Anna Yu Wang [This post is the lightly adapted version of a lightening talk I presented at the 2022 Business Meeting of the History of Music Theory Interest/Study Group.] Translation will likely play a hugely important role in global projects of history of music theory. Translation can help us shorten the distance between theorists from far-flung places, rendering their ideas more accessible across language boundaries. It can also stimulate reflection around the relationship between diverse musical theoretical traditions (e.g. in deciding whether to express a concept from the source language u ..read more

Liam Hynes-Tawa […] Continuation of Part II […] One of the things I find most fascinating about these dynamics I identified in Japanese culture from the time of the Kojiki is that they can also be seen emerging in Japan’s modernizing efforts during the Meiji era (1868–1912 CE). During that period, the wagon, an instrument that had largely been neglected in the musical landscape for about a thousand years, came again into the spotlight as the preferred accompaniment instrument for performances of the songs in the Hoiku shōka, a collection of songs in gagaku style written and compiled for childr ..read more

Liam Hynes-Tawa […] Continuation of Part I […] I ended the previous post leaving open a question about the Kinkafu’s name. Let’s contemplate the first character in the title of the manuscript (Kinkafu 琴歌譜, qín + songs + notation, i.e “notation of qín songs”). The character 琴 is the same character that is used in the Kojiki to represent the instrument that Emperor Chūai is being urged to play in the quote with which I began, and which I have earlier broadly identified as a zither. This character originally indicated a specific Chinese zither with seven strings, long held to be the most refined ..read more

Liam Hynes-Tawa 恐。我天皇、猶阿蘓婆勢其太御琴。 自阿至勢以音。 I am afraid. My emperor, play the great honored zither now. From 阿 to 勢 in accordance with their sounds. The above utterance looks like Chinese—and in fact, most of it is. But what of the footnote in small type after the main text? It says that the characters 阿蘓婆勢 are to be read phonetically, which is to say they are not to be read for their meaning. 阿蘓婆勢 is not a Chinese word—it in fact phonetically represents the Old Japanese word asobase, quite literally “play” (in the imperative). This statement of fear, urging the emperor to play his zither (qín ..read more

Kristin M. Franseen Part I: “Isn’t it supreme!”: Newmarch and Musical Knowledge How do we glean knowledge from and about music? And how do we determine whether that knowledge is reputable? In E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice (written in 1913 but published posthumously in 1971), the titular character finds himself at a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (commonly known as the Pathétique Symphony) as part of a half-hearted attempt at courting his sister’s friend Violet Tonks. Maurice, in denial of his homosexuality, runs into an old friend who is all too happy to explain what he sees as the ..read more

Paula Maust In 1855, Sarah Mary Fitton (c.1796–1874) anonymously published a harmony book covering topics ranging from the rudiments of Western classical music theory to chromatic harmony. Structured as a series of thirty-six conversations between Mother and Edward, Conversations on Harmony was intended “to explain the rules of Harmony, in so simple a manner, as to bring their practical application within the reach of young students, and, also to increase the pleasure of mere lovers of music by enabling them to understand, in some degree, the theory of ‘sweet sounds.’”[1] The book was quite su ..read more

Stefano Mengozzi Prof. Long’s recent observations on hexachordal solmization raise several issues that cannot be fully teased out in blog format. The one overarching question I would like to pose for an initial response is the following: I have no doubt that solmization “just makes sense” as a method for singing Renaissance polyphony, and that it has changed Prof. Long’s understanding of Renaissance polyphony substantially. But why is it so, precisely? Which mechanism(s) or musical relationships does solmization trigger in the mind that wouldn’t otherwise surface? I suggest that solmization wo ..read more

Farzad Daemi Milani […] Continuation of: Part I Mehdi-Qoli Hedāyat (1863–1955) (also known as Mokhber-al Saltaneh) (Figure 1), is the twentieth-century Persian musicologist who decoded this Abjadic tone-letter system and combined it with the Western rhythmic notation to create a modern fusion notation! مهدی‌قلی هدایت (۱۸۶۳ – ۱۹۵۵ م.) (ملقّب به مخبرالسّلطنه) (تصویر ۱)، موسیقی‌شناس ایرانی قرن-بیستمی است که این سیستم حرف-نغمه‌ای ابجدی را رمزگشایی کرد و آن‌ را با نت‌نویسی ریتمیک غربی ترکیب نمود، تا یک روش نغمه‌نگاری تلفیقی مدرن ایجاد کند! Figure 1: Mehdi-Qoli Hedāyat (a.k.a. Mokhber-al Salta ..read more

Farzad Daemi Milani The introduction of Western music and the consequent application of Western music notation became customary gradually from the Qajar period (1789–1925) in Iran. The European music instructors who were asked to come to Iran and train Iranian military musicians were also ordered to make a transcription of the Persian modal system (Persian dastgāh). But they soon realized that there were a couple of notes in most of the scales that did not fit in the Western twelve-tone system. The French musician and composer, Alfred Jean-Baptiste Lemaire (1842–1907), for instance, states ..read more

Megan Kaes Long Recently, I posed a question on Twitter: what kind of solmization system(s) were you brought up on, and to what extent did solmization shape your understanding of pitch space? The responses ran the gamut of systems — some folks grew up on fixed do, others on moveable do with la-based minor, others developed idiosyncratic systems based on their instruments, others learned hand signs. But one theme was consistent in all of the responses: whatever system we learned as young musicians, it profoundly shaped the way we hear and understand music, because it helped us build out our per ..read more