SMA Zoom Colloquium, 6 December 2023, 6:30pm GMT
Please use the following Zoom link: https://citylit.zoom.us/j/94867721639 [citylit.zoom.us]
Meeting ID: 948 6772 1639 Passcode: 193857
Abstract
Music theorists tend to segregate theories that operate on discrete objects, such as traditional metrical theory and pitch-class set theory, from theories of tuning, microtiming, etc., that require continuous spaces. I will argue in this talk that even when dealing with discrete representations of musical objects objects—like notated durations or pitch classes—purely discrete theories are inadequate. In particular, I will demonstrate a periodicity-based approach to pitch and rhythm that uses continuous spaces to conceptualize discretely represented objects. This approach uses Fourier transforms and draws upon signal-analysis concepts to represent cyclic aspects of pitch and rhythm, and contributes significantly to theories of harmony, macroharmony, tuning, rhythm, meter, and microtiming. I will illustrate with applications to the tuning of Balinese gamelans, mode and tuning in Persian dastgah, conceptualizing meter in timeline- or clave-based musics from Latin America, West Africa, and the Arab world, and odd meters and microtiming in recent jazz.
Biography
Jason Yust is an Associate Professor of Music Theory at Boston University. He earned his BA in Music at Brown University and his PhD in Music Theory at the University of Washington in 2006 under the direction of John Rahn. He is the current co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Mathematics and Music, an associate editor of Perspectives of New Music. He has served on the editorial board of Music Theory Online and in various capacities for the Society for Music Theory, the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music, the New England Conference of Music Theorists, and the Northeast Music Cognition Group, and is founder and former chair of the Society for Music Theory‘s Mathematics of Music interest group. He was also the Assistant Editor for Perspectives of New Music in 2007 and 2008. His work addresses a range of topics, from mathematical theories of rhythm and harmonic spaces to Schenkerian theory and eighteenth-century form to music perception and scale theory. His 2018 book, Organized Time: Rhythm, Tonality, and Form, was the winner of the Society for Music Theory’s 2019 Wallace Berry Award.