ABSTRACT

Understanding Post-Tonal Music is a student-centered textbook that explores the compositional and musical processes of twentieth-century post-tonal music. Intended for undergraduate or general graduate courses on the theory and analysis of twentieth-century music, this book will increase the accessibility of post-tonal music by providing students with tools for understanding pitch organization, rhythm and meter, form, texture, and aesthetics. By presenting the music first and then deriving the theory, Understanding Post-Tonal Music leads students to greater understanding and appreciation of this challenging and important repertoire.

The updated second edition includes new "Explorations" features that guide students to engage with pieces through listening and a process of exploration, discovery, and discussion; a new chapter covering electronic, computer, and spectral musics; and additional coverage of music from the twenty-first century and recent trends. The text has been revised throughout to enhance clarity, both by streamlining the prose and by providing a visual format more accessible to the student.

chapter |4 pages

Introduction

An Overview of Twentieth Century Compositional Styles

chapter 3|38 pages

Introduction to Pitch-Class Set Theory

chapter 4|24 pages

Analyzing Atonal Music

chapter 6|12 pages

… And Inventing the Future

chapter 7|22 pages

Twelve-Tone Music I: An Introduction

chapter 8|34 pages

Twelve-Tone Music II

Invariance, Symmetry, and Combinatoriality

chapter 9|22 pages

Serialism

Developments After 1945

chapter 10|38 pages

Expanding the Limits of Musical Temporality

chapter 11|24 pages

Aleatory Music

Sound Mass, Texture, and Timbre

chapter 12|25 pages

Electronic, Computer, and Spectral Musics

chapter 13|27 pages

Integrating the Past and Reimagining Harmony

chapter 14|19 pages

Simplifying Means

chapter 15|25 pages

Into the Twenty-First Century

chapter |4 pages

Epilogue