“Theory,”

by David Carson Berry (definition and §§1, 4–5),

and Sherman Van Solkema and David Carson Berry (§§2–3)

in The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd edition, ed. Charles Hiroshi Garrett
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2013): vol. 8, pp. 169–179
The Grove Dictionary of

American
Music
Second Edition

Volume Eight
Stein, Seymour – Zyman, Samuel

Edited by
Charles Hiroshi Garrett

1
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
GroveI (R. Foort: “Cinema Organ”
R. Hope-Jones: Recent Developments of Organ Building (North
Tonawanda, NY, 1910)
R. Foort: The Cinema Organ (London, 1932, rev. 2/1970)
R. Whitworth: The Cinema and Theatre Organ (London, 1932/R1981)
J. Courtnay: Theatre Organ World (London, 1946)
J. Landon: Jesse Crawford: Poet of the Organ; Wizard of the Mighty
Wurlitzer (Vestal, NY, 1974)
O. Ochse: The History of the Organ in the United States (Bloomington,
IN, 1975)
M. Moore: “Theater Organs: the Instruments and the Music,” The Mighty
Wurlitzer: Music for Movie Palace Organs (NW 227, 1977) [liner notes]
J.W. Landon: Behold the Mighty Wurlitzer: the History of the Theater
Pipe Organ (Westport, CT, 1983)
D.L. Junchen: Encyclopedia of the American Theatre Organ (Pasadena,
CA, 1985–95)
D.H. Fox: Robert Hope-Jones (Richmond, VA, 1992)
DAVID H. FOX/DAVID L. JUNCHEN
Theater Owners’ Booking Association [TOBA]. An orga-
nization formed in January 1921 by two white theater
owners—Milton B. Starr of Nashville and Sam Revin of
Chattanooga—to manage vaudeville bookings for Afri-
can American performers. In mid-1921, the competing
Southern Consolidated Circuit joined TOBA: one of its
leaders, Sherman H. Dudley, became a TOBA co-direc-
tor. By 1923, it extended to 85 theaters in most of the
major cities and several smaller towns in the South,
Southwest, and Midwest. Acts on the TOBA circuit were
primarily abbreviated versions of musical comedies
(tabloid shows); solo singers, comedy teams, song-and-
dance duos, and specialty acts (jugglers, acrobats, etc.)
also appeared. Although notorious for its demanding
schedules and low pay, the organization enabled many
African American performers to appear before black
audiences and created steady employment for such
performers as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Ethel
Waters. A number of early jazz musicians, including
Bennie Moten and Count Basie, also started their ca-
reers on the circuit. By 1932, however, the Depression,
competition from the film industry, and personal con-
flicts among theater owners led to the demise of the
organization, and nearly all its houses were converted
to motion picture theaters.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J.A. Jackson: “A Survey of the Negro in American Life and in the
Amusement World,” Billboard (6 Aug 1921)
L. Hughes and M. Meltzer: Black Magic: a Pictorial History of the Negro
in American Entertainment (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1967/R), 66
M. Stearns and J. Stearns: Jazz Dance: the Story of American Vernacu-
lar Dance (New York, 1968/R)
H. Sampson: Blacks in Blackface: a Source Book on Early Black Musi-
cal Shows (Metuchen, NJ, 1980)
T.L. Riis: Just before jazz: Black musical theater in New York, 1890–
1915 (Washington, DC, 1989)
T. Vincent: Keep Cool: the Black Activists who Built the Jazz Age
(London and East Haven, CT, 1995)
THOMAS L. RIIS/R
Theatrical dance. A broad category comprising all genres
of dance created to be performed in a theater or a the-
atrical context.
See BALLET; JAZZ DANCE; MINSTRELSY; MODERN DANCE; MUSICAL
THEATER DANCE; and TAP DANCE.
CLAUDE CONYERS
Theory, §1: Introduction 169
Thebom, Blanche (b Monessen, PA, 19 Sept 1918; d San
Francisco, CA, 23 March 2010). Mezzo-soprano. In New
York she studied with Margarete Matzenauer and Edyth
Walker. She made her first appearance with the Metro-
politan on tour in Philadelphia as Brangäne in 1944
and her New York debut with the company as Fricka in
Die Walküre in the same year; she remained with the
Metropolitan until the 1966–7 season, singing much
Wagner and a variety of other leading roles. In 1950 she
sang Dorabella at Glyndebourne, and in 1957 she had
considerable success at Covent Garden as Dido in the
first English professional staged performance of Les
Troyens. In 1967–8 she was artistic director of the At-
lanta Opera Company. Thebom had a wide-ranging
mezzo-soprano of generally fine quality, not a great
voice, but one capable of most pleasing effect, con-
firmed by souvenirs of her Dorabella, Eboli, and
Brangäne on disc. Her article “Singing or Acting?” was
published in Opera News, xxix/21 (1964–5), 9–11, and
details of her Metropolitan broadcasts can be found in
P. Jackson: Sign-off for the Old Met (New York, 1997).
MAX DE SCHAUENSEE/ALAN BLYTH
Theory. An area of study that tends to focus on musical
materials per se, in order to explain (and/or offer gen-
eralizations about) their various principles and pro-
cesses. It investigates how these materials function (or,
in a more speculative vein, how they might function),
so that musical “structure” can be better understood.
More broadly, in the United States, music theory refers
to an academic discipline with a dual focus on research
and pedagogy. Regarding the latter, especially at the
undergraduate level (and earlier), theory is often coter-
minous with a program for teaching a variety of skills,
from the rudiments of melody and rhythm, to harmony,
counterpoint, and form (along with their attendant “ear
training” or aural perception). Related to but standing
apart from these fundamentals of praxis are the vari-
ous research areas of modern theory, as described
under §5 below. It should be noted that music analysis
plays a major role in this agenda. Although conceptu-
ally separate from theory, in that analysis often focuses
on the particulars of a given composition whereas
theory considers the broader systems that underlie
many such works, in practice the two have a reciprocal
relationship.
1. Introduction. 2. The 18th century: theoretical introductions. 3. The
19th century: translations and textbooks. 4. 1900 to 1950. (i) Changing
conditions. (ii) Tonal-music pedagogy. (iii) Analysis of modern har-
mony. (iv) New scalar resources. (v) Analysis of 12-tone music.
(vi) Broader compositional approaches. 5. 1950 to present. (i) Chang-
ing conditions. (ii) The Schenkerian approach. (iii) Twelve-tone theory.
(iv) Pitch-class set theory. (v) Transformational approaches. (vi) Theo-
ries of rhythm and meter. (vii) Theories of form. (viii) Other areas of
research.
1. INTRODUCTION. Although music theory has deep roots,
traceable to antiquity’s seven liberal arts and the work
of Aristoxenus in the 4th century BCE (and the Pythago-
reans before him), as a professional discipline in the
United States it began to develop only around 1960,
making it younger than the kindred fields of musicology
170 Theory, §2: The 18th century: theoretical introductions
and ethnomusicology. Prior to the 20th century, Ameri-
can theory was typically pedagogical in purpose, as evi-
denced by its often rudimentary coverage in tunebooks
of the 18th century (see §2), and by treatises and text-
books of the 19th century, which were often of German,
British, or French origin (see §3). In the first half of the
20th century, conditions became propitious for a wider
array of music-theoretic explorations (see §4(i)), and
during the second half of the century, theory assumed
prominence in American academic institutions as an au-
tonomous field with its own professional societies, jour-
nals, and conferences (see §5(i)). A notable result of the
field’s continued growth has been its expanding range
of methodologies, as applied to an increasing number of
repertories. At the beginning of the 1980s, it could be
claimed that the main areas of American theory involved,
on the one hand, Schenkerian studies of tonal music
and, on the other hand, the investigation of 20th-century
music through 12-tone and set theories—a dual empha-
sis sometimes summarized with the alliteration “Schen-
ker and Sets.” Certainly these areas are still robust; but
as music theory has further developed, a diverse array
of approaches and subjects for exploration have arisen,
as demonstrated under §5.
2. THE 18TH CENTURY: THEORETICAL INTRODUCTIONS. The earli-
est attempts to provide a theoretical background for
music-making in America are brief essays on rudiments,
published in the 18th century as introductions to tune-
books intended for use in the singing-schools of New
England. The first two “theoretical introductions,” both
of which appeared in 1721, are found in Thomas Wal-
ter’s The Grounds and Rules of Musick Explained and
John Tufts’s A Very Plain and Easy Introduction to the
Singing of Psalm Tunes. Like Walter’s, Tufts’s aim is the
purely practical one of teaching people to sing psalm
tunes in three parts from a printed score. He sketches
his own version of a four-letter notation, based on sol-
mization syllables, in which rhythm is shown by pat-
terns of dots and slurs. A few lessons in the singing of
scales and intervals, and observance of the “few forego-
ing Rules” enable one “to sing all the Tunes in this Book
in any of their parts with Ease and Pleasure.” Later
tunebook introductions borrow freely from each other
and from similar English manuals, such as those by
Thomas Morley and John Playford, and, especially, Wil-
liam Tans’ur’s The Royal Melody Compleat (1754–5),
printed in the colonies in revised form as The American
Harmony (1771).
Of the several hundred tunebooks published in the
century after the first editions of Tufts and Walter (see
Britton, 1950), only a few attempt a more comprehen-
sive treatment of theory. Among those that do are The
Continental Harmony (1794/R1961) by William Bill-
ings, and The Massachusetts Compiler (1795). The spar-
kle of Billings’s 23-page dialogue on the rudiments of
theory sets his writing apart, though he was merely
filtering the commonly accepted ideas of his time. A
more professional turn was taken by the editors of The
Massachusetts Compiler, the introduction to which is
assumed to be largely the work of Hans Gram, though
the book as a whole was produced in collaboration
with Oliver Holden and Samuel Holyoke. This work is
important for two reasons: its theoretical explanations
are the first to go considerably beyond the immediate
needs of a singing-school student, and its materials
derive not only from English but from European sources.
The editors state that “a compilation was judged more
eligible than the translating or republishing of any par-
ticular treatise.” Seven sources were drawn upon:
Johann Joseph Fux’s “Treatise on Counterpoint” (i.e.,
Gradus ad Parnassum, 1725; partial Eng. trans., c1768),
Jean le Rond d’Alembert’s Elémens de musique théorique
et pratique (1752), Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Diction-
naire de musique (1768/R1969; Eng. trans., 1771),
Johann Georg Sulzer’s Allgemeine Theorie der schönen
Künste (1771–4), William Jones’s A Treatise on the Art
of Music (1784), Charles Avison’s An Essay on Musical
Expression (1752, rev. 2/1753/R1967, 3/1775), and
Edward Miller’s Elements of Thorough Bass and Compo-
sition (1787). In 29 pages, the compiled “observations”
cover notes, intervals, consonance and dissonance, dia-
tonic, chromatic, and enharmonic intervals, fundamen-
tal and “continued” (continuo) bass, chords and thor-
oughbass, counterpoint, cadences, time, accent and
syncopation, and singing. As in most treatises of the
time, harmony is the central issue; rhythm and form are
peripheral concerns, and the few pages devoted to
counterpoint scarcely justify the citation of Fux as one
of the sources. Incomplete and problematic as the ex-
tracts and explanations are, the materials offered greatly
exceed practical needs, and in this sense The Massa-
chusetts Compiler may be cited as the first “advanced”
treatise published in the United States.
3. THE 19TH CENTURY: TRANSLATIONS AND TEXTBOOKS. For
most of the 19th century, American theory was a satel-
lite of European theory. Interesting experiments in un-
orthodox notations, all aimed at more effective sight-
reading, poured forth in a continuing stream of
tunebooks up to the Civil War and beyond (see Perrin,
1968), but their introductions remained rudimentary.
Billings’s independent spirit was lost in a series of di-
dactic manuals by minor theorists, whose goal was to
provide translations of “the most practical” European
treatises and to produce theoretical writings based on
them (usually in simplified form). Among the English
instruction books in circulation were John Callcott’s A
Musical Grammar (1806; first published in the United
States in a new edition, 1833) and Thomas Busby’s A
Grammar of Music (1818/R1976). As for French theory,
d’Alembert’s Elémens appeared in Thomas Dobson’s
Encyclopedia (1798), translated by Thomas Blacklock;
and Charles-Simon Catel’s Traité d’harmonie (1802)—
the adoption of which at the Paris Conservatoire had
effectively marked the end of the Rameauian tradition
in France—was brought forth by Lowell Mason as A
Treatise on Harmony (1832).
In 1842 James Warner published his translation of
Gottfried Weber’s Allgemeine Musiklehre (1822, 3/1831)
under the title General Music Teacher, Adapted to Self-
instruction both for Teachers and Learners. The contents

of this volume are nearly identical to those of the first
quarter of Weber’s important treatise Versuch einer
geordneten Theorie der Tonsetzkunst (1817–21), all four
volumes of which soon appeared in Warner’s 818-page
translation (Theory of Musical Composition, 1846,
2/1851). Weber’s treatise was famous for its rejection of
the “philosophico-scientific” approach of Justin Knecht
and others, in place of which Weber offered a “naturally
arranged” theory emphasizing pedagogical concerns.
In 1864, the first English translation of the Lehrbuch
der Harmonie (1853), by Ernst Richter of the Leipzig
Conservatory, was published in London. Three years
later, John Morgan issued a translation in the United
States as Manual of Harmony (1867). A competing
American translation was put out by James Parker in
1873, and two additional versions followed by 1912.
Parker, who had studied with Richter in Leipzig, had
two decades earlier published his own Manual of Har-
mony (1855), which made “free use” of Richter’s work.
Parker is undoubtedly the “Mr. J. P.” who wrote to
Lowell Mason concerning the courses of theoretical in-
struction at Leipzig. In Dwight’s Journal of Music for
24 April 1852, Mason introduced the letter from Leipzig,
stating that
It has not been generally known in our country, that there is enough
in music to occupy years of close application. The older singing
books, published some fifty or eighty years ago, contained a few
pages of “Rules,” giving some directions as to finding the “mi,” and
describing the different kinds of time; and a man who could so
explain these that no one could possibly understand him, was
thought to be musically learned.
A decade later the first American conservatories were
opened, and this gave further impetus to publication
and translation. Richter’s pragmatic emphasis and his
defense of the empirical tradition appealed strongly to
Americans. These qualities were sustained well into the
20th century, not just through the work of Richter him-
self—i.e., through editions of his harmony book as well
as translations of his work on counterpoint, and canon
and fugue—but through texts on these same subjects
by his former student Salomon Jadassohn (also at the
Leipzig Conservatory).
A more systematic approach became available with
Herrman Saroni’s translation of the first two volumes of
the third edition of A.B. Marx’s Die Lehre von der
musikalischen Komposition, praktisch-theoretisch (1837,
3/1846–7) as Theory and Practice of Musical Composi-
tion (1852). For the American market Saroni made
changes: his 34-page essay on tones and the relation-
ships between them replaces Marx’s more philosophical
introduction; and for the fifth and subsequent American
editions a 166-page appendix was provided by Emilius
Girac, whose aim was to “condense and abridge matters
which, in the author are too prolix, and mingled with
secondary considerations.” For more advanced students,
the first volume of Simon Sechter’s Die Grundsätze der
musikalischen Komposition (1853) was translated by
C.C. Müller as The Correct Order of Fundamental
Harmonies (1871); and John Fillmore’s New Lessons in
Harmony (1887) introduced the polarity principle of
another important European theorist, Hugo Riemann.
Theory, §4: 1900 to 1950 171
As an appendix to his book, Fillmore provided a 30-
page translation of Riemann’s Die Natur der Harmonik
(1882).
Finally, toward the end of the century, an American
theorist, Percy Goetschius, began to publish his own
corpus of theoretical writings. On the basis of the
widespread recognition of his work and the use of his
books over several decades, Goetschius has been called
“the father of American theory” (Thompson, 1980);
however, his work was somewhat atypical of the devel-
oping American tradition of empiricism and openness
to new ideas. Goetschius studied in Stuttgart with Im-
manuel Faisst, whose theory he taught to the English-
speaking classes at the Stuttgart Conservatory from
1876 until his return to the United States in 1889. In
the first American edition of The Material used in Com-
position (1889), he expounded what was to become
the most influential of his theoretical notions: the
theory of “tone-relations” based on a series of natural
fifths. Independently of European theorists of his day,
including Faisst, Goetschius set up a “Pythagorean”
series of natural fifths (F–C–G–D–A–E–B in the key of
C), which he saw as the basis of both melody and har-
mony (rather than seeing one as being derived from
the other) and of harmonic progression as well. The
idea of harmonic motion toward a tonic through suc-
cessive descending fifths has been called the most du-
rable aspect of Goetschius’s theory. In The Theory and
Practice of Tone-Relations (1892), which is a condensed
version of The Material, he emphasized the impossibil-
ity of separating the study of harmony and melody. He
considered it “a waste of time” and “pedagogic error”
to make a separate phase of study of “Strict Counter-
point” (7/1903). Problematic to present thinking is Go-
etschius’s stultifying attitude to chromaticism, which
he considered “the domain of harmonic lawlessness”
(The Material, 8/1907). Goetschius was far more ambi-
tious than Richter with respect to the establishment of
basic principles and the systematic presentation of
rules and classifications, but a fussy and somewhat ar-
chaic pedanticism pervades his theoretical writings, as
compared with the streamlined texts of Richter.
Just before the turn of the century, Homer Norris’s
Practical Harmony on a French Basis (1894–5) signaled
a quickened interest in things French. Norris offered an
up-to-date view of chromaticism to demonstrate “that
Wagner, Brahms, Leoncavallo, and Bruneau are as truly
in key as is Mozart.” Other American texts in use at the
time included George Gow’s The Structure of Music
(1895), George Chadwick’s Harmony (1897), and Arthur
Foote’s and Walter Spalding’s Modern Harmony in its
Theory and Practice (1905), the latter of which intro-
duced concepts from the English theorists George Mac-
farren and Ebenezer Prout. As the new century un-
folded, an ever greater number of American pedagogical
texts rose to prominence, as addressed under §4(ii).
4. 1900 TO 1950.
(i) Changing conditions. In the first half of the 20th
century, the environment in the United States became
172 Theory, §4: 1900 to 1950
much more nurturing for music-theoretic endeavors of
an expanding scope. Several intersecting factors were
responsible. First, theory in its pedagogical forms expe-
rienced increased relevance, as courses in harmony and
related subjects continued to join the curricula of col-
leges and universities, where they had just begun to be
welcomed in the late 19th century. Second, the status of
musicology grew, as demonstrated by new organiza-
tions: the US branch of the Internationale Musikgesell-
schaft was formed in 1907, the American Council of
Learned Societies established a committee on musicol-
ogy in 1929, the New York Musicological Society was
formed in 1931, and from it the American Musicologi-
cal Society was created in 1934. Third, a growing
number of composers were impelled to write about
contemporary compositional techniques, and some did
so in a way that engaged theory and analysis. And
fourth, periodicals arose that were receptive to theory-
oriented articles. The proceedings of the Music Teach-
ers’ National Association, which resumed in 1906 after
a hiatus, frequently included such material, as did Mu-
sical Quarterly (founded 1915), Modern Music (1924–
46), and the Journal of the American Musicological
Society (founded 1948). As a result of these conditions,
several principal lines of investigation coalesced, as
surveyed below.
(ii) Tonal-music pedagogy. To satisfy the increasing
demands of educational institutions, a great many new
textbooks on tonal harmony were issued in the first
half of the 20th century. According to the lists or sur-
veys of Heacox (1922), Hill (1941), and Jones (1964),
the authors who would have been most familiar to stu-
dents of this time included Richter, Jadassohn, and
Prout (German and British authors of an older genera-
tion), but also the Americans Percy Goetschius, George
Chadwick, Francis York, Arthur Foote and Walter Spald-
ing, Arthur Heacox (including with Friedrich Lehmann),
Carolyn Alchin, Arthur Olaf Andersen, George Wedge,
Melville Smith and Max Krone, and Walter Piston. As for
particular books, Wedge’s Applied Harmony (1930–31)
seems to have been especially popular in its time,
whereas Piston’s Harmony (1941) was favored by the
next generation.
In canvassing these and other contemporary texts, to
track changing conceptions of the tonal system, the
treatment of secondary or applied dominants (as we
would call them today) emerges as notably irregular.
Often, such chords were described as “transient modu-
lations,” and in analyses the momentary “keys” would
each be indicated. However, there was also a steady
stream of authors who interpreted these chords like
secondary dominants, albeit with great variance in ter-
minology. For example, just before the present period,
Frank Shepard (1889 and 1896) wrote of “Attendant
chords,” which included all the usual chords with sec-
ondary leading tones: variants of V, vii°, and also aug-
mented-sixth chords. He symbolized these with an “[A],”
and his analyses would include labels such as “[A] of
IV,” etc. Some authors imported similar ideas from
Europe: Daniel Gregory Mason (1908) wrote about the
“parenthesis chords” [Klammer-accorde] of Carl Piutti;
and Dirk Haagmans (1916) appropriated Riemann’s
Zwischendominante, which he called an “Intra Domi-
nant Chord.” Other American authors developed their
own terminology: e.g., for Andersen (1923), such chords
were “the dominant formations” of whatever the dia-
tonic chord happened to be; for Heacox and Lehmann
(1931), they were “Apparent” chords; and for Wedge
(1930–31), they were “dominant embellishments” (or
“half-diminished seventh embellishments,” etc.) of the
following chord. Piston’s 1941 discussion of “secondary
dominants” was just one more link in this chain of de-
velopment. However, given the popularity of his text, it
might have helped turn the tide away from the other
school of thought; the secondary dominant—both in
concept and in that specific term—became increasingly
common after mid-century.
(iii) Analysis of modern harmony. Broadly speaking,
approaches to contemporary harmony either cataloged
existing practice or speculated about possibilities. René
Lenormand offered a book of the first type with his
Study of Modern Harmony (1913; Eng. trans., 1915).
His approach was conservative: he tended to describe
chords as conventional entities with sundry alterations
or additions. A. Eaglefield Hull was more accommodat-
ing in Modern Harmony (1914). He too discussed
chords with altered and added notes, but he also con-
sidered chords built from superimposed fourths, fifths,
and even seconds, and chords of “mixed structures.”
Certain “horizontal methods” were also explored, in-
cluding polytonality and “reflection” (i.e., symmetrical
inversion). Horace Miller’s New Harmonic Devices
(1930) likewise offered a multifaceted view of practice.
(Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre will not be considered,
as it was not fully translated until 1978.)
Somewhat more probative was Bernhard Ziehn. In
his Manual of Harmony (1907), he employed various
kinds of chromatic triads and seventh chords, each no-
tated in stacked thirds but including a diminished third
and perhaps other less common intervals. In labeling
them, he used “ordinal numbers, written in Roman
characters.” Thus he could refer to chords “IV and IX
with their major resolution,” etc. Whereas Ziehn’s chro-
matic harmonies were constrained by tertian spelling
and tonal orientation, Ernst Bacon wished to systemati-
cally identify all possible chord types. In “Our Musical
Idiom” (1917), chords were first placed in a closely
packed “fundamental position,” and then they were la-
beled by their adjacent intervals, measured in semi-
tones. Thus there was a four-note “1–2–1” harmony, a
five-note “1–3–2–4” harmony, etc. Bacon accurately tab-
ulated all 350 transpositionally equivalent chord types,
ranging from two to 12 members.
As a greater variety of chord types was accepted, a
means for regulating their progression became a con-
cern. Ernst Krenek addressed this topic in Studies in
Counterpoint (1940). In the section on three-part writ-
ing, he classified intervals broadly, as consonances,
mild dissonances, or sharp dissonances; an assortment
of three-note chords was then divided into the same

categories. He offered general guidelines for succession;
for example, more sharply dissonant chords should “in-
troduce and stress culmination-points,” whereas milder
chords suggest “decreasing intensity of the musical
flow.” A similar but more extensive system was intro-
duced by Paul Hindemith. In The Craft of Musical Com-
position (1937; Eng. trans., 1942), chords of three to six
members were divided into six main groups, and sev-
eral more subgroups, based on interval content and the
corresponding degree of consonance or dissonance.
One could then evaluate a succession of sonorities in
terms of its “harmonic fluctuation,” or unfolding de-
grees of tension. Hindemith provided a graphic repre-
sentation of this fluctuation beneath the staff, in the
form of an expanding and contracting wedge.
(iv) New scalar resources. Complementary to a new
harmonic vocabulary was the exploration of new scalar
resources. This took one of two approaches: either the
traditional set of intervals was apportioned into forms
other than major and minor scales, or microtonal divi-
sions of the octave were proposed. Several of the har-
mony tracts cited above (see §4(iii)) addressed scalar
usage. For example, Lenormand and Hull wrote about
new uses of the modes, pentatonic, and whole-tone
scales, so-called Oriental scales, and other devices.
More speculative possibilities were suggested by Bacon,
who considered the systematic construction of various
scales, including “equipartite” (i.e., symmetrical) types
that Olivier Messiaen would later call “modes of limited
transposition.” On the other hand, Joseph Schillinger’s
Kaleidophone (1940) was written with a practical intent:
to help composers “instantaneous[ly]” find the scales
that “correspond to [a] given chord.” He illustrated 137
chords of two to five members each, and correlated
them to a much larger number of scales that included
the stable chord tones plus various tendency tones. Ni-
colas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Pat-
terns (1947) also came to have practical application, as
jazz musicians such as John Coltrane turned to it. One
of the many procedures Slonimsky employed was to
begin with a basic scale consisting of equal divisions of
the octave, and then to create new patterns by system-
atically inserting between its members an increasing
number of notes (of various intervallic distances). The
result was over 1300 numbered scales or patterns, with
more derivatives still to follow.
Proposals involving microtones were likewise varied.
Ferruccio Busoni suggested the “tripartite tone (third of
a tone)” in his Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music (1907;
Eng. trans., 1911); and Charles Ives issued a 1925 com-
mentary on quarter-tones. A much more entailed phi-
losophy gave rise to Harry Partch’s 43-note division of
the octave, in just intonation. In Genesis of a Music
(1949), he provided an explication of the broader
“monophonic” theory on which his intonation scheme
was based. Joseph Yasser’s A Theory of Evolving Tonal-
ity (1932) was notable for its teleological bent. Yasser
argued that our diatonic system, with its seven principal
notes and five auxiliary notes, evolved from a penta-
tonic system with five principal notes and two auxiliary
Theory, §4: 1900 to 1950 173
notes. Likewise, the diatonic system was predicted to
evolve into a “supra-diatonic” system of 12 principal and
seven auxiliary notes—that is, a 19-note, equal-tempered
scale that would serve as a future basis for music.
(v) Analysis of 12-tone music. Essays on 12-tone music
began to appear within a few years of Schoenberg’s
initial developments, with the journal Modern Music
serving as an important early source. In 1925, Paul
Stefan made passing comments about Schoenberg’s
“theory of the twelve tones and the ‘fundamental
form,’” although these were somewhat vague and not
entirely accurate. Paul Pisk followed in 1926 with a
general summary of the 12-tone principles of both
Schoenberg and Hauer; and Adolph Weiss discussed
Schoenberg’s ideas on a variety of compositional pa-
rameters (including row use) in 1932. Analyses of a
variety of recent works by Schoenberg, Berg, Webern,
and Krenek were contributed by David Josef Bach,
Willi Reich, and Erwin Stein.
Of articles that appeared elsewhere, the most influ-
ential was Richard S. Hill’s essay on “Schoenberg’s
Tone-Rows and the Tonal System of the Future” (Musi-
cal Quarterly, 1936). Hill traced the development of
the 12-tone technique, addressed various aspects of
works composed between 1923 and 1930 (opp.23–35),
and commented on different types of row structures.
Some of Hill’s ideas were subsequently adapted by
Krenek to his own compositions, as the latter noted in
his essay, “New Developments of the Twelve-Tone
Technique” (1943).
Krenek warrants further mention as a composer-au-
thor whose writings engaged analysis and theory. In
addition to the cited article, his book Music Here and
Now (1939) addressed various aspects of 12-tone music
(see the chapter titled “Music under Construction”). For
example, in explaining how the row—“a single germ
cell”—gives rise to “all the elements in a musical com-
position,” he observed that it was relevant to more than
just the “melodic surface”: the “characteristic intervals”
of the row also influence polyphonic interactions and
harmony. In 1940, Krenek published the first manual in
English on 12-tone composition, Studies in Counter-
point. It not only addressed melodic usage of the row,
but also suggested an approach to harmony based on
intervallic tension (see §4(iii)).
(vi) Broader compositional approaches. Some authors
engaged in more comprehensive forms of composi-
tional prescription, completing books that outlined
some type of system (in one sense of the word or an-
other). For example, the stated goal of Hindemith’s
Craft, cited above (see §4(iii)), was to provide a “new
and firm foundation” for compositional technique, and
thus he included extensive commentary on intervals,
chords, progressions and modulations, and me-
lodic structure.
In 1921 Henry Cowell (with Robert L. Duffus) wrote
an article on “Harmonic Development in Music,” which
canvased the expansion of harmonic materials across
the centuries. He speculated that future progress might
174 Theory, §5: 1950 to present
include the use of “tone clusters” or “polyharmony,” but
it might also necessitate the use of “new overtones”
above the sixteenth partial (i.e., intervals smaller than a
semitone). Cowell’s ideas appeared in fuller form a
decade later, in New Musical Resources (1930). The
overtone series was proposed as the basis of a variety
of musical relationships: from its intervals and ratios
one could derive tone clusters and other types of
chords, as well as rhythm, meter, and tempo. Accord-
ingly, Cowell observed that his ideas might well be
called “a theory of musical relativity.” Some of the con-
cepts in his book would later prove influential on com-
posers such as Nancarrow and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
In 1930 Charles Seeger published a brief essay “On
Dissonant Counterpoint.” It was, in essence, an over-
view of select topics from an unpublished treatise that
had been in development for many years. Its point of
departure was that the treatment of consonance—not
dissonance—was the real problem for contemporary
composition. Thus, Seeger devised a kind of reverse-
species approach for modern-music pedagogy, in which
dissonances formed the norm and consonances were
treated restrictively. Although the complete “Manual of
Dissonant Counterpoint” was not published until 1994,
his approach influenced his pupils Cowell and Ruth
Crawford, as well as Ruggles.
Joseph Schillinger, in contrast, tended to teach com-
posers involved with popular or commercial forms of
music. As these individuals were often traveling, he
compiled his methods into a multivolume correspon-
dence course. After his death in 1943, two of his disci-
ples (Arnold Shaw and Lyle Dowling) brought these
and related materials to publication in the form of the
encyclopedic, 1640-page Schillinger System of Musical
Composition (1946). His was a computational approach
to elements such as rhythm, melody, harmony, and
counterpoint, all couched in algebraic and geometric
terms. Despite its idiosyncrasies, the method attracted
many famous pupils during Schillinger’s life—most no-
tably George Gershwin, but also Tommy Dorsey, Vernon
Duke (Vladimir Dukelsky), Benny Goodman, and Glenn
Miller.
5. 1950 TO PRESENT.
(i) Changing conditions. The second half of the 20th
century witnessed the emergence of music theory as
an autonomous discipline in the United States, distinct
from the areas of musicology and composition. Sev-
eral factors abetted this development. First, special-
ized publication venues began to appear, such as the
Journal of Music Theory (1957), Perspectives of New
Music (1962), and The Music Forum (1967). Such
sources multiplied in the 1970s and afterwards, as prod-
ucts of regional societies, specific graduate programs,
and the new national society. Second, music theory was
accepted within the university as a specialized subject
of graduate study leading to a PhD. Princeton made
inroads in 1962, when its PhD in composition (with
strong underpinnings in theory) was initiated; in 1965,
Yale inaugurated a PhD in theory. Third, dedicated
professional societies and conferences began to arise.
The Music Theory Society of New York State held its
initial meeting in 1971, and the first Michigan Confer-
ence on Music Theory was convened in 1975. Two Na-
tional Conferences on Music Theory were held in 1976
and 1977, and the inaugural meeting of the newly
formed SOCIETY FOR MUSIC THEORY was held in 1978.
Fourth and more broadly, in the wake of the preced-
ing developments, more universities and colleges
began to offer graduate programs in theory, and to
employ “professional theorists” (instead of composers,
etc.) to coordinate their curricula. Coinciding with this
progress, a wide array of methodologies and topics
for exploration began to evolve; some are summa-
rized below.
(ii) Schenkerian approaches. The theory of tonal
music developed by Heinrich Schenker had already
begun to spread from Vienna to the United States
before mid century. Schenker’s student Hans Weisse
began teaching at New York’s David Mannes Music
School (now Mannes College of Music) in 1931 and
also at Columbia University the following year. After
his death in 1940, his and Schenker’s student Felix
Salzer began a long career at Mannes (and later at
Queens College). Schenker’s pupil Oswald Jonas, and
his student Ernst Oster, emigrated in the late 1930s and
were active, as were Weisse’s American students Adele
Katz and William Mitchell. During this time Schenker’s
ideas were also communicated through articles, such
as by Weisse, Katz, and Arthur Waldeck and Nathan
Broder; and through Katz’s book Challenge to Musical
Tradition (1945).
In the ensuing decades, the influence of Schenkerian
ideas on American music theory escalated tremendously.
Its teaching spread from New York to the rest of the
country; and increasing numbers of articles, disserta-
tions, and books were issued. By 1991, Milton Babbitt
could observe that he had witnessed Schenker’s method
“change its status from the heretic to the nearly hieratic,
from the revolutionary to the received.” However, the
extent to which these “received” methods were Schenk-
er’s own could vary. This was in part because of the
compromises required for the theory to be accepted
within the American academy—a process William Roth-
stein (1990) has termed the “Americanization” of Schenker.
But it was also in part because Schenker’s writings were
slow to be translated. A version of Harmonielehre (1906)
appeared in 1954, but it was abridged and at any rate
predated the analytic graphing technique for which
Schenker was best known. It was not until 1979 that his
magnum opus, Der freie Satz (1935), was published as
Free Composition. Other significant writings trailed at
roughly decade-long intervals: Kontrapunkt (1910 and
1922) in 1987, Das Meisterwerk in der Musik (1925–30)
in 1994–7, and Der Tonwille (1921–4) in 2004–5. As a
result, the sense of what constituted “Schenker’s method”
was initially communicated by those other than Schenker,
some of whom had different musical agendas. Notable
in this respect was Salzer, whose Structural Hearing
(1952) attempted to “mold [Schenker’s] concepts into

a workable, systematic approach for use by teachers,
students and performers.” However, he broadened and
generalized many core tenets so that the methodology
would apply not just to tonal music but to a “cross-sec-
tion of musical literature from the Middle Ages to the
present day.”
Writings that incorporate Schenker’s ideas and ana-
lytic approach have embraced a wide array of topics,
including aspects of rhythm and meter (see §5(vi)) and
studies of form (see §5(vii)). (For an extensive survey,
see Berry, 2004.) In addition, many of Schenker’s con-
cepts have been incorporated into conventional text-
books on harmony and related subjects. This process
started with Mitchell’s Elementary Harmony (1939), but
it was in the 1960s and 70s that the influence gradually
accrued, as through textbooks by Allen Forte, William
Christ and others, Peter Westergaard, Leo Kraft, and
Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter.
(iii) Twelve-tone theory. Although work on 12-tone
music had commenced earlier (see §4(v)), in the second
half of the century its structural principles were investi-
gated with unprecedented rigor. At the forefront of this
approach was Milton Babbitt. In 1946 he presented a
dissertation to Princeton that used set and group theo-
ries to model attributes of the 12-tone system. He ad-
dressed several key topics, including derived rows,
which are created through transformations of smaller
serial segments, and hexachordal combinatoriality, in
which two different transformations of a row produce
all 12 tones through the combination of their initial
hexachords, and all 12 again through their second
hexachords. Also emphasized was the concept of in-
variance, which refers to properties or elements of a
row that are preserved under some transformation.
Babbitt’s dissertation languished, and was not accepted
until 1992. However, in the 1950s and 60s, he brought
these and other ideas to the public through a series of
landmark articles, and his methods set the stage for the
work that followed.
George Perle also made significant contributions
during this time. His 1956 dissertation (New York Uni-
versity), “Serial Composition and Atonality,” gave rise to
a published book of the same title in 1962. In it he ex-
plored structural aspects of 12-tone music; he also ad-
dressed serial music that utilized non-12-tone rows, and
“free” atonality. Two decades earlier, he had written
about what he called a “twelve-tone modal system”
(1941), and it was also taken up in the book. This con-
cept, on which Perle’s own compositions were based,
had as one of its central concerns the challenge of cre-
ating coherent harmonic organization. Its final formula-
tion appeared separately, in Perle’s Twelve-Tone Tonal-
ity (1977, 2/1996).
Various specific areas of 12-tone research have been
cultivated. For example, analogies between pitch and
rhythmic structures have been of interest. One such for-
mulation relates to Babbitt’s idea of “time-point sets,”
which he addressed in a 1962 article; it was later ampli-
fied by John Rahn, William Johnson, Andrew Mead, and
others. On another front, much has been done with
Theory, §5: 1950 to present 175
partitions or mosaics, which are divisions of the aggre-
gate (i.e., a collection of all 12 tones) into discrete col-
lections; that is, they are sets of sets. Proceeding in part
from Donald Martino’s work on aggregate formations
(1961), studies have issued from Andrew Mead, Robert
Morris and Brian Alegant, Richard Kurth, and others. A
related area of research has centered on the idea of the
array, which is a two-dimensional arrangement of ag-
gregates. Godfrey Winham and Peter Westergaard con-
tributed early work on the subject in the 1960s, but
Babbitt’s own music has been the focus of other theo-
rists (see, e.g., his various procedures as surveyed by
Mead, 1994). An extensive, composer-oriented explica-
tion of array design is found in Robert Morris’s Compo-
sition with Pitch Classes (1987).
(iv) Pitch-class set theory. Perle’s 1962 book (see §5(iii))
examined non-serial or “freely” atonal music by consid-
ering the role played by an “intervallic cell” (or “basic
cell”): a “microcosmic set, of fixed intervallic content,”
that could be employed “either as a chord or as a me-
lodic figure or as a combination of both.” A forerunner
of this idea was offered by Perle in 1955, when he dis-
cussed two four-note “sets” that were significant in Bar-
tók’s Fourth Quartet. Also around this time, Howard
Hanson published a volume on the Harmonic Materi-
als of Modern Music (1960). His goal was to analyze
relationships among “all of the possible sonorities.” He
referred to these in terms of interval content; for ex-
ample, the notes C–E–F♯–A♯ formed an “isometric
tetrad” (i.e., inversionally symmetrical tetrachord) that
“contains two major thirds, two major seconds, and two
tritones,” symbolized m2s2t2.
Shortly thereafter, a more formalized system of analy-
sis began to be developed by Allen Forte. He applied
set-theoretic principles to the analysis of unordered col-
lections of pitch classes, called pitch-class sets (pc sets).
He published “A Theory of Set-Complexes for Music” in
1964; a revised and refined presentation followed a
decade later as The Structure of Atonal Music (1973).
The basic goal of Forte’s theory was to define the vari-
ous relationships that existed among the relevant sets
of a work, so that contextual coherence could be dem-
onstrated. Toward this end, the specific pc sets of a
given size (i.e., cardinality) were reduced to a smaller
number of set classes, based on equivalence under
transposition or inversion. A set class was referred to in
one of two ways: by its “prime form,” which expressed
its content in a closely packed form, using integers; and
by its “name,” which consisted of its cardinal number
and its ordinal number (i.e., its position on Forte’s list)
separated by a hyphen. Thus, the pc set C–E–F♯–A♯
(cited above) was a member of set class 4–25, which
was represented by the prime form (0268). There were
several other ways of relating sets. For example, sets of
different cardinalities might have an inclusion relation,
which means that one is the subset or superset of the
other; or they might be in a complement relation (i.e.,
one contains the pitch classes that the other excludes),
which means that they will also have a proportionately
similar distribution of intervals. Through such analysis,
176 Theory, §5: 1950 to present
one might determine that a kernel pair of complemen-
tary set classes (called the nexus) is related through
inclusion and complementation to other significant sets
in the work, forming a “set complex.”
Forte’s work—amplified by theorists such as John
Clough, David Lewin, Andrew Mead, Robert Morris,
John Rahn, and Forte himself—has provided a model
for much of the post-tonal analysis that has followed.
Although the methodology has had its detractors, such
as George Perle (1990) and Ethan Haimo (1996), text-
books on post-tonal analysis now routinely teach it (to
varying degrees).
(v) Transformational approaches. To the extent that
“classic” pc set theory (see §5(iv)) tended to focus on
the content of static collections, through the taxonomic
perspective of an “outside” observer, an alternative po-
sition was advocated by David Lewin in the 1980s. (See,
e.g., his 1982 article on “Generalized Tonal Functions,”
and his 1987 book, Generalized Musical Intervals and
Transformations.) The “transformational attitude” he
proposed was that “of someone inside the music,” who
would ask: “If I am at s and wish to get to t, what char-
acteristic gesture . . . should I perform in order to arrive
there?” His model focused on process, that is, the ac-
tions that projected elements of one set to their new
locations within a subsequent set. Although transforma-
tional models vary, two common ones will be consid-
ered here: those involving Klumpenhouwer networks
and neo-Riemannian operations.
Klumpenhouwer networks (K-nets), developed by
Lewin (1990) and Henry Klumpenhouwer (1991), in-
terpret pc sets through graphs of nodes and arrows.
The nodes, or connection points within the network,
have pitch-classes as their content; the arrows are la-
beled with transposition and inversion operators (i.e.,
transformations). Numerous such interpretations can
be offered of a given pc set, depending on the contex-
tually relevant features one wishes to emphasize. With
K-nets, one can relate interpretations of pc sets belong-
ing to different set classes. This is especially the case
when their graphs are identical, that is, the configura-
tions of nodes and arrows are the same, as are the
transformations; such graphs are called “strongly iso-
graphic.” Two additional features of K-nets are signifi-
cant. First, they allow transformational voice-leading
patterns to be addressed. Second, they may be applied
in a recursive manner; that is, the relationships in-
volved in the interpretation of a pc set might be repli-
cated at a higher level, as the relationships involved in
a progression of pc sets.
Neo-Riemannian theory emerged from Lewin’s work
of the 1980s, along with the work of Brian Hyer, Rich-
ard Cohn, and others. It provided a way of analyzing
chromatic music of the late 19th century (as by Wagner,
Liszt, and Franck) that was triadic without adhering to
traditional progressions. (The theory’s name refers to
the fact that some of its ideas are associated with the
work of Hugo Riemann.) The transformations that map
one triad onto another often consist of the retention of
two common tones, with the remaining voice moving
by step—a minimal motion described as exhibiting
“voice-leading parsimony.” Three standard transforma-
tions are Parallel (P), in which the notes forming the
perfect fifth are maintained (e.g., a C-minor triad be-
comes C major); Relative (R), in which the notes form-
ing the major third are maintained (e.g., C minor be-
comes E♭ major); and Leading-tone exchange (L), in
which the notes forming the minor third are maintained
(e.g., C minor becomes A♭ major). These transforma-
tions may be illustrated on a geometric model called
the Tonnetz, of which a common form has one horizon-
tal and two diagonal axes, resulting in a series of equi-
lateral triangles. The three axes, and thus the vertices of
each triangle, represent the three triadic intervals; ac-
cordingly, each triangle corresponds to a major or minor
triad. In tracking a succession of triads in the music,
one can conceive of a Tonnetz triangle as “flipping”
about one of its edges, to land on another triangular
space. In this way, the Tonnetz models the transforma-
tions and shows an aspect of the coherence underlying
the harmonic and voice-leading procedures.
(vi) Theories of rhythm and meter. In the first half of
the 20th century, little work was published on rhythm
and meter, excepting compositional approaches by
those such as Cowell and Schillinger (see §4(vi)). The
silence began to break in the 1950s: Curt Sachs contrib-
uted a historical survey titled Rhythm and Tempo (1953);
and rhythm and meter was discussed in sections of
Leonard Meyer’s Emotion and Meaning in Music, and
Viktor Zuckerkandl’s Sound and Symbol (both 1956).
However, it was the 1960 publication of The Rhythmic
Structure of Music, by Meyer and Grosvenor Cooper,
that inaugurated the theoretic explorations that would
continue until the present. The authors considered their
topic in terms of “architectonic levels,” showing how
units on one level nest to form higher-level units. Poetic
feet (i.e., the iamb, trochee, etc.) were adapted as pat-
terns of accented and unaccented notes. Subsequently,
in Musical Form and Musical Performance (1968),
Edward Cone added the terms “hypermeasures” and
“hypermeter” to the lexicon, in reference to the idea
that individual measures could “behave as a single
beat.” However, he restricted hypermeter to the small
scale. At larger levels, he conceived of a kind of ener-
getic or gestural “rhythm” that imparted the sense of
“an extended upbeat followed by its downbeat.”
The influence of Schenker was explicit in subsequent
key works. For example, in The Stratification of Musi-
cal Rhythm (1976), Maury Yeston argued that meter
arises “from the interaction of two strata, one of which
must always be a middleground level,” and that this
interaction leads to two broad structural categories:
rhythmic “consonance” and rhythmic “dissonance.” Carl
Schachter issued three influential articles on “Rhythm
and Linear Analysis” between 1976 and 1987. He distin-
guished between two (often conflicting) sources that
produce “the patterned movement . . . of musical rhythm”:
tonal rhythm and durational rhythm. The former is
based on the relative stability of notes and chords
within the tonal system, and the latter is based not just

on durations per se but also on meter, accent, propor-
tion, and grouping. He demonstrated an analytic nota-
tion based on “durational reduction applied to and co-
ordinated with significant structural levels of voice
leading.” A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1983), by
Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, was indebted not just
to Schenker but to transformational-generative linguis-
tics. It offered a formalized approach to issues of rhythm
and meter (as well as of pitch). Grouping and meter
were treated as interrelated but independent: the former
involved segments organized hierarchically (indicated
analytically by nested slurs), and the latter involved
beats organized hierarchically (indicated analytically by
layers of dots). “Time-span reductions” were based on
the hierarchy of metrical and grouping components;
and all elements—grouping, meter, and reductions—
were subject to “well-formedness rules” and “preference
rules.” The former specified the legitimate structures,
and the latter designated which of these were optimal
for the “experienced listener.”
More recently, several significant books have further
advanced the field. For example, William Rothstein’s
Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music (1989) considered the
interactions of phrase structure and hypermeter, taking
the work of both Schenker and Heinrich Koch as points
of departure. Christopher Hasty’s Meter as Rhythm
(1997) reevaluated the separation of meter and rhythm
by introducing the concept of “projection,” which in-
volves “the potential for a present event’s duration to be
reproduced for a successor.” Harald Krebs expanded
the treatment of metric dissonance in Fantasy Pieces
(1999). And Justin London’s Hearing in Time (2004) in-
corporated psychological studies on metric perception,
taking the view “that meter is a form of entrainment
behavior” that is “subject to a number of fundamental
perceptual and cognitive constraints.”
(vii) Theories of form. For some time after mid-century,
writings on form tended to be pedagogical in purpose;
traditions from the first half of the century—as per the
textbooks of Ebenezer Prout, Percy Goetschius, Stewart
Macpherson, and R.O. Morris—were typically main-
tained. Thus, two popular textbooks that debuted in the
mid 1960s, by Douglass Green (1965) and Wallace Berry
(1966), remained somewhat conventional even as new
features were added. For example, Green was indebted
to Schenker (via Salzer) for his conception of form as
the interaction of tonal structure and design, but also to
Goetschius for many terms.
In subsequent years, additional ideas about form
began to accumulate. For example, Edward Cone (1968)
offered a dynamic view, arguing that form was essen-
tially “the rhythmic shape of a piece.” This “shape” was
typically “an extended upbeat followed by its down-
beat,” and thus a whole composition might “constitute
a single huge rhythmic impulse, completed at the final
cadence.” A focus on form as a “growth process” was
provided by Jan LaRue (1970) in his methodology for
“style analysis” (in which “style” referred to the various
elements and procedures used to develop a work’s
movement and shape). A system of analytic symbols
Theory, §5: 1950 to present 177
was proposed to represent the functions of growth.
Leonard Ratner (1980) then redirected attention toward
historical views of 18th-century music, arguing that the
forms of this period should be “interpreted as countless
options within a few working schemes.” For sonata
form, this view placed emphasis on the harmonic plan
over themes per se.
The Schenkerian view of form received growing at-
tention in the 1980s, in dissertations and articles that
focused on specific formal sections or (less commonly)
broader form types. This trend increased in the 90s,
when studies considered Schenkerian views in juxta-
position with other conceptions of form. For example,
Janet Schmalfeldt (1991) attempted to “reconcile”
Schenker’s ideas with those of Schoenberg and his stu-
dent Erwin Ratz. She argued that “certain well-established
types of formal procedure,” such as those defined by
Schoenberg and Ratz, “tend to become associated with
specific harmonic-contrapuntal plans,” as determined
through Schenkerian analysis. Charles Smith (1996)
considered Schenker’s ideas of form alongside “tradi-
tional” forms with a different purpose. His premise was
that the latter are sometimes our most trustworthy
guides to large-scale shape, and thus if a Schenkerian
background contradicts a “traditional” form, we should
be “as ready to rethink the background as we are to
reject the form.” Countering the customary distinction
between these conceptions of form, he argued that tra-
ditional classifications might provide our “most acces-
sible and dependable route to the structural back-
ground.”
More recently, two theories of form have been the
subject of much attention. On the one hand, William
Caplin’s theory of formal functions (1998) extends the
work of Schoenberg and Ratz. Unlike Schenker’s deeper-
level perspective, Caplin focuses more on the local
levels of themes and phrases, and considers the func-
tional roles they play in a work’s organization. On the
other hand, the “Sonata Theory” of James Hepokoski
and Warren Darcy (2006) focuses on how moment-to-
moment compositional choices impact the traversal of a
sequence of “action-zones” or “-spaces” (which collec-
tively constitute a sonata movement). Their analyses are
predicated on “the recognition and interpretation of ex-
pressive/dramatic trajectories toward generically oblig-
atory cadences.”
(viii) Other areas of research. These include (but are
not limited to) the following: musical semiotics (semi-
ology), which evolved between the 1960s and the 90s
from linguistically inspired formal and taxonomic ap-
proaches, to hermeneutic and semantic interrogations
of musical meaning; music perception and cognition,
which include not only investigations associated with
the empirical sciences, but forms of music analysis
traceable to the work of Leonard Meyer in the 1950s
and afterward; performance studies, which began to
develop in the 1960s through work by Erwin Stein
(1962) and Edward Cone (1968); Schoenbergian anal-
ysis, which utilizes a variety of concepts Schoenberg
developed over the years, such as the Grundgestalt
178 Theory, §5: 1950 to present
and developing variation (see also his ideas on form,
cited in §5(vii)); history of theory and the analysis of
early music, which are distinct areas often yoked due
to the application of historically informed analytic
models, and were largely the purview of historical mu-
sicologists until recent decades (see The Cambridge
History of Western Music Theory, 2002, for a broad
sampling of the area’s scope); and the analysis of pop-
ular music, which began to emerge from self-identi-
fied music theorists in the late 1980s and 90s, initially
concentrating more on rock music of the 1960s and
70s, but now with a broader focus. Music-theory peda-
gogy warrants separate mention due to the prominent
role of teaching in the profession. In practical terms,
pedagogy gained in relevance during the 1960s, with
proposed reforms in music education and the emer-
gence of new textbook orientations (e.g., comprehen-
sive musicianship, programmed instruction, and Schen-
ker-influenced approaches). In disciplinary terms, the
field began to coalesce in the 1980s, as evidenced by
the founding of the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy
(1987), and the publication of theory-pedagogy books
by John White (1981) and Michael Rogers (1984).
Today, theorists are involved in writing textbooks on
tonal and post-tonal music, counterpoint, form, and re-
lated topics.
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DAVID CARSON BERRY (1)
SHERMAN VAN SOLKEMA/DAVID CARSON BERRY (2–3)
DAVID CARSON BERRY (4–5)
Theosophy. Generally defined as a religion-philosophy-
science, founded by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (b Russia
[now Ukraine], 1831; d 1891). Blavatsky first came to
the United States on 7 July 1873, arriving in New York
City. In 1875, she formed the Theosophical Society to-
gether with William Quan Judge, Henry Steel Olcott,
and others. Three years later, Blavatsky left the United