Microtonal, just intonation, electronic music software Microtonal, just intonation, electronic music software

Encyclopedia of Microtonal Music Theory

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Arnold Schoenberg: Harmonielehre

[Joe Monzo]
This project is under construction!

I am here presenting the first few chapters from Roy Carter's English translation of Schoenberg's Harmonielehre 1. Nothing has been omitted; however, Schoenberg's sentences are full of parenthetical comments and subclauses, and so I have rearranged the text in a visual format that I feel makes his meaning easier to comprehend.

Altho Schoenberg's desire was to find a path for the development of new harmonic techniques within the confines of the 12-eq scale, I believe that the principles by which he unfolds his 'system of presentation' can be applied with great success to the development of an extended just-intonation or other type of microtonal compositional procedure.

As this project progresses, I will be adding commentary and diagrams around Schoenberg's text to further clarify or extrapolate. In particular, I wish to address the commentary of other authors, primarily those who have dealt with Schoenberg's ideas in a negative manner.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

Schoenberg's later essay Problems of Harmony

Notes

1 Arnold Schoenberg, 1911. Harmonielehre
Universal Edition, Vienna. 3rd (revised) edition, 1922.

English translation Theory of Harmony, Roy E. Carter, 1978.
based on the 3rd edition
University of California Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles.

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