Music Theory in Seventeenth-century England PDF Download

Author: Rebecca Herissone
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198167006
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Thus, over the course of the seventeenth century, there occurred a complete transformation in almost every aspect of theory: by the 1720s, many of the principles being described bore close relation to those still used today. Nowhere was this metamorphosis clearer than in England where, because of a traditional emphasis on practicality, there was much more willingness to accept and encourage new theoretical ideas than on the continent.

Author: Thomas Christensen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316025489
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 1033

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Book Description
The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory is the first comprehensive history of Western music theory to be published in the English language. A collaborative project by leading music theorists and historians, the volume traces the rich panorama of music-theoretical thought from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. Recognizing the variety and complexity of music theory as an historical subject, the volume has been organized within a flexible framework. Some chapters are defined chronologically within a restricted historical domain, whilst others are defined conceptually and span longer historical periods. Together the thirty-one chapters present a synthetic overview of the fascinating and complex subject that is historical music theory. Richly enhanced with illustrations, graphics, examples and cross-citations as well as being thoroughly indexed and supplemented by comprehensive bibliographies of the most important primary and secondary literature, this book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike.

Author: Thomas Christensen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135153940X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 647

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Book Description
This collection brings together an anthology of articles by Thomas Christensen, one of the leading historians of music theory active today. Published over the span of the past 25 years, the selected articles provide a historical conspectus about a range of vital topics in the history of music theory, focusing in particular upon writings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Christensen examines a variety of theorists and their arguments within the intellectual and musical contexts of their time, in the process highlighting the diverse and idiosyncratic nature of the discipline of music theory itself. In the first section of the book Christensen offers general reflections on the meaning and interpretation of historical music theories, with especial attention paid to their value for music theorists today. The second section of the book contains a number of articles that consider the catalytic role of the thorough bass in the development of harmonic theory during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the final two sections of the anthology, focus turns to the writings of several individual music theorists, including Marin Mersenne, Seth Calvisius, Johann Mattheson, Johann Nicolaus Bach, Denis Diderot and Johann Nichelmann. The volume includes essays from hard-to-find publications as well as newly-translated material and the articles are prefaced by a new, wide-ranging autobiographical essay by the author that offers a broad re-assessment of his historical project. This book is essential reading for music theorists and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century musicologists.

Author: Suzannah Clark
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521771917
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Music theory of almost all ages has relied on nature in its attempts to explain music. The understanding of what 'nature' is, however, is subject to cultural and historical differences. In exploring ways in which music theory has represented and employed natural order since the scientific revolution, this volume asks some fundamental questions not only about nature in music theory, but also the nature of music theory. In an array of different approaches, ranging from physical acoustics to theology and Lacanian psychoanalysis, these essays examine how the multifarious conceptions of nature, located variously between scientific reason and divine power, are brought to bear on music theory. They probe the changing representations and functions of nature in the service of music theory and highlight the ever-changing configurations of nature and music, as mediated by the music-theoretical discourse.

Author: Benjamin Wardhaugh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Responses of Mercator and Pell -- John Wallis -- Thomas Salmon -- Salmon and Locke -- Salmon on Pitch -- Summary -- Conclusion -- What Happened Next? -- Music, Experiment and Mathematics -- Select Bibliography -- Manuscripts -- Printed Primary Sources -- Secondary Sources -- Index

Author: Megan Kaes Long
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190851902
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
In Hearing Homophony, Megan Kaes Long presents a groundbreaking model for understanding tonality and its origins, examining it through the lens of popular songs of late-Renaissance Western Europe.

Author: Rebecca Herissone
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107014344
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
Rebecca Herissone's study is the first comprehensive investigation of approaches to creating music in late seventeenth-century England. Her methodology challenges pre-conceptions about what it meant to be a composer in the period and goes on to raise broader questions about the interpretation of early modern notation.

Author: Rebecca Herissone
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107289556
Category : Composition (Music)
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
Musical Creativity in Restoration England is the first comprehensive investigation of approaches to creating music in late seventeenth-century England. Understanding creativity during this period is particularly challenging because many of our basic assumptions about composition - such as concepts of originality, inspiration and genius - were not yet fully developed. In adopting a new methodology that takes into account the historical contexts in which sources were produced, Rebecca Herissone challenges current assumptions about compositional processes and offers new interpretations of the relationships between notation, performance, improvisation and musical memory. She uncovers a creative culture that was predominantly communal, and reveals several distinct approaches to composition, determined not by individuals, but by the practical function of the music. Herissone's new and original interpretations pose a fundamental challenge to our preconceptions about what it meant to be a composer in the seventeenth century and raise broader questions about the interpretation of early modern notation.

Author: Penelope Gouk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351674986
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
In recent decades, the relationship between music, emotions, health and well-being has become a hot topic. Scientific research and new neuro-imaging technologies have provided extraordinary new insights into how music affects our brains and bodies, and researchers in fields ranging from psychology and music therapy to history and sociology have turned their attention to the question of how music relates to mind, body, feelings and health, generating a wealth of insights as well as new challenges. Yet this work is often divided by discipline and methodology, resulting in parallel, yet separate discourses. In this context, The Routledge Companion to Music, Mind and Well-being seeks to foster truly interdisciplinary approaches to key questions about the nature of musical experience and to demonstrate the importance of the conceptual and ideological frameworks underlying research in this field. Incorporating perspectives from musicology, history, psychology, neuroscience, music education, philosophy, sociology, linguistics and music therapy, this volume opens the way for a generative dialogue across both scientific and humanistic scholarship. The Companion is divided into two sections. The chapters in the first, historical section consider the varied ways in which music, the emotions, well-being and their interactions have been understood in the past, from Antiquity to the twentieth century, shedding light on the intellectual origins of debates that continue today. The chapters in the second, contemporary section offer a variety of current scientific perspectives on these topics and engage wider philosophical problems. The Companion ends with chapters that explore the practical application of music in healthcare, education and welfare, drawing on work on music as a social and ecological phenomenon. Contextualising contemporary scientific research on music within the history of ideas, this volume provides a unique overview of what it means to study music in relation to the mind and well-being.

Author: Benjamin Wardhaugh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351557084
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
How, in 1705, was Thomas Salmon, a parson from Bedfordshire, able to persuade the Royal Society that a musical performance could constitute a scientific experiment? Or that the judgement of a musical audience could provide evidence for a mathematically precise theory of musical tuning? This book presents answers to these questions. It constitutes a general history of quantitative music theory in the late seventeenth century as well as a detailed study of one part of that history: namely the applications of mathematical and mechanical methods of understanding to music that were produced in England between 1653 and 1705, beginning with the responses to Descartes's 1650 Compendium music and ending with the Philosophical Transactions' account of the appearance of Thomas Salmon at the Royal Society in 1705. The book is organized around four key questions. Do musical pitches form a small set or a continuous spectrum? Is there a single faculty of hearing which can account for musical sensation, or is more than one faculty at work? What is the role of harmony in the mechanical world, and where can its effects be found? And what is the relationship between musical theory and musical practice? These are questions which are raised and discussed in the sources themselves, and they have wide significance for early modern theories of knowledge and sensation more generally, as well as providing a fascinating side light onto the world of the scientific revolution.