Psychoacoustic Foundations of Major-Minor Tonality by Richard Parncutt - ISBN: 9780262547352
Paperback
Unlock Western music’s secrets: Psychoacoustics, music theory, and cultural history collide.

Psychoacoustic Foundations of Major-Minor Tonality

  • Paperback

    480 pages

  • Release Date

    19 March 2024

Summary

A fascinating interdisciplinary approach to how everyday Western music works, and why the tones, melodies, and chords combine as they do.

Despite the cultural diversity of our globalized world, most Western music is still structured around major and minor scales and chords. Countless thinkers and scientists of the past have struggled to explain the nature and origin of musical structures.

In Psychoacoustic Foundations of Major-Minor Tonality, music psychologist Richar…

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780262547352
ISBN-10:026254735X
Author:Richard Parncutt
Publisher:MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:MIT Press
Format:Paperback
Number of Pages:480
Release Date:19 March 2024
Weight:369g
Dimensions:229mm x 152mm
What They're Saying

Critics Review

“…a passionate exploration of what could be referred to as “music beyond music,” touching on scientific practice and mission, culture, prejudices and, ultimately, humanity.”
Empirical Musicology Review

“Parncutt is targeting researchers and graduate students in music theory or cognition, but I believe that also those in music education would benefit from a hard analysis of their assumptions on what makes something “music”. Besides the opportunity for self-reflection, this book would help prepare them for the second grader asking about the numbers on the tuning fork. Those “…but why, tho’?” questions children ask from a naturalistic perspective touch on deeper ideas than we realize.”
— Perception

About The Author

Richard Parncutt

Richard Parncutt is Professor of Systematic Musicology at the University of Graz, Austria.

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