A Generative Theory of Tonal Music

Rating:
Summary: This book is a turning point in XXth century music theory...
Review: This book is a turning point in XXth century music theory.It admits "surface salience" as an important musical attribute (chapter 5), distinguishing it from the "reductional importance" of events. Should we work with a double conception of structure: surface structure (focusing on surface salience) versus deep struture (focusing on reductional importance)? The investigation of surface salience leads to questions related to tension and release, an area that is still to find its best approach. What is best in the book: the ability to uncover the making of a theory; the ability to rejuvenate and integrate schenkerian ideas with a critique of Meyer's approach (rhythmic structure versus metrical structure); the linguistic/cognitive connection. What is not so good in the book: the remarks on contemporary music (with an almost fascist view of inherited abilities)

Rating:
Summary: This book is a turning point in XXth century music theory...
Review: This book is a turning point in XXth century music theory.It admits "surface salience" as an important musical attribute (chapter 5), distinguishing it from the "reductional importance" of events. Should we work with a double conception of structure: surface structure (focusing on surface salience) versus deep struture (focusing on reductional importance)? The investigation of surface salience leads to questions related to tension and release, an area that is still to find its best approach. What is best in the book: the ability to uncover the making of a theory; the ability to rejuvenate and integrate schenkerian ideas with a critique of Meyer's approach (rhythmic structure versus metrical structure); the linguistic/cognitive connection. What is not so good in the book: the remarks on contemporary music (with an almost fascist view of inherited abilities)

Rating:
Summary: Great formal theory of music, well-written
Review: This formal theory of music does a great job of handling subjective and stylistic issues with different kinds of rules. Very well though-out. I wish they'd have worked out how counterpoint fits into their structure, but otherwise a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Great formal theory of music, well-written
Review: This formal theory of music does a great job of handling subjective and stylistic issues with different kinds of rules. Very well though-out. I wish they'd have worked out how counterpoint fits into their structure, but otherwise a great book.

Rating:
Summary: very interesting, very technical
Review: This very technical work is very interesting and uses a very valuable and relatively new approach. However it is very conservative musically, to the point of losing subjectivity. I would recommend James Tenney's writings instead. META + HODOS: A Phenomenology of 20th-Century Musical Materials and an Approach to the Study of Form (1961; Frog Peak, 1988), is available through amazon, or Hierarchical temporal gestalt perception in music : a metric space model with Larry Polansky, also printed in Soundings Vol. 13: The Music of James Tenney. Garland, Peter (Ed.) (Soundings Press, 1984) which has articles by and about Tenney, who takes a much more progressive and broad view than Lerdahl.