Public Music Theory and Exploration of Digital Resources

About This Event

This talk reports on an ambitious project encompassing: 1) a review of what chromatic harmony is taught in both German- and English-speaking music theoretic traditions; 2) a set of clarifications for important but under-defined terms; and 3) a computational survey of usage in practice as reported by human analyses. At the heart of this effort is a meta-corpus of all human analyses that have been expressed in a computer-readable format, spanning over 1,000 works from c.1600–1945.

The CNY Humanities Corridor "Music Theory Examples by Women” working group has had an active role in contributing to and feeding back on this resource; so this talk serves partly a "thank you” and a demonstration of how what we built has come be useful in so many ways, notably Harmonic Anthology – OPEN MUSIC THEORY. The formal presentation will be followed by a guided tour through and discussion of the available digital resources.

Featured Guests

Mark Gotham (Durham University), “Chromatic Harmony in Theory and Practice”