This article discusses the delineation between physiology and music theory in Hermann von Helmholtz's On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (1863). It takes the phenomenon of ‘false relations’ as a point of departure to question the methodology Helmholtz devised to study music and hearing. The key to understanding this experimental method is the concept of ‘controlled deviation’, which is substantiated in two main sections. After providing some background information on the history of music theory, the first section explores ‘false relations’ within the context of physiological experimentation and hydrodynamics, the two most important areas of Helmholtz's scientific research. The second section of the article is centred on the experimental methods of Helmholtz as used in his investigation of vision and hearing. More specifically, it introduces notions of distortion, defamiliarization and deviation to distinguish levels of physiology that relate to the body and to cognition. As it turns out, music posed specific problems for the researcher. Beyond the ephemerality of sound, the malleability of hearing and of musical aesthetics proved even more of an obstacle for controlled experimentation. The article concludes with a discussion of Hugo Riemann, who continued to explore the central finding of Helmholtz, namely that the rules of music change due to the habits of the listener.

本文讨论了赫尔曼·冯·亥姆霍兹 (Hermann von Helmholtz) 的《音调感觉作为音乐理论的生理学基础》中对生理学和音乐理论的划分（1863 年）。它以“虚假关系”现象为出发点，质疑亥姆霍兹研究音乐和听力的方法论。理解这种实验方法的关键是“受控偏差”的概念，它在两个主要部分得到证实。在提供了有关音乐理论历史的一些背景信息之后，第一部分探讨了生理实验和流体动力学这两个最重要的亥姆霍兹科学研究领域中的“错误关系”。文章的第二部分以亥姆霍兹在视觉和听觉研究中使用的实验方法为中心。更具体地说，它引入了扭曲、陌生化和偏差的概念，以区分与身体和认知相关的生理水平。事实证明，音乐给研究人员带来了特定的问题。除了声音的短暂性之外，听觉和音乐美学的延展性被证明是受控实验的更大障碍。文章最后讨论了雨果·黎曼，他继续探索亥姆霍兹的中心发现，即音乐规则会因听众的习惯而改变。