scholarly journals Tone and Voice: A Derivation of the Rules of Voice-Leading from Perceptual Principles

2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Huron
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Formal System ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Voice Leading ◽  
The Core ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Aesthetic

The traditional rules of voice-leading in Western music are explicated using experimentally established perceptual principles. Six core principles are shown to account for the majority of voice-leading rules given in historical and contemporary music theory tracts. These principles are treated in a manner akin to axioms in a formal system from which the traditional rules of voice-leading are derived. Nontraditional rules arising from the derivation are shown to predict formerly unnoticed aspects of voice-leading practice. In addition to the core perceptual principles, several auxiliary principles are described. These auxiliary principles are occasionally linked to voice-leading practice and may be regarded as compositional "options" that shape the music-making in perceptually unique ways. It is suggested that these auxiliary principles distinguish different types of part writing, such as polyphony, homophony, and close harmony. A theory is proposed to account for the aesthetic origin of voice-leading practices.

Scene Setting

Voice Leading ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Huron
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Hierarchical Structures ◽  
Auditory Scene Analysis ◽  
Scene Analysis ◽  
Voice Leading ◽  
The Core ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Core Theory ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Auditory Scene

Musical passages exhibit a wide range of textures. These can include monophony, tune-and-accompaniment, homophony, close harmony, polyphony, pseudo-polyphony, heterophony, and a wealth of specially tailored arrangements with various hierarchical structures. Introductory music theory textbooks generally focus on Baroque voice-leading rules to the virtual exclusion of other types of part-writing. Although most music-making bears little resemblance to Baroque-style four-part chorale writing, there are excellent reasons why this particular practice has formed the core theory curriculum for so long. The evidence suggests that late Baroque practice most closely reflects known principles of auditory scene analysis. The perceptual principles underlying voice leading provide an important entry point for understanding any musical texture—no matter what the style, culture, or genre of music-making. Like a theatrical stage, composers set a “musical scene.” Auditory scene analysis is the process by which listeners subjectively apprehend that scene.

Pedagogy of Fundamentals and Diatonic Harmony

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-160
Author(s):  
Jennifer Snodgrass
Keyword(s):  
Harmonic Function ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Voice Leading ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Creative Methods ◽  
Creative Music ◽  
New Material ◽  
Music Experience ◽  
Methods Of Learning ◽  
Creative Music Making

The earliest levels of the undergraduate music theory core might be some of the more challenging courses to teach. Because students enter the undergraduate theory core with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge, instructors face the challenge of inspiring some students with new material while keeping the more experienced students involved. How can educators make this material both relevant and engaging for all students? Teaching the lower levels of written theory is more than just memorization of patterns and rules; it is an opportunity to engage students in creative music making from the very first day with an introduction that helps them understand why a certain element of music works. By participating in engaging and creative methods of learning scales, key signatures, intervals, triads, harmonic function, and voice leading, students are immersed in a music experience that is more than just printed notes on the page.

Getting Out of the Garret

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Cook
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Creative Collaboration ◽  
Unified Approach ◽  
Time Performance ◽  
The Core ◽  
Music Making ◽  
The Social ◽  
Musical Creativity ◽  
Creativity Studies

The previous focus of musical creativity studies on the solitary composer has given way to a focus on collaborative, real-time performance. This chapter discusses a unified approach to both practices, according to which musical creativity is social, but the social is inherent in ostensively solitary work. At the core of this approach is ‘unpredictable emergence’ (Sawyer 2003) out of networks of human and nonhuman agents; this chapter extends Sawyer’s model of creative collaboration in jazz in such a way that it becomes equally applicable to classical and contemporary music making. The same approach is applied to compositional imagination, with particular emphasis on the materiality of bodies, instruments, and notations, and on how representations of music “talk back” to composers and prompt the emergence of unforeseen outcomes. The aim is to provide a more realistic account of musical creativity than the Romantic mythologies that have long skewed research in this area.

Politics, Feminism, and Contemporary Music Theory

1991 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter C. van den Toorn
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Contemporary Music

Broken Beauty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Straus
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Valuable Resource ◽  
Mobility Impairment ◽  
Attitudes Toward Disability ◽  
The Core ◽  
Musical Representations ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
Musical Modernism ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Cultural Constructions

Modernist music is centrally concerned with the representation and narration of disability. The most characteristic features of musical modernism—fractured forms, immobilized harmonies, conflicting textural layers, radical simplification of means in some cases, and radical complexity and hermeticism in others—can be understood as musical representations of disability conditions, including deformity/disfigurement, mobility impairment, madness, idiocy, and autism. Modernist musical representation and narration of disability both reflect and shape (construct) disability in a eugenic age, a period when disability was viewed simultaneously with pity (and a corresponding urge toward cure or rehabilitation) and fear (and a corresponding urge to incarcerate or eliminate). Disability is right at the core of musical modernism; it is one of the things that musical modernism is fundamentally about. This book draws on two decades of work in disability studies and a growing body of recent work that brings the discussion of disability into musicology and music theory. This interdisciplinary enterprise offers a sociopolitical analysis of disability, focusing on social and cultural constructions of the meaning of disability, and shifting attention from biology and medicine to culture. Within modernist music, disability representations often embody pernicious stereotypes and encourage sentimentalizing, exoticizing, or more directly negative responses. Modernist music claims disability as a valuable resource, but does so in a tense, dialectical relationship with medicalized, eugenic-era attitudes toward disability.

The Oxford Handbook of Critical Concepts in Music Theory

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Panoramic View ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Technical Terms ◽  
Guiding Questions

Music Theory operates with a host of technical terms for concepts that appear straightforward but that conceal layers of complexity. This collection uncovers some of the richness and intricacy of these terms. Using a range of methods, from philosophical and historical contextualizations to cognitive and systematic approaches, and across a range of repertories, these essays aim to convey a fuller understanding of the terms music theorists employ every day in teaching and research. In so doing, the collection provides a panoramic view of the contemporary music-theoretical landscape, offering new perspectives on established concepts, seeking to expanding their purview to new repertories, and adding new concepts to the theorist’s toolkit. Taken as a whole, the concepts collected in this volume spotlight some of the guiding questions of music theory as it is currently practiced in the English-speaking world; they seek to broaden its foundational conversations to underline the ways in which music theory itself is evolving.

The Role of Understanding on Architectural Beauty: Evidence From the Impact of Semantic Description on the Aesthetic Evaluation of Architecture

2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412110021
Author(s):  
Sizhe Liu ◽  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Xianyou He ◽  
Xiaoxiang Tang ◽  
Shuxian Lai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Supplementary Information ◽  
Aesthetic Evaluation ◽  
Abstract Description ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Appearance Design ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Impact

There is evidence that greater aesthetic experience can be linked to artworks when their corresponding meanings can be successfully inferred and understood. Modern cultural-expo architecture can be considered a form of artistic creation and design, and the corresponding design philosophy may be derived from representational objects or abstract social meanings. The present study investigates whether cultural-expo architecture with an easy-to-understand architectural appearance design is perceived as more beautiful and how architectural photographs and different types of descriptions of architectural appearance designs interact and produce higher aesthetic evaluations. The results showed an obvious aesthetic preference for cultural-expo architecture with an easy-to-understand architectural appearance design (Experiment 1). Moreover, we found that the aesthetic rating score of architectural photographs accompanied by an abstract description was significantly higher than that of those accompanied by a representational description only under the difficult-to-understand design condition (Experiment 2). The results indicated that people preferred cultural-expo architecture with an easy-to-understand architectural appearance design due to a greater understanding of the design, providing further evidence that abstract descriptions can provide supplementary information and explanation to enhance the sense of beauty of abstract cultural-expo architecture.

Ende der Neuen Musik

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-213
Author(s):  
Christoph Von Blumröder
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
Musical Composition ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Language ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
A Current

The term "Neue Musik" was coined for a special concept of fundamental musical innovation within Austro-German music theory of the early 20th century, and it found no terminological equivalent beyond the German language. Established by Paul Bekker with his lecture “Neue Musik” in 1919, composers such as Stockhausen or Ligeti embraced the term with its emphatic claim to innovation and new departures. However, one hundred years on the term "Neue Musik" is often used mainly as a synonym for any type of contemporary music. This article questions whether the term "Neue Musik" is still an appropriate framework for a current theory of musical composition. Not only have the specific musical circumstances changed within the course of the 20th century, but also the political and social conditions have altered drastically after two world wars which had given special impulses to those composers who strove for a new foundation of music after 1918 and 1945 respectively. This article argues that the age of "Neue Musik" has come to an end in the late 20th century, and thus it is now necessary to introduce alternative terminological concepts and methodical directions for music historiography.

Treating Afro hair loss: signs, symptoms and specialist interest

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 190-197
Author(s):  
Ingrid Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Hair Loss ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Hair Care ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Symptoms And Signs

This article explores the different types of hair loss that black women may experience more than other groups of patients. Properties of African hair and the impact of hair care practices are discussed, as well as factors affecting the presentation of other hair loss conditions. It is important for the aesthetic practitioner to be able to distinguish between the temporary forms of hair loss that they can help to treat and the permanent or scarring forms of hair loss, which need a prompt referral to a dermatologist with a specialist interest in hair. Prompt recognition and referral can help to delay the progression of hair loss. The symptoms and signs that patients and practitioners should be alerted to are explored, as well as the treatments that can help and where referrals may be necessary. Recent developments and gaps in knowledge are summarised.

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