In this groundbreaking book, Tymoczko uses contemporary geometry to provide a new framework for thinking about music, one that emphasizes the commonalities among styles from Medieval polyphony to contemporary jazz.

Music is central to human cultural and intellectual experience. It is vitally important for the welfare of human society and - this book argues - should become more widely accepted in our community as a mainstream educational and therapeutic tool. This book explores the importance of music throughout human evolution, and its continued relevance to modern-day human society. Throughout, the emphasis is on the origin of music and how (and where) it is processed in our brains, exploring in detail the genetic and cultural evolution of modern, loquacious humans, how we may have evolved with unique neural and cognitive architecture, and why two complementary but distinct communication systems - language and music - remain a human universal. In addition the book explores, in some depth, the different theories that have been put forward to explain why musical communication was (and remains) advantageous to our species, with a particular emphasis on the role of music and dance in enhancing altruistic and prosocial behaviours. The author suggests that music, and the social harmonization it brings, was of vital importance in early humans as we became more and more individualized by the emergence of modern language and the modern mind, and the realization that we are mortal. Music, Evolution, and the Harmony of Souls demonstrates the evolutionary sociobiological importance of music as a driver of cooperative and interactive behaviour throughout human existence, and what this evolutionary imperative means to twenty-first century humanity and beyond, from social and medical/neurological perspectives

Comprehensive and accessible, this foundational text surveys general principles of sound, musical scales, characteristics of instruments, mechanical and electronic recording devices, and many other topics. More than 300 illustrations plus questions, problems, and projects.

Lavishly illustrated, Exploring Music: The Science and Technology of Tones and Tunes explains in a nonmathematical way the underlying science of music, musical instruments, tones, and tunes. The author explores the magical quality and science of music, facilitating pleasure and the understanding in both young and older readers. Based primarily on the highly successful series of Christmas lectures given by the author in 1989-1990 at the Royal Institution, this book contains an expanded version of what he demonstrated to live audiences in excess of 2,000 as well as over 10 million television viewers.

This book provides first-year university students majoring in western art music with a thorough study of both structural and ornamental diatonic harmony in the Common Practice Period (c.1700 until the late 1800s). It provides one of the most comprehensive coverages of the topic of ornamental diatonic harmony published to date, and offers ample musical examples to illustrate the concepts explained, as well as exercises in creative four-part writing, analysis, aural development and keyboard harmony to practice the application of these concepts. Understanding the difference between the way chords act at the structural level and the ornamental level explains why rules that apply to one do not necessarily apply to the other, providing novel insights into the interplay between harmony and melody and renewed appreciation for the ingenious ways in which composers throughout the Common Practice Period exploited these techniques.