Tonal Pitch Space by Fred Lerdahl
A Theory of Musical Hierarchy
This book develops a formal, cognitively grounded model of how listeners perceive tonal pitch relations by arranging pitch collections and keys in a hierarchical, multi-scale “pitch space” where proximity and stability encode perceived closeness, tension, and resolution; it specifies metrics for distances between pitch classes, chords, and keys, defines centers and regions of tonal attraction, and shows how voice-leading and harmonic progressions map onto paths through the space to explain cadences, modulations, and degrees of structural importance, offering a precise framework that extends earlier generative theories and makes testable predictions about musical perception and analysis.
- Published
- 2001
- Nationality
- American
- Length
- Unknown
- Pages
- Unknown
- Original Language
- English
- Avg User Rating
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(5.0)
- Alternate Titles
- None
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