Where sight meets sound : the poetics of late-medieval music writing /

"The main function of Western musical notation is incidental: it prescribes and records sound. But during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, notation began to take on an aesthetic life all its own. Composers sometimes asked singers to read the music in unusual ways--backwards, upside-down,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Zazulia, Emily (Author)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021]
Series:AMS studies in music.
Subjects:
Online Access:Connect to the full text of this electronic book
Description
Summary:"The main function of Western musical notation is incidental: it prescribes and records sound. But during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, notation began to take on an aesthetic life all its own. Composers sometimes asked singers to read the music in unusual ways--backwards, upside-down, or at a reduced speed--to produce sounds whose relationship to the written notes is anything but obvious. This book explores innovations in late-medieval music writing as well as how modern scholarship on notation has informed--sometimes erroneously--ideas about the premodern era. By viewing notation as a complex technology that did more than record sound, the book revolutionizes the way we think about music's literate traditions."--Publisher's description.
Physical Description:1 online resource (xxix, 308 pages) : illustrations (some color), music.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780197551936
0197551939
9780197551943
0197551947
9780197551929
0197551920