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# History of Music Theory

Connect with the AMS & SMT for the history of music theory, events, and blog.

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://historyoftheory.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [The Marginalium](https://historyoftheory.com/the-marginalium/)
- [In Dialogue with Rameau: Diderot, Dissonance, and Bemetzrieder’s Leçons de clavecin](https://historyoftheory.com/in-dialogue-with-rameau-diderot-dissonance-and-bemetzrieders-lecons-de-clavecin/) - Michael Weinstein-Reiman For this post, I turn to an unlikely protagonist, self-proclaimed bad musician Denis Diderot, polymath of the French Enlightenment. Illustration de Le Neveu de Rameau, dialogue. Ouvrage posthume et inédit par Diderot (Paris, 1821) Dissonance takes center stage in Diderot’s Neveu de Rameau, or Rameau’s Nephew, written in 1761, revised substantially in 1773
- [Reflections on the Sixteenth Annual Congress of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie](https://historyoftheory.com/reflections-on-the-sixteenth-annual-congress-of-the-gesellschaft-fur-musiktheorie/) - The Sixteenth Annual Congress of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie (GMTH) was held in Hanover from September 30th to October 2nd, 2016. Over 150 members of the society from Germany, Austria and Switzerland attended the meeting, along with guest participants from countries around the world, including Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Hong Kong, Israel, Portugal, Russia, the UK
- [Schema Theory and Aesthetic Categories in North Indian Classical Dhrupad](https://historyoftheory.com/schema-theory-and-aesthetic-categories-in-north-indian-classical-dhrupad/) - Sumitra Ranganathan bani (lit. word or sound) is an elusive concept in the performance of Dhrupad, a genre of north Indian classical music with medieval origins that circulates in oral tradition. Historical sources refer to four distinct banis: gaurhar, dagur, khandar, and nauhar. A fifth bani, shuddh, combines the characteristic effects of other banis. Today
- [Global Histories of Music Theory](https://historyoftheory.com/global-histories-of-music-theory/) - Global Histories of Music Theory is a conference that will be held at Columbia University in New York on February 20, 2017. In the days leading up to the conference, we interviewed the two organizers, Carmel Raz and Lan Li, about their ideas and the experience of interdisciplinary collaboration. HoT Blog: What inspired Global Histories in Music Theory? Carmel Raz:
- [Some Reflections about Thoroughbass Pedagogy Today](https://historyoftheory.com/some-reflections-about-thoroughbass-pedagogy-today/) - In recent times, quite a few European conservatories have been reintroducing thoroughbass methods in their music theory curricula.[1] The surge of interest in these methods, commonly known as “partimento,” has led to a reevaluation of theory pedagogy more broadly. While this development testifies to a generally healthy trend towards integrating the various subdisciplines in music
- [Chromatic Scale Construction in Ancient China](https://historyoftheory.com/chromatic-scale-construction-in-ancient-china/) - Music theory is an essential part of Chinese music and culture. Its centrality to understandings of cosmology and social order may seem familiar to music theorists trained in the European tradition. Yet because the distinct characteristics of Chinese music theory have only rarely been incorporated into discussions within the history of Western music theory, exploring
- [Teaching Solfège in Socialist East Germany](https://historyoftheory.com/teaching-solfege-in-socialist-east-germany/) - What can music pedagogies for children tell us about how grown-ups think about music? My recent work examines the politics of classical music in socialist East Germany (GDR) through the lens of children’s music education. Officially, the doctrine of socialist realism demanded that citizens of the new socialist society should perform and listen to new
- [Conference Report](https://historyoftheory.com/873/) - On November 8th and 9th, the SMT History of Theory Interest Group / AMS Study Group co-sponsored a conference on “Instruments of Music Theory,” at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY co-organized by Prof. Andrew Hicks (Cornell University), Prof. Nathan Martin (University of Michigan), Dr. Caleb Mutch (Indiana University), Dr. Carmel Raz (Columbia
- [Researching the Transfer of Central-European Music Theory and Composition Treatises to China](https://historyoftheory.com/researching-the-transfer-of-central-european-music-theory-and-composition-treatises-to-china/) - My interest in the circulation of European music theory in China was initially piqued through the doctoral work of Wang Ying, for whom I served as an external advisor. Now a lecturer of music theory in Guangzhou, Dr. Wang was a doctoral candidate at the Central Conservatory of Beijing at the time and spent two
- [Storms in Chang-an: On the Music Debate of Kai-huang Period](https://historyoftheory.com/storms-in-chang-an-on-the-music-debate-of-kai-huang-period/) - In its pursuit of national rejuvenation, the Xi administration in China has shown a renewed interest for traditional culture. Integral to this latest wave of cultural renaissance is a movement to reconstruct—based on treatises of various historical times—the nation’s classical music theory, an effort driven by a group of musicians, scholars and self-acclaimed literati (wenren)
- [Rhythm, Number, and Heraclitus’ River](https://historyoftheory.com/rhythm-number-and-heraclitus-river/) - The following short passage was recorded by an anonymous student of Aristotle or his school in the section on music in the pseudo-Aristotelian work known as the Problems: We enjoy rhythm because it possesses number both familiar and ordered, and moves us in an orderly way. For ordered movement is by nature more akin [to
- [A Princely Manuscript at the National Library of China — Part I: Guido’s Hexachords and the 18th-century Chinese Opera Reform](https://historyoftheory.com/a-princely-manuscript-at-the-national-library-of-china-part-i-guidos-hexachords-and-the-18th-century-chinese-opera-reform/) - Originally from the court library of the Qing Empire (1636-1912), National Library of China Putong Guji 15251 (c. 1707) is a manuscript in Chinese of 127 folios, roughly 24*12 cm in size, organized in four separate stitched wrapped-back fascicles (ce 冊) in one cloth encasement.Many scholars have perused its first 51 folios, which contain a
- [The Influence of Riemann (and Richter) on Music Theory in Scandinavia](https://historyoftheory.com/the-influence-of-riemann-and-richter-on-music-theory-in-scandinavia/) - Even though it is well known that Hugo Riemann’s function theory traveled far and wide beyond the boundaries of German-speaking Musikwissenschaft, the exact impact it has had in other linguistic and national communities—the ways in which it has been adapted, transformed, and combined with local idiosyncrasies—has been subject to limited scholarly scrutiny. Lately, however, the
- [Can the History of Theory Be Decentered? Part I - Prequel: Five Classics](https://historyoftheory.com/can-the-history-of-theory-be-decentered-part-i-prequel-five-classics/) - Until fairly recently, Harvard’s History of Music Theory exam was rather free-wheeling.[1] It allowed our graduate students to focus on any period or topic in the history of theory. But my colleagues and I eventually came to see this model as unwieldy. An overhaul was needed. To make the exam more manageable for all
- [Can the History of Theory Be Decentered? Part II - Five Different Classics](https://historyoftheory.com/can-the-history-of-theory-be-decentered-part-ii-five-different-classics/) - [...] Continuation of: I. Prequel: Five Classics [...] But there was no resting on laurels. No sooner had I completed the syllabus than I started reading some recent inquiries into critical race theory and music theory—especially Phil Ewell’s series of blog posts “Confronting Racism and Sexism in Music Theory” and Vijay Iyer’s analysis of recent theorizing on
- [Can the History of Theory Be Decentered? Part III - Some Consequences](https://historyoftheory.com/can-the-history-of-theory-be-decentered-part-iii-some-consequences/) - [...] Continuation of: II. Five Different Classics [...] Writing a diverse HoT will require an embrace of the limits of what one person can do as a teacher. In conventional HoTs, the standard languages German, French, Italian, Latin, and ancient Greek can be expected; they would—ideally—be needed to follow my old syllabus. It’s remarkable that for a
- [Can the History of Theory Be Decentered? Part IV - Pros and cons](https://historyoftheory.com/can-the-history-of-theory-be-decentered-part-iv/) - [...] Continuation of: III. Some Consequences [...] One possible criticism of the design I sketch out here is that it provides an outline that is still largely oriented by the concerns of a traditional western HoT, even though it populates its syllabus with women and POCs. This is a legitimate point: the selection of figures still
- [Can the History of Theory Be Decentered? Part V - Some FAQs (and not-so-FAQs)](https://historyoftheory.com/can-the-history-of-theory-be-decentered-part-v-some-faqs-and-not-so-faqs/) - [...] Continuation of: IV. Pros and cons [...] What are the dangers of this plan? What if it is taught badly? This is undoubtedly unchartered territory for most of us, and yes, there are some vagaries that can seem terrifying even to seasoned teachers. To a certain extent, we all have to be ready to plunge
- [Fétis’s Racial Frame of Tonality (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/fetiss-racial-frame-of-tonality-part-i/) - It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Philip Ewell’s SMT plenary talk last year on music theory’s “White racial frame”—and also including the expanded essay he published this past summer and the recent issue of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies (devoted as a response to Ewell’s SMT talk)-- has ignited a debate within the
- [Fétis’s Racial Frame of Tonality (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/fetiss-racial-frame-of-tonality-part-ii/) - [...] Continuation of: Part I I have to admit it was a rude shock when I learned of Fétis’s virulent racist views. It was especially deflating as I had invested so much time working on my study of his theory of tonality and its reception only to belatedly discover that my protagonist ended his life
- [Reimagining Formalism for an Antiracist Music Theory (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/reimagining-formalism-for-an-antiracist-music-theory/) - Jade Conlee and Tatiana Koike If music theory is a kind of worldmaking, what world, what political matrix, does music theory imagine? Right now, music theory is in the process of confronting the racist worldviews embedded in our field's foundational texts and methods. In blog posts below, both Thomas Christensen and Alex Rehding comment on
- [Reimagining Formalism for an Antiracist Music Theory (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/reimagining-formalism-for-an-antiracist-music-theory-part-ii/) - [...] Continuation of: Part I In order to theorize high-level relationships within musical structure, music theory as it is currently practiced in Western academia has presupposed the ontological stability of its basic building blocks— notes, scales, and chords. Although the definitions of these terms have changed over time, the primary task of music theory has
- [Stories of Translation; or, Translation as Music Theory](https://historyoftheory.com/stories-of-translation-or-translation-as-music-theory/) - Translation plays a key role in the circulation of histories of music theory across the globe; yet stories of translation are often left untold. In this blog post, I recount two stories about my experience as a translator of music-theoretical texts. My goal is to show that stories of translation are part and parcel of
- [The Singing Group: Polyphony and Power (Die singende Gruppe – Mehrstimmigkeit und Macht) (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/the-singing-group-polyphony-and-power-die-singende-gruppe-mehrstimmigkeit-und-macht-part-i/) - (English Translation: Ariane Jeßulat and Thomas Christensen) I. Participation in Harmony In the Oxford Handbook of Critical Concepts in Music Theory, Michael Tenzer subjects our current understanding of "polyphony" to critical revision.[1] The initial question of "how do two sounds differ from one another?” opens up a space for reconsiderations outside of the traditional Western frame
- [Ita se n’er’a star: Insights for a Fourteenth-Century Tactus (Ita se n’er’a star e un’ipotesi sul tactus nel Trecento) (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/ita-se-nera-star-insights-for-a-fourteenth-century-tactus-ita-se-nera-star-e-unipotesi-sul-tactus-nel-trecento-part-i/) - (English Translation: Giulia Accornero) [1] Gaffurio 1496: ii.3 (ed. 2017: 123-125). It is not helpful to consider the relationship between the tactus and the pulse to be solely metaphorical (as in Bonge 1982, and DeFord 2015: § i.7). Since Antiquity, phyisicans have established a strict relationship between music, rhythm, and blood pressure (Sairisi 1975). [2]
- [Ita se n’er’a star: Insights for a Fourteenth-Century Tactus (Ita se n’er’a star e un’ipotesi sul tactus nel Trecento) (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/ita-se-nera-star-insights-for-a-fourteenth-century-tactus-ita-se-nera-star-e-unipotesi-sul-tactus-nel-trecento-part-ii/) - Davide Daolmi (English Translation: Giulia Accornero) [...] Continuation of: Part I As we have seen in Part I, the differences between SqA to SqB reveal the adoption of a different divisio to convey different tempi in proportional relation to a stable tactus. The function of this notational device will later develop into what is known
- [The Singing Group: Polyphony and Power (Die singende Gruppe – Mehrstimmigkeit und Macht) (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/the-singing-group-polyphony-and-power-die-singende-gruppe-mehrstimmigkeit-und-macht-part-ii/) - (English Translation: Ariane Jeßulat and Thomas Christensen) [...] Continuation of: Part I II. The Dux and Comes: or “how many comites are there”? To describe a soggetto and its answer, Calvisius coined the terms dux and comes in the Melopoia (literally, the “leader” and its “companion”). This pairing seems to suggest an asymmetrical relation between
- [Time and Gesture in Lorenzo da Firenze’s Ita se n’er’a star: A Response to Davide Daolmi](https://historyoftheory.com/time-and-gesture-in-lorenzo-da-firenzes-ita-se-nera-star-a-response-to-davide-daolmi/) - Philippa Ovenden Among late-medieval songs, Lorenzo da Firenze’s Ita se n’er’a is known both for its Ovidian text, which describes the mythical tale of Pluto’s suit of Proserpina, and its eccentric notation.[1] Three versions of this song have survived, in London, British Library, Add. MS 29987, ff. 43v–44r (Lo) and two in Florence, MS Mediceo
- [The Planets Cannot Sing! : Al-Fārābī on Music Theory and Practice](https://historyoftheory.com/the-planets-cannot-sing-al-farabi-on-music-theory-and-practice/) - In his Great Book on Music, Abū Naṣr al‑Fārābī (d. 339/950) appeals to the science of nature (physics) and in particular to Aristotle’s lectio to reject the idea that planets and stars could generate music.[1] He thus opposes not only Pythagorean and Platonic doctrines, but also several of his predecessors within the Islamicate tradition, Abū
- [Should We Burn the Pianos?: Introducing A Collaborative Project Focused on Building “New Instruments for Theory” ](https://historyoftheory.com/should-we-burn-the-pianos-introducing-a-collaborative-project-focused-on-building-new-instruments-for-theory/) - Enter just about any room of a Western-style conservatory or music department, and you will probably stumble into a piano. Nearly everyone on the teaching and research staff has a use for them. Composers, improvisers, and performers employ them in searching for new artistic possibilities. Theorists use them to work out the properties of musical harmony. And
- [Madame de Pompadour as Music Theorist](https://historyoftheory.com/madame-de-pompadour-as-music-theorist/) - The Querelle des Bouffons[1] was a music-theoretical dispute that took place in France between 1752 and 1754. The dispute was, at face value, about the relative merits of French and Italian opera, sparked by the arrival of a troupe of Italian players at the Paris Opéra. It has been difficult for historians to gauge the
- [Music Theory, Global Designs, and Modernity/Coloniality: Reading Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia universalis in the “New World” (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/music-theory-global-designs-and-modernity-coloniality-reading-athanasius-kirchers-musurgia-universalis-in-the-new-world-part-i/) - Part I. Musicosmopolitics Few music treatises circulated in the early modern/colonial period as broadly and efficiently as Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia universalis (1650).[1] Of the 1500 printed copies of the Musurgia, 300 were given to Jesuit missionaries who distributed it around the globe: “et in Africam, Asiam et Americam distracta fuerunt.”[2] The copy in the Biblioteca
- [Music Theory, Global Designs, and Modernity/Coloniality: Reading Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia universalis in the “New World” (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/music-theory-global-designs-and-modernity-coloniality-reading-athanasius-kirchers-musurgia-universalis-in-the-new-world-part-ii/) - Part II. The Musurgia universalis in New Spain [...] Continuation of Part I. Musicosmopolitics [...] The first copy of the Musurgia universalis (1650) found in New Spain arrived by way of Father François Guillot, a former colleague of Kircher’s at Avignon who had been living in Puebla since 1635 with the Spanish name of Francisco
- [Watching the Ether: An Irreplicable Experiment on Pitch-Pipes (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/watching-the-ether-an-irreplicable-experiment-on-pitch-pipes-part-ii/) - [...] Continuation of Part I [...] In the last blog post, we have seen that officials who failed to obtain consistent results in their attempts at “watching the ether”—the reed ashes inside twelve half-buried pitch-pipes blown forth by the qi (ether) at the corresponding major solar terms of the corresponding months—tended to seek reasons in
- [Watching the Ether: An Irreplicable Experiment on Pitch-Pipes (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/watching-the-ether-an-irreplicable-experiment-on-pitch-pipes-part-i/) - In 1672, on the twelfth day of the eighth month of the eleventh year of the Kangxi reign (r. 1662–1722), the emperor issued an edict abolishing a practice of musico-cosmological observations, known as houqi, which lasted for more than a thousand years in China: “The method of houqi has long been lost. It is hardly
- [Arabic Music Theory and Manuscript Studies: Greek Notation in al-Fārābī’s Great Book on Music?](https://historyoftheory.com/arabic-music-theory-and-manuscript-studies-greek-notation-in-al-farabis-great-book-on-music/) - Arabic music theory from the Abbasid period (750–1258) is a rich and sophisticated tradition that incorporates ancient Greek thought into autochthonous Arabic musical theorization and practice. Extant Arabic theoretical writings on music, which survive from the 9th century onwards, were penned by theorists mainly active in Baghdad. [1] Al-Fārābī (d. 950), author of the mighty
- [Colonial Organology and Ornithology in Richard Ligon’s Acoustics of Anthropological Difference (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/colonial-organology-and-ornithology-in-richard-ligons-acoustics-of-anthropological-difference-part-i/) - Among early modern colonizers’ narratives of the invasion and expropriation of the so-called New World, a great many and perhaps most devoted some space to documenting the musical and performance customs among the Indigenous people they encountered there and the enslaved Africans they brought there. Occasionally, even (indirect) music theoretical judgments surfaced in colonizers’ writings
- [Colonial Organology and Ornithology in Richard Ligon’s Acoustics of Anthropological Difference (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/colonial-organology-and-ornithology-in-richard-ligons-acoustics-of-anthropological-difference-part-ii/) - [...] Continuation of Part I [...] Music theoretical judgments help to articulate Ligon’s understandings of the human as a category also in a somewhat later portion of his book devoted to careful empirical documentation of local flora and fauna. Describing an evidently thrush-like bird, he indulges some musings about quarter tones: [It is] the colour
- [The Golden Book of Chinese Music Theory](https://historyoftheory.com/the-golden-book-of-chinese-music-theory/) - In 1978, archaeologists working in Hubei Province, China, uncovered a royal tomb from 433 B.C. Among the twenty musical instruments is a set of sixty-five bronze bells suspended from a wooden support. Each bell is almond-shaped and emits two distinct pitches depending on the strike point. They have low inharmonicity and rapidly self-damp, making them ideal for
- [This is Your Brain on Hexachordal Solmization](https://historyoftheory.com/this-is-your-brain-on-hexachordal-solmization/) - Recently, I posed a question on Twitter: what kind of solmization system(s) were you brought up on, and to what extent did solmization shape your understanding of pitch space? The responses ran the gamut of systems — some folks grew up on fixed do, others on moveable do with la-based minor, others developed idiosyncratic systems
- [North American Music Theory and the Early Internet](https://historyoftheory.com/north-american-music-theory-and-the-early-internet/) - “Hah! It’s poetry in motion She turned her tender eyes to me As deep as any ocean As sweet as any harmony Mmm – but she blinded me with science ‘She blinded me with science!’ And failed me in biology Yeah-eah!” --Thomas Dolby, “She Blinded Me With Science” Before Thomas Dolby released the song “She
- [A Hybrid (Abjadic-Metric) Notation for Seventeen-Tone Temperament of Persian Music یک روش نت‌نویسی تلفیقی (ابجدی-نقطه‌ای) برای گام هفده-نغمه‌ای موسیقی ایرانی, Part I](https://historyoftheory.com/a-hybrid-abjadic-metric-notation-for-seventeen-tone-temperament-of-persian-music-یک-روش-نتنویسی-تلفیق/) - The introduction of Western music and the consequent application of Western music notation became customary gradually from the Qajar period (1789–1925) in Iran. The European music instructors who were asked to come to Iran and train Iranian military musicians were also ordered to make a transcription of the Persian modal system (Persian dastgāh). But they
- [A Hybrid (Abjadic-Metric) Notation for Seventeen-Tone Temperament of Persian Music (یک روش نت‌نویسی تلفیقی (ابجدی-نقطه‌ای) برای گام هفده-نغمه‌ای موسیقی ایرانی) Part II](https://historyoftheory.com/a-hybrid-abjadic-metric-notation-for-seventeen-tone-temperament-of-persian-music-یک-روش-نتنویسی-تلفیق-2/) - [...] Continuation of: Part I Hedāyat’s hybrid notation makes a bridge between the present and the past, which allows us to study the history of Persian music theory —which in recent decades has been theorized using the twenty-four equal quartertone temperament— through the forgotten seventeen-tone system which was designed specifically for this music and used
- [What Kind of Brain? A Reply to Megan K. Long](https://historyoftheory.com/what-kind-of-brain-a-reply-to-megan-k-long/) - Prof. Long’s recent observations on hexachordal solmization raise several issues that cannot be fully teased out in blog format. The one overarching question I would like to pose for an initial response is the following: I have no doubt that solmization “just makes sense” as a method for singing Renaissance polyphony, and that it has
- [Teaching the “Theory of ‘Sweet Sounds:’” Sarah Mary Fitton’s 1855 Conversations on Harmony as Public Music Theory](https://historyoftheory.com/teaching-the-theory-of-sweet-sounds-sarah-mary-fittons-1855-conversations-on-harmony-as-public-music-theory/) - In 1855, Sarah Mary Fitton (c.1796–1874) anonymously published a harmony book covering topics ranging from the rudiments of Western classical music theory to chromatic harmony. Structured as a series of thirty-six conversations between Mother and Edward, Conversations on Harmony was intended “to explain the rules of Harmony, in so simple a manner, as to bring
- [Rosa Newmarch, Musical Gossip, and Identity in Music Theory and History (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/rosa-newmarch-musical-gossip-and-identity-in-music-theory-and-history-part-i/) - Part I: “Isn’t it supreme!”: Newmarch and Musical Knowledge How do we glean knowledge from and about music? And how do we determine whether that knowledge is reputable? In E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice (written in 1913 but published posthumously in 1971), the titular character finds himself at a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (commonly
- [Rosa Newmarch, Musical Gossip, and Identity in Music Theory and History (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/rosa-newmarch-musical-gossip-and-identity-in-music-theory-and-history-part-ii/) - [...] Continuation of Part I [...] Part II: “Hints are not facts”: Citing Gossip in Newmarch’s Analyses and Biographical Writings Overtly, Newmarch’s view of biographical gossip about composers tended to be critical. Her introductory commentary to a translation of the libretto to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Motsart i Salyeri (published around 1919, almost a decade before the opera’s
- [Phonetic Logograms and Zigzagged Zithers (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/phonetic-logograms-and-zigzagged-zithers-part-i/) - 恐。我天皇、猶阿蘓婆勢其太御琴。 自阿至勢以音。 I am afraid. My emperor, play the great honored zither now. From 阿 to 勢 in accordance with their sounds. The above utterance looks like Chinese—and in fact, most of it is. But what of the footnote in small type after the main text? It says that the characters 阿蘓婆勢 are to be
- [Phonetic Logograms and Zigzagged Zithers (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/phonetic-logograms-and-zigzagged-zithers-part-ii/) - [...] Continuation of Part I [...] I ended the previous post leaving open a question about the Kinkafu’s name. Let’s contemplate the first character in the title of the manuscript (Kinkafu 琴歌譜, qín + songs + notation, i.e “notation of qín songs”). The character 琴 is the same character that is used in the Kojiki
- [Phonetic Logograms and Zigzagged Zithers (Part III)](https://historyoftheory.com/phonetic-logograms-and-zigzagged-zithers-part-iii/) - [...] Continuation of Part II [...] One of the things I find most fascinating about these dynamics I identified in Japanese culture from the time of the Kojiki is that they can also be seen emerging in Japan’s modernizing efforts during the Meiji era (1868–1912 CE). During that period, the wagon, an instrument that had
- [Towards an Ethics of Translation for Global History of Music Theory](https://historyoftheory.com/towards-an-ethics-of-translation-for-global-history-of-music-theory-part-i/) - [This post is the lightly adapted version of a lightening talk I presented at the 2022 Business Meeting of the History of Music Theory Interest/Study Group.] Translation will likely play a hugely important role in global projects of history of music theory. Translation can help us shorten the distance between theorists from far-flung places, rendering
- [Tuning the World: Pitch Lessons for the History of Music Theory](https://historyoftheory.com/tuning-the-world-pitch-lessons-for-the-history-of-music-theory/) - Last January, I published a book entitled Tuning the World: The Rise of 440 Hertz in Music, Science, and Politics (1859–1955) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Surprisingly—or perhaps, unsurprisingly, given the separation between my own subfield of historical musicology and music theory—I never thought of this work as a contribution to music theory. Following the
- [Vernon Lee's  Psychological Aesthetics and Embodied Music Cognition (Part I)](https://historyoftheory.com/vernon-lees-psychological-aesthetics-and-embodied-music-cognition-part-i/) - “Musical aesthetics ought to be the clue to the study of all other branches of art” (Vernon Lee, Music and Its Lovers, p. 23) The writings of Vernon Lee—the pen name of Violet Paget[i] (1856–1935), an English Victorian novelist, art critic, philosopher, and amateur psychologist—are enjoying something of a revival in music studies.[ii] Most of
- [Vernon Lee's Psychological Aesthetics and Embodied Music Cognition (Part II)](https://historyoftheory.com/vernon-lees-psychological-aesthetics-and-embodied-music-cognition-part-ii/) - [...] Continuation of Part I [...] In the previous post I showed that Vernon Lee’s theory of musical emotions—dramatic emotions and aesthetic emotions—was based on a sophisticated understanding of how bodies respond to the “paces and rhythms” of sonic stimuli. The language might be different, but there are striking parallels between Lee’s account of empathy
- [A History of Ecstatic Listening: What Arabic Ṭarab Has Taught Me about Musical Emotion­­](https://historyoftheory.com/a-history-of-ecstatic-listening-what-arabic-ṭarab-has-taught-me-about-musical-emotion/) - Beginning in the late 1930s, the first Thursday evening of each month marked a special occasion for those within the Arabic-speaking world. On those evenings, which often turned into early mornings, millions planned on being within earshot of a radio. Taxis in Beirut, Lebanon would pull over to let nearby pedestrians gather around their car
- [Recontextualizing Tertian Harmonies: A Preliminary Study on Western Harmony Discourse in Twentieth-Century China](https://historyoftheory.com/recontextualizing-tertian-harmonies-a-preliminary-study-on-western-harmony-discourse-in-twentieth-century-china/) - An appendix with side-by-side translations of the original texts can be found at the end of this post for the reader's reference. "The Chinese Cadence"? A while back, I was part of a Chinese Music Ensemble at an American institution. I remember the director urging us to bring out the expressiveness of a certain cadence,
- [Reckoning with a Chinese Guidonian Hand](https://historyoftheory.com/reckoning-with-a-chinese-guidonian-hand/) - One of the global traces left behind by the Portuguese Jesuit missionary Tomás Pereira (1645–1708) in late seventeenth-century Beijing is a Guidonian Hand (Fig. 1). This handy mnemonic tool appears in his treatise Lülü zuanyao 律呂纂要 (c. 1680s, roughly translated as “A Compilation on Music”), which Pereira created for the Kangxi Emperor (1654–1722) as a

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