Universal Tonality

Universal Tonality

Author: Cisco Bradley

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2021-01-04

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1478012714

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Since ascending onto the world stage in the 1990s as one of the premier bassists and composers of his generation, William Parker has perpetually toured around the world and released over forty albums as a leader. He is one of the most influential jazz artists alive today. In Universal Tonality historian and critic Cisco Bradley tells the story of Parker’s life and music. Drawing on interviews with Parker and his collaborators, Bradley traces Parker’s ancestral roots in West Africa via the Carolinas to his childhood in the South Bronx, and illustrates his rise from the 1970s jazz lofts and extended work with pianist Cecil Taylor to the present day. He outlines how Parker’s early influences—Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and writers of the Black Arts Movement—grounded Parker’s aesthetic and musical practice in a commitment to community and the struggle for justice and freedom. Throughout, Bradley foregrounds Parker’s understanding of music, the role of the artist, and the relationship between art, politics, and social transformation. Intimate and capacious, Universal Tonality is the definitive work on Parker’s life and music.


Book Synopsis Universal Tonality by : Cisco Bradley

Download or read book Universal Tonality written by Cisco Bradley and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since ascending onto the world stage in the 1990s as one of the premier bassists and composers of his generation, William Parker has perpetually toured around the world and released over forty albums as a leader. He is one of the most influential jazz artists alive today. In Universal Tonality historian and critic Cisco Bradley tells the story of Parker’s life and music. Drawing on interviews with Parker and his collaborators, Bradley traces Parker’s ancestral roots in West Africa via the Carolinas to his childhood in the South Bronx, and illustrates his rise from the 1970s jazz lofts and extended work with pianist Cecil Taylor to the present day. He outlines how Parker’s early influences—Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and writers of the Black Arts Movement—grounded Parker’s aesthetic and musical practice in a commitment to community and the struggle for justice and freedom. Throughout, Bradley foregrounds Parker’s understanding of music, the role of the artist, and the relationship between art, politics, and social transformation. Intimate and capacious, Universal Tonality is the definitive work on Parker’s life and music.


Tonal and Rhythm Patterns

Tonal and Rhythm Patterns

Author: Edwin Gordon

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1976-01-01

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9780873953542

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Music instruction can now be adapted more effectively to students' individual differences and curriculums can be developed to meet particular class needs, as a result of the original research by Professor Gordon which concentrates on the basic areas of tonal and rhythm concepts. More than 10,000 grade-school students across the United States participated in three years of testing which produced the data interpreted in this new book. Presented in terms of current learning theories applied to music, an attempt is made to provide for musical instruction grounded on research.


Book Synopsis Tonal and Rhythm Patterns by : Edwin Gordon

Download or read book Tonal and Rhythm Patterns written by Edwin Gordon and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1976-01-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Music instruction can now be adapted more effectively to students' individual differences and curriculums can be developed to meet particular class needs, as a result of the original research by Professor Gordon which concentrates on the basic areas of tonal and rhythm concepts. More than 10,000 grade-school students across the United States participated in three years of testing which produced the data interpreted in this new book. Presented in terms of current learning theories applied to music, an attempt is made to provide for musical instruction grounded on research.


Tonality and Transformation

Tonality and Transformation

Author: Steven Rings

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-06-10

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 019538427X

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This is a study in the analysis of tonal music. Focusing on the listener's experience, author Steven Rings employs transformational music theory to illuminate diverse aspects of tonal hearing - from the infusion of sounding pitches with familiar tonal qualities to sensations of directedness and attraction.


Book Synopsis Tonality and Transformation by : Steven Rings

Download or read book Tonality and Transformation written by Steven Rings and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-10 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study in the analysis of tonal music. Focusing on the listener's experience, author Steven Rings employs transformational music theory to illuminate diverse aspects of tonal hearing - from the infusion of sounding pitches with familiar tonal qualities to sensations of directedness and attraction.


The second practice of nineteenth-century tonality

The second practice of nineteenth-century tonality

Author: William Kinderman

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 1996-01-01

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9780803227248

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In 1861, a half-century before Arnold Schoenberg's break with tonality, a young composer associated with Liszt saw a threshold to musical modernism as lodged in the "suspension of the main key." As the unified tonal perspective of earlier music yielded increasingly to dualistic key structures often laden with chromaticism, the language of music was transformed. In The Second Practice of Nineteenth-Century Tonality, nine prominent theorists and historians explore aspects of this musical evolution, from Schubert to the end of the nineteenth century. Many works discussed are masterpieces of the performance repertory, ranging from Chopin's piano pieces and Wagner's music dramas to the symphonies of Bruckner. The integration of analytical and historical approaches in the essays seeks to avoid narrow specialization as well as the polemic stance of some recent studies. A critical assessment of issues including inter-textuality, narrative, and dramatic symbolism enriches this investigation of what may be described as the "second practice" of nineteenth-century tonality.


Book Synopsis The second practice of nineteenth-century tonality by : William Kinderman

Download or read book The second practice of nineteenth-century tonality written by William Kinderman and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1861, a half-century before Arnold Schoenberg's break with tonality, a young composer associated with Liszt saw a threshold to musical modernism as lodged in the "suspension of the main key." As the unified tonal perspective of earlier music yielded increasingly to dualistic key structures often laden with chromaticism, the language of music was transformed. In The Second Practice of Nineteenth-Century Tonality, nine prominent theorists and historians explore aspects of this musical evolution, from Schubert to the end of the nineteenth century. Many works discussed are masterpieces of the performance repertory, ranging from Chopin's piano pieces and Wagner's music dramas to the symphonies of Bruckner. The integration of analytical and historical approaches in the essays seeks to avoid narrow specialization as well as the polemic stance of some recent studies. A critical assessment of issues including inter-textuality, narrative, and dramatic symbolism enriches this investigation of what may be described as the "second practice" of nineteenth-century tonality.


Melody, Harmony, Tonality

Melody, Harmony, Tonality

Author: E. Eugene Helm

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 0810886405

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Where did the major scale come from? Why does most traditional non-Western music not share Western principles of harmony? What does the inner structure of a canon have to do with religious belief? Why, in historical terms, is J.S. Bach’s music regarded as a perfect combination of melody and harmony? Why do clocks in church towers strike dominant-tonic-dominant-tonic? What do cathedrals have to do with monochords? How can the harmonic series be demonstrated with a rope tied to a doorknob, and how can it be heard by standing next to an electric fan? Why are the free ocean waves in Debussy’s La Mer, the turbulent river waves in Smetana’s Moldau, and the fountain ripples in Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau pushed at times into four-bar phrases? Why is the metric system inherently unsuitable for organizing music and poetry? In what way does Plato’s Timaeus resemble the prelude to Wagner’s Das Rheingold? Just how does Beethoven’s work perfectly illustrate fully functional tonality, and why were long-range works based on this type of tonality impossible before the introduction of equal temperament? In this new century, what promising materials are available to composers in the wake of harmonic experimentation and, some would argue, exhaustion? The answers to these seemingly complicated questions are not the sole province of music professors or orchestra conductors. In fact, as E. Eugene Helm demonstrates, they can just as easily be explained to amateurs, and their answers are important if we are to understand how Western music works. The full range of Western music is explored through 21 concise chapters on such topics as melody, harmony, counterpoint, texture, melody types, improvisation, music notation, free imitation, canon and fugue, vibration and its relation to harmony, tonality, and the place of music in architecture and astronomy. Intended for amateurs and professionals, concert-goers and conductors, Helm offers in down-to-earth language an explanation of the foundations of our Western music heritage, deepening our understanding and the listening experience of it for all.


Book Synopsis Melody, Harmony, Tonality by : E. Eugene Helm

Download or read book Melody, Harmony, Tonality written by E. Eugene Helm and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where did the major scale come from? Why does most traditional non-Western music not share Western principles of harmony? What does the inner structure of a canon have to do with religious belief? Why, in historical terms, is J.S. Bach’s music regarded as a perfect combination of melody and harmony? Why do clocks in church towers strike dominant-tonic-dominant-tonic? What do cathedrals have to do with monochords? How can the harmonic series be demonstrated with a rope tied to a doorknob, and how can it be heard by standing next to an electric fan? Why are the free ocean waves in Debussy’s La Mer, the turbulent river waves in Smetana’s Moldau, and the fountain ripples in Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau pushed at times into four-bar phrases? Why is the metric system inherently unsuitable for organizing music and poetry? In what way does Plato’s Timaeus resemble the prelude to Wagner’s Das Rheingold? Just how does Beethoven’s work perfectly illustrate fully functional tonality, and why were long-range works based on this type of tonality impossible before the introduction of equal temperament? In this new century, what promising materials are available to composers in the wake of harmonic experimentation and, some would argue, exhaustion? The answers to these seemingly complicated questions are not the sole province of music professors or orchestra conductors. In fact, as E. Eugene Helm demonstrates, they can just as easily be explained to amateurs, and their answers are important if we are to understand how Western music works. The full range of Western music is explored through 21 concise chapters on such topics as melody, harmony, counterpoint, texture, melody types, improvisation, music notation, free imitation, canon and fugue, vibration and its relation to harmony, tonality, and the place of music in architecture and astronomy. Intended for amateurs and professionals, concert-goers and conductors, Helm offers in down-to-earth language an explanation of the foundations of our Western music heritage, deepening our understanding and the listening experience of it for all.


Tonality and Transformation

Tonality and Transformation

Author: Steven Rings

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-06-10

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 019991320X

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Tonality and Transformation is a groundbreaking study in the analysis of tonal music. Focusing on the listener's experience, author Steven Rings employs transformational music theory to illuminate diverse aspects of tonal hearing - from the infusion of sounding pitches with familiar tonal qualities to sensations of directedness and attraction. In the process, Rings introduces a host of new analytical techniques for the study of the tonal repertory, demonstrating their application in vivid interpretive set pieces on music from Bach to Mahler. The analyses place the book's novel techniques in dialogue with existing tonal methodologies, such as Schenkerian theory, avoiding partisan debate in favor of a methodologically careful, pluralistic approach. Rings also engages neo-Riemannian theory-a popular branch of transformational thought focused on chromatic harmony-reanimating its basic operations with tonal dynamism and bringing them into closer rapprochement with traditional tonal concepts. Written in a direct and engaging style, with lively prose and plain-English descriptions of all technical ideas, Tonality and Transformation balances theoretical substance with accessibility: it will appeal to both specialists and non-specialists. It is a particularly attractive volume for those new to transformational theory: in addition to its original theoretical content, the book offers an excellent introduction to transformational thought, including a chapter that outlines the theory's conceptual foundations and formal apparatus, as well as a glossary of common technical terms. A contribution to our understanding of tonal phenomenology and a landmark in the analytical application of transformational techniques, Tonality and Transformation is an indispensible work of music theory.


Book Synopsis Tonality and Transformation by : Steven Rings

Download or read book Tonality and Transformation written by Steven Rings and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tonality and Transformation is a groundbreaking study in the analysis of tonal music. Focusing on the listener's experience, author Steven Rings employs transformational music theory to illuminate diverse aspects of tonal hearing - from the infusion of sounding pitches with familiar tonal qualities to sensations of directedness and attraction. In the process, Rings introduces a host of new analytical techniques for the study of the tonal repertory, demonstrating their application in vivid interpretive set pieces on music from Bach to Mahler. The analyses place the book's novel techniques in dialogue with existing tonal methodologies, such as Schenkerian theory, avoiding partisan debate in favor of a methodologically careful, pluralistic approach. Rings also engages neo-Riemannian theory-a popular branch of transformational thought focused on chromatic harmony-reanimating its basic operations with tonal dynamism and bringing them into closer rapprochement with traditional tonal concepts. Written in a direct and engaging style, with lively prose and plain-English descriptions of all technical ideas, Tonality and Transformation balances theoretical substance with accessibility: it will appeal to both specialists and non-specialists. It is a particularly attractive volume for those new to transformational theory: in addition to its original theoretical content, the book offers an excellent introduction to transformational thought, including a chapter that outlines the theory's conceptual foundations and formal apparatus, as well as a glossary of common technical terms. A contribution to our understanding of tonal phenomenology and a landmark in the analytical application of transformational techniques, Tonality and Transformation is an indispensible work of music theory.


Tonality in Western Culture

Tonality in Western Culture

Author: Richard Norton

Publisher: Penn State University Press

Published: 1984

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

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This book initiates "the first critical appraisal of the whole of Western tonal consciousness, from the discoveries of Pythagoras to the latest popular song." While tonality has been unwittingly championed as the product of the bourgeois age in Europe and America from 1600 to 1900, Norton states, key-centered music is understood here merely to exhibit components of an encompassing sonic expressivity as durable as any language. The author analyzes fundamental components of Western tonal phenomena that have persisted in music from ancient Jewish cantillation to the so-called atonal procedures of the Schoenberg school and beyond. Norton isolates the role of traditional music theory in the creation of models that attempted to explain tonality solely in terms of the concretized and limited objectivity of the musical score. The author evaluates and discards those features of logical positivism, scientific empiricism, idealism, and vitalism that in his view have encumbered virtually all speculation on tonality. With this negation, his aim is to restore the composer as a creator subject to his own sonic object. The book's approach is particularly indebted to the thought of Theodor Adorno, the member of the Frankfurt School of critical theorists that Norton finds most capable of suggesting an authentic dialectic of tonality. The author interprets the activities of both theorists and composers from various periods within the context of their mutual and conflicting historical interests. Ranging through the fields of physics, acoustics, psychology, sociology, economics, and historical musicology and criticism, Norton demonstrates that the cognitive abilities and disabilities of humans as tonal hearers form a necessary ground for understanding the remarkable vitality of tonality as historical process. Current theories of human tonal activity are hopelessly limited, the book concludes, however self-preserving they have become through the sanction of academic respectability. In short, tonal science, as it is commonly practiced, is not tonal truth. In its place the author urges a thoroughgoing critique of the language and methodology of contemporary tonal speculation, an abandonment of its confining sphere of interest, and a new and liberating approach to tonal consciousness that incorporates all relevant data of human sonic cognition. This approach assumes that tonality is not merely the result of the physical unfolding of natural appearance--the overtone series that so enchanted Rameau, Schenker, Hindemith, and others--and the submission of composers to its assumed authority. Tonality is, rather, Norton contends, a decision made against the chaos of pitch and for the human potential to create works of music that speak with integrity and beauty, that as aesthetic creations neither lag behind nor rush ahead of human enjoyment and understanding.


Book Synopsis Tonality in Western Culture by : Richard Norton

Download or read book Tonality in Western Culture written by Richard Norton and published by Penn State University Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book initiates "the first critical appraisal of the whole of Western tonal consciousness, from the discoveries of Pythagoras to the latest popular song." While tonality has been unwittingly championed as the product of the bourgeois age in Europe and America from 1600 to 1900, Norton states, key-centered music is understood here merely to exhibit components of an encompassing sonic expressivity as durable as any language. The author analyzes fundamental components of Western tonal phenomena that have persisted in music from ancient Jewish cantillation to the so-called atonal procedures of the Schoenberg school and beyond. Norton isolates the role of traditional music theory in the creation of models that attempted to explain tonality solely in terms of the concretized and limited objectivity of the musical score. The author evaluates and discards those features of logical positivism, scientific empiricism, idealism, and vitalism that in his view have encumbered virtually all speculation on tonality. With this negation, his aim is to restore the composer as a creator subject to his own sonic object. The book's approach is particularly indebted to the thought of Theodor Adorno, the member of the Frankfurt School of critical theorists that Norton finds most capable of suggesting an authentic dialectic of tonality. The author interprets the activities of both theorists and composers from various periods within the context of their mutual and conflicting historical interests. Ranging through the fields of physics, acoustics, psychology, sociology, economics, and historical musicology and criticism, Norton demonstrates that the cognitive abilities and disabilities of humans as tonal hearers form a necessary ground for understanding the remarkable vitality of tonality as historical process. Current theories of human tonal activity are hopelessly limited, the book concludes, however self-preserving they have become through the sanction of academic respectability. In short, tonal science, as it is commonly practiced, is not tonal truth. In its place the author urges a thoroughgoing critique of the language and methodology of contemporary tonal speculation, an abandonment of its confining sphere of interest, and a new and liberating approach to tonal consciousness that incorporates all relevant data of human sonic cognition. This approach assumes that tonality is not merely the result of the physical unfolding of natural appearance--the overtone series that so enchanted Rameau, Schenker, Hindemith, and others--and the submission of composers to its assumed authority. Tonality is, rather, Norton contends, a decision made against the chaos of pitch and for the human potential to create works of music that speak with integrity and beauty, that as aesthetic creations neither lag behind nor rush ahead of human enjoyment and understanding.


Explaining Tonality

Explaining Tonality

Author: Matthew Brown

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1580461603

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A defense of Schenkerian analysis of tonality in music.


Book Synopsis Explaining Tonality by : Matthew Brown

Download or read book Explaining Tonality written by Matthew Brown and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2005 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A defense of Schenkerian analysis of tonality in music.


Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality

Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality

Author: Carl Dahlhaus

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 1400861314

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Carl Dahlhaus was without doubt the premier musicologist of the postwar generation, a giant whose recent death was mourned the world over. Translated here for the first time, this fundamental work on the development of tonality shows his complete mastery of the theory of harmony. In it Dahlhaus explains the modern concepts of harmony and tonality, reviewing in the process the important theories of Rameau, Sechter, Ftis, Riemann, and Schenker. He contrasts the familiar premises of chordal composition with the lesser known precepts of intervallic composition, the basis for polyphonic music in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Numerous quotations from theoretical treatises document how early music was driven forward not by progressions of chords but by simple progressions of intervals. Exactly when did composers transform intervallic composition into chordal composition? Modality into tonality? Dahlhaus provides extensive analyses of motets by Josquin, frottole by Cara and Tromboncino, and madrigals by Monteverdi to demonstrate how, and to what degree, such questions can be answered. In his bold speculations, in his magisterial summaries, in his command of eight centuries of music and writings on music, and in his deep understanding of European history and culture, Carl Dahlhaus sets a standard that will seldom be equalled. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Book Synopsis Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality by : Carl Dahlhaus

Download or read book Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality written by Carl Dahlhaus and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carl Dahlhaus was without doubt the premier musicologist of the postwar generation, a giant whose recent death was mourned the world over. Translated here for the first time, this fundamental work on the development of tonality shows his complete mastery of the theory of harmony. In it Dahlhaus explains the modern concepts of harmony and tonality, reviewing in the process the important theories of Rameau, Sechter, Ftis, Riemann, and Schenker. He contrasts the familiar premises of chordal composition with the lesser known precepts of intervallic composition, the basis for polyphonic music in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Numerous quotations from theoretical treatises document how early music was driven forward not by progressions of chords but by simple progressions of intervals. Exactly when did composers transform intervallic composition into chordal composition? Modality into tonality? Dahlhaus provides extensive analyses of motets by Josquin, frottole by Cara and Tromboncino, and madrigals by Monteverdi to demonstrate how, and to what degree, such questions can be answered. In his bold speculations, in his magisterial summaries, in his command of eight centuries of music and writings on music, and in his deep understanding of European history and culture, Carl Dahlhaus sets a standard that will seldom be equalled. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Stories of Tonality in the Age of François-Joseph Fétis

Stories of Tonality in the Age of François-Joseph Fétis

Author: Thomas Christensen

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-05-27

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 022662692X

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Stories of Tonality in the Age of François-Joseph Fétis explores the concept of musical tonality through the writings of the Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1867), who was singularly responsible for theorizing and popularizing the term in the nineteenth century. Thomas Christensen weaves a rich story in which tonality emerges as a theoretical construct born of anxiety and alterity for Europeans during this time as they learned more about “other” musics and alternative tonal systems. Tonality became a central vortex in which French musicians thought—and argued—about a variety of musical repertoires, be they contemporary European musics of the stage, concert hall, or church, folk songs from the provinces, microtonal scale systems of Arabic and Indian music, or the medieval and Renaissance music whose notational traces were just beginning to be deciphered by scholars. Fétis’s influential writings offer insight into how tonality ingrained itself within nineteenth-century music discourse, and why it has continued to resonate with uncanny prescience throughout the musical upheavals of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.


Book Synopsis Stories of Tonality in the Age of François-Joseph Fétis by : Thomas Christensen

Download or read book Stories of Tonality in the Age of François-Joseph Fétis written by Thomas Christensen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-05-27 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories of Tonality in the Age of François-Joseph Fétis explores the concept of musical tonality through the writings of the Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1867), who was singularly responsible for theorizing and popularizing the term in the nineteenth century. Thomas Christensen weaves a rich story in which tonality emerges as a theoretical construct born of anxiety and alterity for Europeans during this time as they learned more about “other” musics and alternative tonal systems. Tonality became a central vortex in which French musicians thought—and argued—about a variety of musical repertoires, be they contemporary European musics of the stage, concert hall, or church, folk songs from the provinces, microtonal scale systems of Arabic and Indian music, or the medieval and Renaissance music whose notational traces were just beginning to be deciphered by scholars. Fétis’s influential writings offer insight into how tonality ingrained itself within nineteenth-century music discourse, and why it has continued to resonate with uncanny prescience throughout the musical upheavals of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.