Overview

This encyclopaedic book proposes a sweeping reformulation of the basic concepts of Western music theory, revealing simple structures underlying a wide range of practices from the Renaissance to contemporary pop. Its core innovation is a collection of simple geometrical models describing the implicit knowledge governing a broad range of music-making, much as the theory of grammar describes principles that tacitly guide our speaking and writing. Each of its central chapters re-examines a basic music-theoretical concept such as voice leading, repetition, nonharmonic tones, the origins of tonal harmony, the grammar of tonal harmony, modulation, and melody. These are flanked by two largely analytical chapters on rock harmony and Beethoven. Wide-ranging in scope, and with almost 700 musical examples from the Middle Ages to the present day, Tonality: An Owner's Manual weaves philosophy, mathematics, statistics, and computational analysis into a new and truly twenty-first century theory of music.

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9780197577103

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Reviews

Tonality: An Owner's Manual is Dmitri Tymoczko's dazzling answer to the controversial quest for a transhistorical definition of tonality. By disentangling what composers do from what theorists say, Tymoczko presents a fascinating exposition of common compositional principles that animate Western music from Renaissance polyphony to jazz, rock, and contemporary triadic idioms. * Suzannah Clark, Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music and Director of the Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University * Dmitri Tymoczko is an original musical thinker who combines mathematical skills and good musicianship in search of universal principles of pitch organization. Tonality: An Owner's Manual continues this quest in proposing a geometrical, hierarchical voice-leading theory that has applications across diverse musical styles. It is written with admirable clarity. * Fred Lerdahl, Fritz Reiner Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition, Columbia University *

Author Information

Dmitri Tymoczko is a composer and music theorist who teaches at Princeton University. Widely recognized as one of the world's leading music theorists, his music has been performed all over the world.

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