Against the Monochord: Numbers, String Lengths, and the History of Music Theory
Nov 15, 2020·
Caleb Mutch
Image credit:Abstract
This paper argues that the importance of one instrument, the monochord, has been inflated for generations, and that this inflation has distorted our interpretations of music theory from the premodern world. I focus on three pre-modern texts which scholars of the past two generations have misinterpreted due to monochord-fueled presumptions: Boethius’s De institutione musica, the anonymous Alia musica, and Marchetto of Padua’s Lucidarium. Thus, by denying the temptation to familiarize pre-modern texts by reading string lengths into their theories we are better able to understand their authors’ arguments and the multifarious roles that number and music played in their worlds.
Date
Nov 15, 2020
Event
American Musicological Society annual conference
Location
Online
