Theory

Theory
David Carson Berry and Sherman Van Solkema

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2258426
Published in print: 26 November 2013
Published online: 31 January 2014

An area of study that tends to focus on musical materials per se, in order to explain (and/or offer
generalizations about) their various principles and processes. 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 coterminous 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
various 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 conceptually 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.

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 Pythagoreans 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 and ethnomusicology. Prior to the 20th century, American theory was typically pedagogical
in purpose, as evidenced by its often rudimentary coverage in tunebooks of the 18th century (see §2),
and by treatises and textbooks 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 autonomous field with its own professional
societies, journals, 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 emphasis sometimes summarized with the alliteration
“Schenker 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.

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2. The 18th century: theoretical introductions.

The earliest attempts to provide a theoretical background for music-making in America are brief essays
on rudiments, published in the 18th century as introductions to tunebooks 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 Walter’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 solmization syllables, in which rhythm is shown by
patterns of dots and slurs. A few lessons in the singing of scales and intervals, and observance of the
“few foregoing 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, William 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 comprehensive treatment of theory. Among those that
do are The Continental Harmony (1794/R1961) by William Billings, and The Massachusetts Compiler
(1795). The sparkle 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 particular 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 Dictionnaire 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 Composition (1787). In 29 pages, the compiled
“observations” cover notes, intervals, consonance and dissonance, diatonic, chromatic, and
enharmonic intervals, fundamental and “continued” (continuo) bass, chords and thoroughbass,
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 extracts and explanations are, the materials offered greatly exceed practical needs, and in this
sense The Massachusetts Compiler may be cited as the first “advanced” treatise published in the
United States.

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3. The 19th century: translations and textbooks.

For most of the 19th century, American theory was a satellite of European theory. Interesting
experiments in unorthodox 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 didactic
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 Harmony (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 instruction 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

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through the work of Richter himself—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 Composition (1852). For the American
market Saroni made changes: his 34-page essay on tones and the relationships 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. 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 developing American
tradition of empiricism and openness to new ideas. Goetschius studied in Stuttgart with Immanuel
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
Composition (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 harmony (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 successive descending fifths has been called the most durable 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 impossibility 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
Counterpoint” (7/1903). Problematic to present thinking is Goetschius’s stultifying attitude to
chromaticism, which he considered “the domain of harmonic lawlessness” (The Material, 8/1907).
Goetschius was far more ambitious than Richter with respect to the establishment of basic principles
and the systematic presentation of rules and classifications, but a fussy and somewhat archaic
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

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and Practice (1905), the latter of which introduced concepts from the English theorists George
Macfarren and Ebenezer Prout. As the new century unfolded, 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 much more nurturing
for music-theoretic endeavors of an expanding scope. Several intersecting factors were responsible.
First, theory in its pedagogical forms experienced increased relevance, as courses in harmony and
related subjects continued to join the curricula of colleges 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 organizations: the US branch of the Internationale Musikgesellschaft was formed in 1907, the
American Council of Learned Societies established a committee on musicology in 1929, the New York
Musicological Society was formed in 1931, and from it the American Musicological 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
Teachers’ National Association, which resumed in 1906 after a hiatus, frequently included such
material, as did Musical 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 surveys of Heacox
(1922), Hill (1941), and Jones (1964), the authors who would have been most familiar to students of
this time included Richter, Jadassohn, and Prout (German and British authors of an older generation),
but also the Americans Percy Goetschius, George Chadwick, Francis York, Arthur Foote and Walter
Spalding, 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 modulations,” 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 terminology. For
example, just before the present period, Frank Shepard (1889 and 1896) wrote of “Attendant chords,”

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which included all the usual chords with secondary leading tones: variants of V, vii°, and also
augmented-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 Dominant Chord.” Other
American authors developed their own terminology: e.g. for Andersen (1923), such chords were “the
dominant formations” of whatever the diatonic 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 development. 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
accommodating in Modern Harmony (1914). He too discussed chords with altered and added notes, but
he also considered chords built from superimposed fourths, fifths, and even seconds, and chords of
“mixed structures.” Certain “horizontal methods” were also explored, including 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 notated 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 chromatic harmonies were constrained by tertian spelling and tonal orientation,
Ernst Bacon wished to systematically identify all possible chord types. In “Our Musical Idiom” (1917),
chords were first placed in a closely packed “fundamental position,” and then they were labeled by
their adjacent intervals, measured in semitones. Thus there was a four-note “1–2–1” harmony, a five-
note “1–3–2–4” harmony, etc. Bacon accurately tabulated 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
concern. Ernst Krenek addressed this topic in Studies in Counterpoint (1940). In the section on three-
part writing, 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 “introduce and stress

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culmination-points,” whereas milder chords suggest “decreasing intensity of the musical flow.” A
similar but more extensive system was introduced by Paul Hindemith. In The Craft of Musical
Composition (1937; Eng. trans., 1942), chords of three to six members were divided into six main
groups, and several 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 degrees of tension. Hindemith provided a graphic representation 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 divisions of the octave were proposed. Several of the harmony
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.
Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (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 systematically 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 commentary on quarter-tones. A much more entailed philosophy 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 Tonality (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 pentatonic
system with five principal notes and two auxiliary 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.

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(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 parameters (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 influential was Richard S. Hill’s essay on “Schoenberg’s
Tone-Rows and the Tonal System of the Future” (Musical 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-author 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 composition,” 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 Counterpoint. 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 compositional prescription, completing books
that outlined some type of system (in one sense of the word or another). 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 melodic 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 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. Accordingly,

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Cowell observed that his ideas might well be called “a theory of musical relativity.” Some of the
concepts in his book would later prove influential on composers such as Nancarrow and Karlheinz
Stockhausen.

In 1930 Charles Seeger published a brief essay “On Dissonant Counterpoint.” It was, in essence, an
overview 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 composers involved with popular or commercial forms
of music. As these individuals were often traveling, he compiled his methods into a multivolume
correspondence course. After his death in 1943, two of his disciples (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 notably
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. Several factors
abetted this development. First, specialized 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 products 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 Conference on Music
Theory was convened in 1975. Two National 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 preceding 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 summarized below.

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(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, dissertations, 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
Schenker’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 Rothstein (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-section of
musical literature from the Middle Ages to the present day.”

Writings that incorporate Schenker’s ideas and analytic 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 concepts have been incorporated
into conventional textbooks 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.

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Theory

(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 investigated 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 theories
to model attributes of the 12-tone system. He addressed 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 invariance, 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
University), “Serial Composition and Atonality,” gave rise to a published book of the same title in 1962.
In it he explored structural aspects of 12-tone music; he also addressed 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 concept, on which
Perle’s own compositions were based, had as one of its central concerns the challenge of creating
coherent harmonic organization. Its final formulation appeared separately, in Perle’s Twelve-Tone
Tonality (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 formulation relates to Babbitt’s idea of “time-
point sets,” which he addressed in a 1962 article; it was later amplified by John Rahn, William Johnson,
Andrew Mead, and others. On another front, much has been done with partitions or mosaics, which are
divisions of the aggregate (i.e., a collection of all 12 tones) into discrete collections; 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
aggregates. Godfrey Winham and Peter Westergaard contributed early work on the subject in the
1960s, but Babbitt’s own music has been the focus of other theorists (see, e.g. his various procedures
as surveyed by Mead, 1994). An extensive, composer-oriented explication of array design is found in
Robert Morris’s Composition with Pitch Classes (1987).

(iv) Pitch-class set theory.

Perle’s 1962 book (see §5(iii)) examined non-serial or “freely” atonal music by considering 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 melodic figure or as a combination of both.” A forerunner
of this idea was offered by Perle in 1955, when he discussed two four-note “sets” that were significant
in Bartók’s Fourth Quartet. Also around this time, Howard Hanson published a volume on the

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Theory

Harmonic Materials 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 example, the notes C–E–F♯–
A♯ formed an “isometric tetrad” (i.e., inversionally symmetrical tetrachord) that “contains two major
2 2 2
thirds, two major seconds, and two tritones,” symbolized m s t .

Shortly thereafter, a more formalized system of analysis began to be developed by Allen Forte. He
applied set-theoretic principles to the analysis of unordered collections 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 various relationships that existed among the relevant sets of a work, so that
contextual coherence could be demonstrated. 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, one might determine that a kernel pair of complementary 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), textbooks 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 position 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 characteristic gesture . . . should I perform in order to arrive there?” His model focused
on process, that is, the actions that projected elements of one set to their new locations within a
subsequent set. Although transformational models vary, two common ones will be considered here:
those involving Klumpenhouwer networks and neo-Riemannian operations.

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Theory

Klumpenhouwer networks (K-nets), developed by Lewin (1990) and Henry Klumpenhouwer (1991),
interpret 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 labeled with transposition and inversion
operators (i.e., transformations). Numerous such interpretations can be offered of a given pc set,
depending on the contextually relevant features one wishes to emphasize. With K-nets, one can relate
interpretations of pc sets belonging to different set classes. This is especially the case when their
graphs are identical, that is, the configurations of nodes and arrows are the same, as are the
transformations; such graphs are called “strongly isographic.” Two additional features of K-nets are
significant. First, they allow transformational voice-leading patterns to be addressed. Second, they may
be applied in a recursive manner; that is, the relationships involved in the interpretation of a pc set
might be replicated 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,
Richard 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 transformations are Parallel (P), in which the notes forming the
perfect fifth are maintained (e.g. a C-minor triad becomes C major); Relative (R), in which the notes
forming the major third are maintained (e.g. C minor becomes 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
transformations may be illustrated on a geometric model called the Tonnetz, of which a common form
has one horizontal and two diagonal axes, resulting in a series of equilateral triangles. The three axes,
and thus the vertices of each triangle, represent the three triadic intervals; accordingly, 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 transformations 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 contributed 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 patterns of accented and unaccented notes. Subsequently, in
Musical Form and Musical Performance (1968), Edward Cone added the terms “hypermeasures” and

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“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 energetic 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
Musical 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 distinguished 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, proportion, and
grouping. He demonstrated an analytic notation based on “durational reduction applied to and
coordinated 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 linguistics. 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 involves “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) incorporated 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 maintained. Thus, two popular textbooks that debuted in
the mid 1960s, by Douglass Green (1965) and Wallace Berry (1966), remained somewhat conventional

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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 essentially “the rhythmic shape of a piece.” This
“shape” was typically “an extended upbeat followed by its downbeat,” 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 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 attention 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 juxtaposition with other conceptions of form.
For example, Janet Schmalfeldt (1991) attempted to “reconcile” Schenker’s ideas with those of
Schoenberg and his student 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 “traditional” 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 traditional classifications might provide our “most accessible and
dependable route to the structural background.”

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 functional 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
collectively constitute a sonata movement). Their analyses are predicated on “the recognition and
interpretation of expressive/dramatic trajectories toward generically obligatory cadences.”

(viii) Other areas of research.

These include (but are not limited to) the following: musical semiotics (semiology), which evolved
between the 1960s and the 90s from linguistically inspired formal and taxonomic approaches, 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

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Theory

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
analysis, which utilizes a variety of concepts Schoenberg developed over the years, such as the
Grundgestalt 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 musicologists 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 popular music, which began to emerge from self-identified 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 pedagogy 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 emergence of new textbook orientations (e.g.
comprehensive musicianship, programmed instruction, and Schenker-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 related topics.

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Theory

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A. Schoenberg: Style and Idea (New York, 1950; expanded edn, 1975)

F. Salzer: Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music (New York, 1952; repr. 1962)

C. Sachs: Rhythm and Tempo: a Study in Music History (New York, 1953)

G. Perle: “Symmetrical Formations in the String Quartets of Béla Bartók,” Music Review, 16/4
(1955), 300–12

L.B. Meyer: Emotion and Meaning in Music (Chicago, 1956)

V. Zuckerkandl: Sound and Symbol: Music and the External World (New York, 1956)

C. Carroll: Percy Goetschius, Theorist and Teacher (diss., U. of Rochester, 1957)

G. Cooper and L.B. Meyer: The Rhythmic Structure of Music (Chicago, 1960)

H. Hanson: Harmonic Materials of Modern Music: Resources of the Tempered Scale (New York,
1960)

D. Martino: “The Source Set and Its Aggregate Formations,” Journal of Music Theory,5/2 (1961),
224–73

M. Babbitt: “Twelve-Tone Rhythmic Structure and the Electronic Medium,” PNM, 1/1 (1962),
49–79

G. Perle: Serial Composition and Atonality: an Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg,
and Webern (Berkeley, 1962, 6/1991)

E. Stein: Form and Performance (New York, 1962)

C.E. Wunderlich: A History and Bibliography of Early American Music Periodicals, 1782–1852
(diss., U. of Michigan, 1962)

A. Basart: Serial Music: a Classified Bibliography of Writings on Twelve-Tone and Electronic

Music (Berkeley, 1963)

A. Forte: “A Theory of Set-Complexes for Music,” JMT, 8/2 (1964), 136–83

G.T. Jones: Symbols Used in Music Analysis (Washington, DC, 1964)

G. Winham: Composition with Arrays (diss., Princeton, 1964); repr. in Perspectives of New
Music, 9/1(1970), 43–67

D.M. Green: Form in Tonal Music: an Introduction to Analysis (New York, 1965, 2/1979)
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Theory

W. Berry: Form in Music (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1966, 2/1986)

P. Westergaard: “Toward a Twelve-Tone Polyphony,” PNM, 4/2 (1966), 90–112

E.T. Cone: Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York, 1968)

P. Perrin: Theoretical Introductions in American Tunebooks from 1801 to 1860 (diss.,

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1968)

J. LaRue: Guidelines for Style Analysis (New York, 1970, enlarged, 2/2011)

A. Forte: The Structure of Atonal Music (New Haven, 1973)

C.B. Grimes: American Musical Periodicals. 1819–1852: Music Theory and Musical Thought in
the United States (diss., U. of Iowa, 1974)

C. Schachter: “Rhythm and Linear Analysis: a Preliminary Study,” Music Forum, 4 (1976), 281–
334; repr. in Schachter, Unfoldings: Essays in Schenkerian Theory and Analysis, ed. J. Straus
(New York, 1999), 17–53

M. Yeston: The Stratification of Musical Rhythm (New Haven, 1976)

G. Perle: Twelve-Tone Tonality (Berkeley, 1977, 2/1996)

R. Browne, ed.: “Index of Music Theory in the United States, 1955–1970,” In Theory Only, 3/7–
11 (1977–8), 1–170

D. Epstein: Beyond Orpheus: Studies in Musical Structure (Cambridge, MA, 1979)

L. Ratner: Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style (New York, 1980)

C. Schachter: “Rhythm and Linear Analysis: Durational Reduction,” Music Forum, 5 (1980), 197–
232; repr. in Schachter, Unfoldings: Essays in Schenkerian Theory and Analysis, ed. J. Straus
(New York, 1999), 54–78

D. Thompson: A History of Harmonic Theory in the United States (Kent, OH, 1980)

J.D. White: Guidelines for College Teaching of Music Theory (Metuchen, NJ, 1981, 2/2002)

D. Lewin: “Transformational Techniques in Atonal and Other Music Theories,” PNM, 21/1–2
(1982–3), 312–71

R. Crawford: “Musical Learning in Nineteenth-Century America,” American Music, 1/1 (1983),

1–11

F. Lerdahl and R. Jackendoff: A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (Cambridge, MA, 1983)

R. Crawford: The American Musicological Society, 1934–1984: an Anniversary Essay

(Philadelphia, 1984)

W. Frisch: Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation (Berkeley, 1984)

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Theory

M. Rogers: Teaching Approaches in Music Theory: an Overview of Pedagogical Philosophies

(Carbondale, IL, 1984, 2/2004)

D. Lewin: Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (New Haven, 1987/R)

R. Morris: Composition with Pitch-Classes: a Theory of Compositional Design (New Haven,

1987)

C. Schachter: “Rhythm and Linear Analysis: Aspects of Meter,” Music Forum, 6 (1987), 1–59;
repr. in Schachter, Unfoldings: Essays in Schenkerian Theory and Analysis, ed. J. Straus (New
York, 1999), 79–117

B. Hyer: Tonal Intuitions in “Tristan and Isolde” (diss., Yale U., 1989)

W. Rothstein: Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music (New York, 1989)

D. Damschroder and D.R. Williams: Music Theory from Zarlino to Schenker: a Bibliography and
Guide (Stuyvesant, NY, 1990)

D. Lewin: “Klumpenhouwer Networks and Some Isographies That Involve Them,” Music Theory
Spectrum, 12/1 (1990), 83–120

G. Perle: “Pitch-Class Set Analysis: an Evaluation,” JM, 8/2 (1990), 151–72

W. Rothstein: “The Americanization of Heinrich Schenker,” Schenker Studies, ed. H. Siegel (New
York, 1990), 193–203

K. Agawu: Playing with Signs: a Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music (Princeton, NJ, 1991)

H. Klumpenhouwer: A Generalized Model of Voice-Leading for Atonal Music (diss., Harvard U.,
1991)

J. Schmalfeldt: “Towards a Reconciliation of Schenkerian Concepts with Traditional and Recent

Theories of Form,” MAn, 10 (1991), 233–87

M. Babbitt: The Function of Set Structure in the Twelve-Tone System (diss., Princeton U., 1992
[1946])

R. Hatten: Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation

(Bloomington, IN, 1994)

A. Mead: An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt (Princeton, NJ, 1994)

C. Seeger: “Manual of Dissonant Counterpoint,” Studies in Musicology II, 1929–1979, ed. A.

Pescatello (Berkeley, 1994), 163–228

R. Cohn: “Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic Systems, and the Analysis of Late-Romantic
Triadic Progressions,” MAn, 15 (1996), 9–40

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Theory

E. Haimo: “Atonality, Analysis, and the Intentional Fallacy,” Music Theory Spectrum, 18/2 (1996),
167–99

C. Smith: “Musical Form and Fundamental Structure: an Investigation of Schenker’s

Formenlehre,” MAn, 15 (1996), 191–297

J. Bernard: “Chord, Collection, and Set in Twentieth-Century Theory,” Music Theory in Concept
and Practice, ed. J. Baker, D. Beach, and J. Bernard (Rochester, NY, 1997), 11–51

C. Hasty: Meter as Rhythm (New York, 1997)

P. McCreless: “Rethinking Contemporary Music Theory,” Keeping Score: Music, Disciplinarity,

Culture, ed. D. Schwarz, A. Kassabian, and L. Siegel (Charlottesville, VA, 1997), 13–53

W. Caplin: Classical Form: a Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven (New York, 1998)

H. Krebs: Fantasy Pieces (New York, 1999)

J. Vander Weg: Serial Music and Serialism: a Research and Information Guide (New York, 2001)

T. Christensen, ed.: The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory (New York, 2002)

M. Babbitt: The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt, ed. S. Peles and others (Princeton, NJ, 2003)

C. Dale: Music Analysis in Britain in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Burlington,
VT, 2003)

D.C. Berry: A Topical Guide to Schenkerian Literature: an Annotated Bibliography with Indices
(Hillsdale, NY, 2004)

J. London: Hearing in Time (New York, 2004)

D.C. Berry: “Schenkerian Theory in the United States: a Review of Its Establishment and a
Survey of Current Research Topics,” Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie, 2/2–3 (2005),
101–37

D.C. Berry: “Journal of Music Theory under Allen Forte’s Editorship,” JMT, 50/1 (2006), 7–23

J. Hepokoski and W. Darcy: Elements of Sonata Theory (New York, 2006)

M. Schuijer: Analyzing Atonal Music: Pitch-Class Set Theory and Its Contexts (Rochester, NY,
2008)

M. Spicer and J. Covach, ed.: Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular Music (Ann Arbor,
2010)

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