Why write music theory and publish it? In the thesis I investigate the reasons for a seeming over-abundance of practically oriented music treatises in early seventeenth-century Italy. Throughout I challenge our conventional assessment of the study of music theory: I suggest that we can define a music-theoretical text in terms of its material form in addition to its content. Adriano Banchieri (1568-1634) was the most prolific theorist in early seventeenth-century Italy. His music-theory books exemplify contemporary printing patterns, an overt practical focus, and a synthesis of contemporary theoretical innovations. In Chapter 1, after considering the meaning of 'music theory' and how it is typically classified, I discuss the process of and purposes for writing and publishing music theory. In Chapter 2 I explore Banchieri's practical and philosophical motives for writing music theory, and thus introduce the reader to his music-theoretical corpus. The focus of the thesis then broadens: in Chapter 3 I survey the typical authors, publishing houses, content, material form, function and readers of the various kinds of theoretical texts printed in Italy between 1600 and 1630. In Chapter 4 I examine the widespread practice of publishing second and revised editions of music-theory books in order to establish the extent to which a new edition corresponds to a seeming demand for a particular text. The case study of the paratext of Banchieri's Conclusiones de musica (Bologna, 1627) in Chapter 5 demonstrates the great extent to which the preliminary matter of an early Seicento music-theory book is embedded in its socio-cultural context and how a paratext projects ideas contained in the text proper. Lastly, in Chapter 6 I explore to whom and in which particular forums theoretical writings circulated. Here I focus principally on Banchieri's printed letters, which provide evidence of how an author circulated his music books.

Valentin Roeser’s Essai d’instruction à l’usage de ceux qui composent pour la clarinette et le cor is the earliest treatise on instrumentation and the first theoretical study of the clarinet. Comparisons are drawn with other eighteenth-century instructional materials, e.g. Francoeur’s Diapason général, La Borde’s Essai sur la musique, and Vanderhagen’s Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée pour la clarinette. A history of the chalumeau and two-keyed clarinet is presented, along with a biographical sketch of Roeser and an English translation of the first section of the Essai. Appendices include a checklist of Roeser’s writings and a list of eighteenth-century music using the chalumeau.

This study models the human process of music cognition on the digital computer. The definition of music cognition is derived from the work in music cognition done by the researchers Carol Krumhansl and Edward Kessler, and by Mari Jones, as well as from the music theories of Heinrich Schenker. The computer implementation functions in three stages. First, it translates a musical "performance" in the form of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) messages into LISP structures. Second, the various parameters of the performance are examined separately a la Jones's joint accent structure, quantified according to psychological findings, and adjusted to a common scale. The findings of Krumhansl and Kessler are used to evaluate the consonance of each note with respect to the key of the piece and with respect to the immediately sounding harmony. This process yields a multidimensional set of points, each of which is a cognitive evaluation of a single musical event within the context of the piece of music within which it occurred. This set of points forms a metric space in multi-dimensional Euclidean space. The third phase of the analysis maps the set of points into a topology-preserving data structure for a Schenkerian-like middleground structural analysis. This process yields a hierarchical stratification of all the musical events (notes) in a piece of music. It has been applied to several pieces of music with surprising results. In each case, the analysis obtained very closely resembles a structural analysis which would be supplied by a human theorist. The results obtained invite us to take another look at the representation of knowledge and perception from another perspective, that of a set of points in a topological space, and to ask if such a representation might not be useful in other domains. It also leads us to ask if such a representation might not be useful in combination with the more traditional rule-based representations by helping to eliminate unwanted levels of detail in a cognitive-perceptual system.

While musical sources and documents from throughout the Middle Ages reveal that mode was an enduring and consciously derived trait of monophonic chant, modality in later polyphony shares neither the historical span nor the theoretical clarity of its monophonic counterpart. Modern theorists are left with little more than circumstantial evidence of the early development of modality in polyphony. This study attempts to shed light on the problem by detailed analysis of a select body of paraphrase masses from the early sixteenth century. First, it correlates the correspondence between the paraphrased voice and the original chant, establishing points of observation that become the basis of melodic analysis. Then, these points are correlated with known rules of counterpoint. Exceptions are identified and examined for their potential to place emphasis on individual mode-defining pitches. A set of tools is derived for quantifying the relative strength of cadential actions. Levels of cadence are defined, ranging from full, structural cadences to surfacelevel accentuations of individual pitches by sixth-to-octave dyadic motions. These cadence levels are traced through the Missae de beata virqine repertoire from c. 1500-1520, a repertoire that includes masses of Josquin, Brumel, La Rue, Isaac, and Rener. While the Credos, based on two chant sources—one early (11th century) and one later (15th century)—showed little modal consistency, the Kyries show some suggestion of purposeful modal expression; and the Glorias show even greater implications. Results of the study have potential application in sixteenth-century music scholarship to such important issues as musica ficta, performance practice, text underlay, and form.

This dissertation is an analysis of two of the six sonatas for organ using rhetorical-musical prescriptions from seventeenth and eighteenth-century German theorists. It undertakes to examine the way in which lines are built by application of figurae, to observe the design of each of the six movements, and to draw conclusions concerning implications for performance based upon the use of figurae in specific contexts. The period source on melodic design and the ordering of an entire movement based upon principles of rhetoric is Johann Mattheson's Per volkommene Capelmeister (1739). Guidelines for categorization of figures derive from the twentieth-century writers Timothy Albrecht, George Buelow, Lena Jacobson, and Peter Williams. Chapter I provides justification for the rhetorical approach through a brief description of the rise of the process as applied to composition during the Baroque period by relating Bach's own familiarity with the terminology and processes of rhetorical prescription, and by describing the implications for performance in observing the sonatas from the rhetorical viewpoint. Chapter II deals with the process of composition by rhetorical prescription in (1) the invention of the subject and its figural decoration and (2) the elaboration of the subject through the sixpart discourse of an entire movement. Specific figures of decoration are defined through examples of their use within the context of the sonatas. Chapter III constitutes the analysis of the six sonata movements. Chapter IV reinforces the justification of this type of analysis. The figures, as aids for inflection and punctuation, affect decisions concerning articulation of events and assist in effecting convincing performance.

The purpose of the thesis is to analyze formally, harmonically and melodically the five movements of the suite both as separate movements and inclusively as one cohesive unit. The thesis will be written in three parts: Part One will include a biographical sketch of the composer, a general discussion of his music, background information on the suite and Dett's antecedents and contemporaries influencing him. Part Two will discuss the following: A) Form, B) Harmonic Analysis, and C) Melodic Analysis and the influences of black folk idioms. Part Three will include the keyboard music of Dett's contemporaries as compared to his suite in terms of their contrasts and similarities.

The purpose of this study is to trace the development of the major seventh chord from the earliest recorded music through the German School of composition up to the time of Johann Sebastian Bach. The term "major seventh chord" is used to denote the four-tone chord comprised of a major triad plus a tone which is a major seventh above the root. In major keys this chord may be built on the tonic and subdominant degrees of the scale without alterations, and in the "natural" minor on the mediant and the submediant. The full, or structural, name "major-major seventh chord"--used in the present thesis only when it is necessary to distinguish it from other seventh chords with major sevenths-- arises from the fact that the triad (1, 3, 5) is major and the interval between the root and the seventh is major.

This thesis considers all of Ernest McClain's published writings, from March, 1970, to September, 1976, from the standpoint of their present-day acoustical significance. Although much of the material comes from McClain's writings, some is drawn from other related musical, mathematical, and philosophical works. The four chapters begin with a biographical sketch of McClain, presenting his background which aided him in becoming a theoretical musicologist. The second chapter contains a chronological itemization of his writings and provides a synopsis of them in layman's terms. The following chapter offers an examination of some salient points of McClain's work. The final chapter briefly summarizes the findings and contains conclusions as to their germaneness to current music theory, thereby giving needed exposure to McClain's ideas.

The thesis deals with the use of musical educational games in teaching music theory. The theoretical part explains some general concepts such as game, activation, or the child's personality. Text is based on the history of education, highlighting the views of famous philosophers, doctors, teachers, psychologists and other thinkers, who focused on child's play and the personality of the child. This part of the thesis also presents ways how to work with music playing in the singing, listening, instrumental and musical movement activities, according to some contemporary music teachers. The research focuses on experimental teaching with application of games with music theory, which were specially developed by the author. The research subject is the student and his involvement in activities that help with music theory teaching. The study identified some sub-goals: Discover the impact of educational games for pupil's activation and their participation in experimental teaching music education. Discover pupil's experiences from the game and checking the effectivity of the learning. Determine to what extent the didactic game affect the student's interests to learn music theory to alleviate the fear of poorly understood subject matter. The research verifies the set hypothesis. Although the research results...

How have we come to hear melody as going “up” or “down”? Why does the Western world predominantly adopt spatial terms such as “high” and “low” to distinguish musical notes while other non-Western cultures use non-spatial terms such as “large” and “small” (Bali), or “clear” and “dull” (South Korea)? Have the changing concepts of motion and space in people’s everyday lives over history also changed our understanding of musical space? My dissertation investigates the Western concept of music space as it has been shaped by social change into the way we think about music today. In our understanding of music, the concept of the underlying space is so elemental that it is impossible for us to have any fruitful discourse about music without using inherently spatial terms. For example a term interval in music denotes the distance between two combined notes; but, in fact, two sonic objects are neither near nor far from each other. This shows that our experience of hearing interval as a combination of different notes is not inherent in the sound itself but constructed through cultural and social means. In Western culture, musical sound is often conceptualized through various metaphors whose source domains reflect the society that incubated these metaphorical understandings. My research investigates the historical formation of the conceptual metaphor of music. In particular, I focus on historical formation of the three underlying assumptions we bring to our hearing of music: (1) “high” and “low” notes and motion between them, (2) functionality of musical chords, and (3) reliance on music notation. In each chapter, I contextualize various music theoretical writings within the larger framework of philosophy and social theory to show that our current understanding of musical sound is embedded with the history of Western culture.