Description
Book SynopsisW. A. Mathieu, an accomplished author and recording artist, presents a way of learning music that reconnects modern-day musicians with the source from which music was originally generated. As the author states, The rules of music--including counterpoint and harmony--were not formed in our brains but in the resonance chambers of our bodies. His theory of music reconciles the ancient harmonic system of just intonation with the modern system of twelve-tone temperament. Saying that the way we think music is far from the way we do music, Mathieu explains why certain combinations of sounds are experienced by the listener as harmonious. His prose often resembles the rhythms and cadences of music itself, and his many musical examples allow readers to discover their own musical responses.
Trade Review"Mathieu's books are worth reading for anyone in any field of music--jazz, classical, gospel, or any other. He's found the words to tell the power of music." * Pete Seeger, folksinger *
"This book goes beyond what most textbooks offer, and its highly original pedagogy deserves the attention of every teacher of harmony. Above all, this is a book for anyone who would like to acquire harmony as a lived experience rather than as mere memorization of unyielding rules on paper." * Chien-Chang Yang, Quarterly Journal of the MLA *
"Mathieu is consistently proving himself to be one of the best in musical theory." * John Coltrane in Downbeat Magazine *
"This volume offers experiential keys to help unlock the mystery of how music works its deep affect upon us. Harmonic Experience extends any reader's understanding of music and is a user-friendly, elegant and graceful work. It is a technical treatise about the inner workings of music." * Daniel Atesh Sonneborn, Smithsonian Institution *
Table of Contents
Editor's Preface
Introduction
Part 1: Harmonic Purity: Feeling the Numbers 1 Seeing Air and Touching Sound
2 Singing Unison with a Drone
3 Singing Octaves
4 Singing Perfect Fifths
5 Singing Major Thirds
6 A Map of Harmonic Relationships
7 The Perfect Fifth Below: Hello Mother
8 The Major Third Below
9 The Central Section of the Map Completed
10 The Five-limit Lattice of Twelve Notes
11 Available Modes: Lydian Through Phrygian
12 Mixed Modes
13 Internalizing the Lattice
14 Numbers and Mysteries
15 Chomatic Pairs
16 Beyond Twelve Notes: The Extended Five-Limit Lattice
17 The Seventh Partial and Beyond
18 The Practice of Pure Harmony
Part 2: The Selective Use of Equal Temperament 19 Leaping from Paradise
20 Six Unambiguous Chords
21 Twelve Unambiguous Chords: Tonal Harmony within the Lattice of Twelve
Notes 22 Unambiguous Triadic Harmony in the Extended Lattice
23 Dronality in Equal Temperament: Mixed Modes
24 Dronality in Equal Temperament: Mixed Modes
25 Chromatic Pairs and the Magic Mode
26 Pushing the Magic Mode Envelope
Part 3: The Function Commas of Equal-Tempered Tonal Harmony 27 Comma Phenomena
28 Didymic Pairs of Tones
29 Didymic Pairs of Triads
30 The Great Diesis: The Beauty of the Beast
31 The Tonal Array of the Great Diesis
32 The Diaschisma
33 Quasi-functional and Nonfunctional Commas
34 The Shape of Tonality
Part 4: Harmonic Practice, Analysis, and Review of the Theory 35 Practical Matters
36 A Small Syllabus of Diatonic Sequences
37 Cadential Practices: Parallel Borrowing
38 The Long Cadence: A Comprehensive View of Cadential Energy
39 Tonicization and Modulation
40 Modal Modulation
41 A Syllabus of Cyclic Sequences
42 Symmetrical Harmony and the Dissolution of Tonality
43 The Notation of Positional Analysis
44 Review of the Theory
Afterword
Glossary of Terms
Glossary of Singable Tones in Just Intonation
Sources
Acknowledgments
General Index
Index of Ratios
Index of Most-Referenced Examples, Figures, and Tables
