or Tune, in music, a property of sound, whereby it comes under the relation of grave and acute; or the degree of elevation any sound has, from the degree of swiftness of the vibrations of the parts of the sonorous body.

The variety of tones in human voices arises partly from the dimensions of the windpipe, which, like a flute, the longer and narrower it is, the sharper the tone it gives; but principally from the head of the larynx or knot of the throat: the tone of the voice being more or less grave as the rima or cleft thereof is more or less open.

The word tone is taken in four different senses among the ancients: 1. For any sound; 2. For a certain interval, as when it is said the difference between the diapente and diatessaron is a tone; 3. For a certain locus or compass of the voice, in which sense they used the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian tones; 4. For tension, as when they speak of an acute, grave, or a middle tone.

Tone is more particularly used, in music, for a certain degree or interval of tune, whereby a sound may be either raised or lowered from one extreme of a concord to the other, so as still to produce true melody.