Research Catalog

Title

From scratch : writings in music theory, James Tenney / edited by Larry Polansky, Lauren Pratt, Robert Wannamaker, and Michael Winter.

Publication

Urbana, Illinois : University of Illinois Press, 2015.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Tenney, James
• Pratt, Lauren
• Wannamaker, Rob
• Winter, Michael, 1980-
• Polansky, Larry, 1954-

Description

xxxi, 467 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

One of the twentieth century's most important musical thinkers, James Tenney did pioneering work in multiple fields, including computer music, tuning theory, and algorithmic and computer-assisted composition. From Scratch is a collection of Tenney's hard-to-find writings arranged, edited, and revised by the self-described "composer/theorist." Selections focus on his fundamental concerns - "what the ear hears" - and include thoughts and ideas on perception and form, tuning systems and especially just intonation, information theory, theories of harmonic space, and stochastic (chance) procedures of composition.

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books.

Alternative Title

Writings in music theory

Subjects

• Composers
• History
• Composers > United States
• Tenney, James > Written works
• Music theory
• Music theorists

Genre/Form

• History
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction / Larry Polansky -- On the development of the structural potentialities of rhythm, dynamics, and timbre in the early nontonal music of Arnold Schoenberg (1959) -- Meta [does not equal] Hodos (1961) -- Computer music experiences, 1961-1964 (1964) -- On the physical correlates of timbre (1965) -- Excerpts from "An experimental investigation of timbre---the violin" (1966) -- Form in twentieth-century music (1969-70) -- META Meta [does not equal] Hodos (1975) -- The chronological development of Carl Ruggles's melodic style (1977) -- Hierarchical temporal gestalt perception in music: a metric space model (with Larry Polansky) (1978-80) -- Introduction to "Contributions toward a quantitative theory of harmony" (1979) -- The structure of harmonic series aggregates (1979) -- John Cage and the theory of harmony (1983) -- Reflections after Bridge (1984) -- Review of Music as heard by Thomas Clifton (1985) -- About Changes: sixty-four studies for six harps (1987) -- Darmstadt lecture (1990) -- The several dimensions of pitch (1993/2003) -- On "crystal growth" in harmonic space (1993/2003) -- About Dispason (1996) -- Appendix 1. Pre-Meta [does not equal] Hodos (1959) -- Appendix 2. On musical parameters (ca. 1960-1961) -- Appendix 3. Excerpt from A history of 'consonance' and 'dissonance' (1988).

ISBN

• 9780252038723
• 025203872X

OCLC

904541430

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library