the learning of abstractknowledge: ‘C’est au moyen de cette provision de faits, que les Médecins s’entendententre eux, et que lorsqu’ils avancent qu’un pouls est dur, mou, fréquent, faible, etc. ilssous-entendent toujours l’état auquel ces dénominations doivent être comparés, sansquoi elles n’auraient aucune signification.’53 The discussion of facts relating to pulse ispresented here as a kind of language that is both ‘heard’ and ‘understood’ (note the useof the verb ‘entendre’, which can mean ‘to understand’ as well as ‘to hear’) by alldoctors who apply Bordeu’s system to their clinical practice. It is not only the categoriesrelating to pulse that are important. Medical practitioners can communicate amongthemselves only if they create high-level and standardised skills in listening to thehuman body.

482 INGRID J. SYKES


During the French Enlightenment, musicians and composers adopted a similarlysophisticated approach to hearing. Musicians and doctors bear a startling resemblance toeach other in their desire to listen and to understand. Marquet and Buchoz connectedmusic to the body through the powerful ability of music to heal.54 Bordeu’s work suggeststhat there was another school of thought during this period, one that presented the bodyitself as a kind of auditory soundscape. The body perpetuated its own bodily music, whichmust be perceived by the aurally trained physician when he touched the body. Auraltraining, in combination with touch-knowledge, was also promoted by famous musiciansfrom the period. The music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau demonstrated that hearing andtouching could be usefully employed by the music practitioner to create beautiful andinventive music.

III. Listening and Touching in Medical and Musical Practice

Rameau’s Code de musique pratique, published in 1760, presented an entirely new way ofnegotiating the keyboard.55 Rameau’s system emphasised the coordination of the ear andthe fingers while employing a set of mathematical rules and regulations relating to theidea of the basse fondamentale (fundamental bass). Recently, Rameau’s harmonic practiceand his use of the basse fondamentale have received a great deal of scholarly attention frommusic theorists.56 However, his highly sensory approach to the application of the principleat the keyboard has received little comment. Like Bordeu, Rameau insisted on carefullistening as well as on close physical contact through touch. He demanded that the per-former memorise the complex acoustical patterns of the fundamental bass as well as listento them at the keyboard. At the same time, he advised that fingers be trained to remembercorrect harmonic patterns and to articulate them on demand. An examination ofRameau’s writings demonstrates the intimate way in which touch and listening worked inlearned circles during the French Enlightenment. Touch and hearing were seamlesslysynchronised through a particular combination of highly sophisticated cognitive andphysical action by the learned practitioner.

Rameau’s system of the basse fondamentale was designed for practical usage at thekeyboard or for written composition. Like Bordeu’s work, it was designed to overcome theconfusion relating to listening to many different sonic patterns guiding the listenertowards the most appropriate progression:

La Basse fondamentale doit guider en tout le Compositeur: elle ordonne également et del’harmonie et de la mélodie: cependant, avant que de s’en occuper, on peut se livrer aux idéesque dictent le génie et le goût: à mesure que l’expérience augmente, l’oreille en adopteconfusément les produits; mais une habitude trop familière de certaines successions dont onvoudrait s’écarter, surtout dans des expressions nécessaires, où le choix des Tons ou desgenres ne se présente pas toujours à propos: la crainte de se tromper, et en un mot, tout celadoit engager à la consulter, cette B.F.57

The system of the basse fondamentale could be used to train the ear in a short amount oftime. This, Rameau explains, was not possible by simply listening to musical works:

La seule expérience, la seule oreille a formé jusqu’à présent tous ces grands Musiciens, dont lesOuvrages nous rendent témoignage: vous avez de plus aujourd’hui une connaissance cer-taine du principe, savoir, la B.F. dont les produits ne leur sont devenus sensibles, qu’après untravail de quantité d’années, même sans les posséder tous, ni sans en connaître la source; vous



avez, dis-je, ce principe de plus et le moyen de former votre oreille en peu de temps. Tout vousassure donc un succès favorable, pour peu que vous soyez fécondé des talents qu’on voussuppose.58

Like Bordeu, Rameau urged participants to use their ears. Through the application of aspecific chordal system the ear could become accustomed to particular patterns andimproved when in use.

In addition, Rameau emphasised the art of touch. As in Bordeu’s system of diagnosis,the ear and the fingers were closely synchronised to produce best results. For the firsttime in music Rameau advocated the creation of musical art based on touch-knowledge.Through repetition and learning the fingers became accustomed to particular chordalpatterns. The ear then aided the touch process with its own inner ‘memory’:

Par cette mécanique, bientôt les doigts prennent, pour ainsi dire, connaissance du Clavier:connaissance qui d’ailleurs nourrit l’oreille de toutes les routes harmoniques, pendant qu’elleprésente à l’esprit un exemple fidèle de toutes les règles dont il doit être instruit: de sorte quele jugement, l’oreille et les doigts d’intelligence concourent ensemble à procurer en peu detemps les perfections qu’on peut désirer en ce genre.59

Rameau demands that the senses behave like a form of activated human brain. Thisconcept had profound consequences for the status of practical musicianship. Keyboardpractice would be no longer inferior to the art of composition if the senses were motivatedby a comprehensive system of harmonic knowledge. Rameau explains that

Les doigts peuvent observer, sur le clavecin ou sur l’orgue, une mécanique si heureuse dans lasuccession des accords, qu’elle supplée non seulement au défaut de connaissance et d’oreille,mais elle est seule capable encore de former à l’harmonie les oreilles les plus désespérées, selonl’expérience que j’en ai faite, et que d’autres peuvent avoir faite également sur le seul plan dela méthode dont il s’agit.60

It must be noted that Rameau’s system of harmony is mathematically very complex. As itis described in the text, it appears to restrict the act of creation. In practice, however, it isdesigned to give the performer greater artistic authority and control. Like Bordeu, Rameaubelieved that there should be a strong element of interpretation in the practice of hissystem. Supposedly, the fingers and the ears were then given many more options thanrandom guesswork or rigid law in the creation of music at the keyboard:

L’oreille une fois remplie d’une infinité de routes, et les doigts accoutumés à les exécuter,l’imagination fécondée d’un bon goût n’en suggère pas plutôt quelques-unes, que ces doigtsles exécutent dans l’instant: penser et agir ne sont qu’un pour lors. C’est ainsi que se sontformés les grands Organistes, ou Joueurs de quelques autres Instruments, comme Théorbe,Lut, Archilut, Viole, Violon.61

IV. Conclusion

Rameau and Bordeu obviously relied on very different materials and resources in theirwork. Yet both demonstrated a particular interest in developing new cognitive and physi-cal models of multi-sensory practice to improve their fields. The observatory gaze wasconsidered insufficient by both practitioners. Instead, physicians and musicians must

484 INGRID J. SYKES


learn to listen and to touch with new levels of knowledge and understanding. Bordeu, inparticular, attempted to describe sounds in completely new ways. After careful listening tothe body, he realised that methods and languages previously used to describe the sounds ofarterial flow were entirely inadequate. By extending the use of vocabulary for pulsedescription and by implementing new categories of organisation, he hoped to demonstratethat pulse sounds could be more easily understood. He advocated more accurate discus-sions of pulse types among many physicians and the introduction of a code of semanticlistening in the European medical clinic. Bordeu’s contribution was, therefore, not only tomedicine but also to hearing science, which sought to discover new ways of describingsound. Rameau was also at the forefront of the field of the science of sound. His methodsof employing the ear at the keyboard, in combination with the application of advancedharmonic principles, positioned active listening above vision and learning in cultivatedmusic-making. Both introduced touch into their different fields. For Bordeu, touchinvolved the complex procedure undertaken by the doctor of touching of the vein andthen the synchronised act of touch-hearing cognition. Only then, he believed, could adiagnosis of illness be properly conceived.

NOTESThis work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (075002).

1. The second edition, published in 1768, was more widely available and has been referred to in this article.Théophile de Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls par rapport aux crises, 3 vols (Paris: Didot le jeune, 1768-72). Forbackground material on Bordeu and his contribution to French medicine in general, see Elizabeth A. Williams,The Physical and the Moral: Anthropology, Physiology and Philosophical Medicine in France, 1750-1850 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1994), esp. Chapter 1.

2. Antoinette Emch-Dériaz, ‘De l’importance de tâter le pouls’, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 18

(2001), p.369-80.3. Texts that address the issue of auditory cognition in the French Enlightenment include Thomas

Christensen, Rameau and Musical Thought in the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993),and Downing A. Thomas, Aesthetics of Opera in the Ancien Régime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2002).

4. For a highly technical discussion of the idea of the auditory scene, see Albert S. Bregman, Auditory SceneAnalysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).

5. See Williams, The Physical and the Moral.6. Albert Cohen, Music in the French Royal Academy of Sciences: A Study in the Evolution of Musical Thought

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), p.82-5.7. Jacalyn Duffin, To See with a Better Eye: A Life of R. T. H. Laennec (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1998).8. ‘It is quite true that the natural movement of the pulse can be compared, in general and in passing, to

harmonies which result from the well-proportioned mixture of several musical instruments; however, it willnever be anything more than a comparison which has no other use than to create an understanding of whatmust be expressed.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.132.

9. Etienne-François Geoffroy, ‘Diverses observations de physiques générale: I (Observation sur la guérisonde la morsure de la tarentule par la musique, année 1702)’, Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences (Paris,1702), p.16-17. On Geoffroy’s work in the field of chemistry, see Emma Spary, Utopia’s Garden: French NaturalHistory from the Old Regime to Revolution (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p.197.

10. See Le Cat, Traité des Sens (Amsterdam: Wetstein, 1744), p.66, and Pierre-Joseph Buc’hoz, L’Art de désignerle pouls par les notes de la musique: de guérir par un son moyen la mélancholie et le tarentisme, qui est une espèce demélancholie (Paris, 1806), p.16-25.

11. See the ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’, in François-Nicolas Marquet, Nouvelle méthode facile et curieusepour connaître le pouls par les notes de la musique, 2nd edn (Paris: Didot le Jeune, 1769), p.203-11.

12. ‘Augmentée de plusieurs observations et Réflexions critiques, et d’une Dissertation en forme de Thèse surcette Méthode; ou d’un Mémoire sur la manière de guérir la mélancholie par la Musique, &. de l’Eloge historiquede M. Marquet, par M. Pierre-Joseph Buchoz’; ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’.

13. ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’, p.1.14. ‘As long as the movement of the heart and arteries is regular, the human body remains in perfect health,

but as soon as this movement is disturbed by an accident, this healthy state becomes impaired by an infinitenumber of illnesses.’ ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’, p.2-3.



15. ‘Réflexions de M. P. J. Buc’hoz, Docteur aggrégé au Collège Royal des Médécins de Nancy, sur la nouvelleMéthode de connaître le pouls par la Musique’; ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’, p.166.

16. ‘One cannot deny that the method Marquet has given on the knowledge of the pulse through Music, isvery ingenious and can serve to gain knowledge in this area of Symptomatology so necessary in diagnostics andprognostics.’ ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’, p.166-7.

17. ‘weak and slow oscillations, and thickens the liquids through their stagnation; now, this thickening ofthe liquids gives rise to melancholy.’ ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’, p.175-6.

18. ‘an equal and flexible tone.’ ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’, p.189.19. ‘Music whether vocal or instrumental, is either diatonic, the oldest of all, which ascends or descends in

various tones, or it may be chromatic which differs from diatonic only in that it is embellished with semitones;or, finally, it can be enharmonic, enriched by sharps and the softest inflections of the senses.’ ‘Eloge historiquede M. Marquet’, p.190-91.

20. ‘Sound is therefore propagated very quickly and reaches the ear instantly; then, through a wonderfulmechanism, of which Mr Duverney has spoken so well, it hits the auditory nerve, by means of which it is carriedto the sensorium commune and it is there that the idea of sound is formed.’ ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’,p.194.

21. ‘the organ of hearing is a kind of [sense of] touch; the harsher the impact, the more it grates; the softerthe sound, the greater the feeling of pleasure.’ ‘Eloge historique de M. Marquet’, p.197.

22. ‘It is in this sense only that one can say with Herophile that the movements of the pulse have a relation-ship with the laws of music; but if you were to apply the rules of music to the pulse, as a “Modern” has done,you would necessarily encounter difficult details, which would neither be helpful nor better-founded.’ Bordeu,Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.132.

23. J. de Marque, ‘Rémarques preliminaires de l’éditeur’, in Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. III.24. ‘I have so much to say about the famous circulatory system which has impressed so much, and which, for

the Mechanics, has become an instrument that they have used with the same amount of liberality andconfidence, as the Cartesians have put into the “matière subtile” [the Descartian idea of a fluid filling theuniverse]. And how this circulation has caused bad reasoning! How it has prevented Physicians from makinggood and frank observations on illnesses and on the ‘living’ body, which formed the basis of ancient medicine!’De Marque, ‘Rémarques preliminaires de l’éditeur’, in Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. III.xiv.

25. ‘I would really love it if a Musician, in order for me to walk in the footsteps of Rameau, taught me topreside at a concert formed by a large number of instruments, and enjoyed explaining to me, with an overlyknowledgeable abundance.’ De Marque, ‘Rémarques preliminaires de l’éditeur’, in Bordeu, Recherches sur lepouls, vol. III.xi.

26. ‘help me to grasp all of these different and various sounds, the combination of which makes the beautiful,the great, and the sublime of harmony; show my ear the means of grasping the slightest tone when it goesbeyond its limits. Teach me the history of the living body, and I would say likewise to a Physiologist; we haveanalysed so much, and dissected so very much!’ De Marque, ‘Rémarques preliminaires de l’éditeur’, in Bordeu,Recherches sur le pouls, vol. III.xii.

27. Jean-Joseph Menuret, Nouveau traité du pouls (Paris: Vincent, 1768). Menuret wrote the entry on ‘pulse’for Diderot’s Encyclopédie.

28. ‘it is only an absurd and strange mixture of some dogmata of the Galenists, of those of the Mechanicalapproach, and the Chemists.’ Menuret, Nouveau traité du pouls, p.114.

29. Menuret, Nouveau traité du pouls, p.118.30. For Bordeu’s physical methods of pulse-taking (points on the body), see Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls,

vol. I.337-56.31. For a recent discussion of Chinese and Greek methods of pulse diagnosis, see Shigehisa Kuriyama, The

Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine, illustrated edn (NY: Zone Books,1999).

32. ‘He [Galien] claims to have found pulses which resembled the march of ants which he called “formicans”;others, which tapered off like the tail of a rat, he called miures; and, according to Herophile, he called thosewhich he thought represented the leaps of a goat, pouls caprizans.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.xvii.

33. ‘Galien, in producing his Treatise on the pulse, reasoned much more than he had observed: he under-stood, however, that the different kinds of pulse had to be put into several classes: there was, however, somedifficulty in categorising them, in making them more recognisable, and even in expressing them in a fairlyintelligible manner.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.xvi-xvii.

34. ‘The “Moderns” kept to simpler divisions and names, even more indicative in appearance: pulses weredivided into strong and weak, frequent and slow, large and small, hard and soft, etc.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls,vol. I.xix.

35. ‘But it is easy to recognise that this nomenclature adopted by the “Moderns” has almost as many faultsas the one that they rejected, in fact these names do not express anything that is fairly accurate; it is notpossible to determine what sign one must consider in the illnesses [to decide] that the pulse is for example,hard or soft, large or small; its smallness and its greatness, its softness and its hardness [...] besides, it happensonly too often that a pulse which is found to be large or hard by one Doctor, will appear as small or soft toanother: consequently these definitions cannot express anything sufficiently positive.’ Bordeu, Recherches surle pouls, I. vol.xix-xx.

486 INGRID J. SYKES


36. ‘Illnesses in which crises are preceded and signalled by simple pulses, are never serious illnesses, unlikethose presenting complicated pulses, which are normally very serious: and yet it would require a lot for thevarious workings in the game of animal economy to be as noticeable and as recognisable in mediocre lesions ofthe functions as they are in major illness; it was therefore only in the exposition of the complicated pulses thatexaminations and discussions had to take place and this led to the productive and important rules that one wasseeking to establish.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.xxx.

37. ‘much further: & to bring them back, through this, to general principles which would enable as muchlight to be shed on the theory of art as on the practice.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.xxviii.

38. ‘The hardness, the softness, the greatness, the frequency and so on, are only states, relative modes which canbe assessed only through a common and fixed measure, to which one can refer all of these variations.’ Bordeu,Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.2-3.

39. ‘The natural pulse of the elderly is much stronger, much more dilated, and much harder than that ofchildren.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.5.

40. ‘The natural pulse of women is, in general, brisker and closer to that of children.’ Bordeu, Recherches surle pouls, vol. I.7.

41. Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.13.42. ‘There are, for example, some pulses which will be called, small, constrained, hard, full, dilated, developed: it

is as if one was saying that they are smaller, fuller, softer, more developed, than in the ordinary state of the naturalpulse in the subject under examination.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.12.

43. ‘following the example of all Physicians, when assessing the state of a sick person, one should bring allof the symptoms together and consider all the circumstances: in how many difficult situations would we findourselves in without taking this precaution?’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.15.

44. ‘the natural and perfect pulse of adults.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.16.45. ‘equal, its pulsations being perfectly alike and occurring at absolutely equal distances: it is soft, supple,

free, not frequent, not slow, [and] vigorous, without appearing to make any effort.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur lepouls, vol. I.16.

46. Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.18-19.47. ‘soft, full, and dilated with equal pulsations; one feels a kind of ondulation in each one; that is to say, the artery

dilates twice but with ease, softness and gentle oscillation strength.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.30-31.48. ‘strong, with a repeat in each beat, and is less soft, less full, [and] often more frequent than the pectoral

pulse; it appears to be intermediary between the pectoral pulse described in the previous Chapter and the nasalpulse which will be described in the following Chapter.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I, p.42.

49. Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.4.50. ‘The most clairvoyant and most confident Physicians with this sort of knowledge, are those able to

memorise all the images of the different kinds of pulse.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.7.51. See Observation VI, Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.36-7.52. See Observation IX, Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.38.53. ‘It is with the help of these facts that the Physicians understand each other, and when they propose that

a pulse is hard, soft, frequent, weak etc. they are always implying the state to which these names must becompared, without which they would be meaningless.’ Bordeu, Recherches sur le pouls, vol. I.8.

54. For further information of music and healing, see Peregrine Horden (ed.), Music as Medicine: The Historyof Music Therapy since Antiquity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).

55. Jean-Philippe Rameau, Code de musique pratique ou méthodes pour apprendre la musique, même à des aveugles,pour former la voix et l’oreille, pour la position de la main avec une mécanique des doigts sur le clavecin et l’orgue, pourl’accompagnement sur tous les instruments qui en sont susceptibles, et pous le prélude: avec de nouvelles réflexions surle principe sonore (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1760). The Code de musique pratique was the culmination of over fiftyyears of work on the science of music, including Rameau’s famous Traité de l’harmonie (Paris: Ballard, 1722).

56. See Joel Lester, ‘Rameau and Eighteenth-Century Harmonic Theory’, in Thomas Christensen (ed.),The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p.753-77.

57. ‘The fundamental bass must guide the composer in all things: it arranges harmony and melody equally:however, before we look at this, let us consider the ideas which dictate genius and taste: as experience is gained,so the ear obscurely adopts the products of this experience; but [this is] an over-familiar practice of certainseries from which one would like to move away, especially in essential expressions, or [where] the choice of tonesor genre is not introduced opportunely: the fear of being mistaken; quite simply, all this must encourage one toconsult this fundamental bass.’ Rameau, Code de musique pratique, p.81.

58. ‘Until now, it is only experience and listening which has trained these great musicians, whose workstestify to this: today, you also have a good knowledge of the principle, namely the fundamental bass, the resultsof which have become apparent to them [the great musicians] only after many years work, and even withoutpossessing them all [the theories of the fundamental bass], or knowing their source; you have this extraprinciple and the means of training your ear in a short amount of time. Consequently, everything guaranteesyou favourable success if you are rich in talent as one supposes.’ Rameau, Code de musique pratique, p.133.

59. ‘Through this mechanism, the fingers soon become familiar, in a manner of speaking, with the keyboard:familiarity which also nourishes the ear with all the harmonic routes, while offering the mind a true exampleof all of the rules which have to be learned: in this way, judgement, the ear and the fingers of intelligence worktogether to quickly obtain the perfections desirable in this genre.’ Rameau, Code de musique pratique, p.xiii.



60. ‘The fingers are able to observe, on the harpsichord or on the organ, a mechanical system so successfulin the chordal series, that it compensates not only for a lack of knowledge and ear, but it alone is capable oftraining the most hopeless of ears in harmony, in my experience and in the experience that others may also havehad on the sole level of the method in question.’ Rameau, Code de musique pratique, p.24.

61. ‘Once the ear is filled with an infinity of routes, and the fingers accustomed to performing them, then theimagination, enriched with good taste, has only to suggest some of them [these routes] and these fingersperform them instantly: then, thinking and acting become one. This is how the great organists or players ofsome other instruments like theorbo, lute, archlute, viol, violin, were trained.’ Rameau, Code de musique pratique,p.185.

INGRID SYKES is a lecturer in History at La Trobe University, Australia. She is the author of Women, Science andSound in Nineteenth-Century France (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2007). She is currently working on a book, TheHumanity of Hearing in Modern Europe, a study of the history of listening, emotions and auditory researchacross Europe, and will be a Visiting Fellow at the Humanities Research Centre, ANU, under their 2012 themedprogramme ‘Ecological Enlightenment’.

488 INGRID J. SYKES


the art of listening: perceiving pulse in eighteenth-century france

Documents