UC Santa Barbara

The progress in electronic and computer sciences has transformed music, introducing new techniques and tools that have completely impacted the way we compose, perform, and distribute music. As creators and consumers, our experience with music has been shaped by these new technologies, resulting in a rapid evolution of the art form.

However, Western music theory has remained largely unchanged, with technology settling into the current system and formalizing its rules in each protocol and platform developed. Since Western music, and specifically its harmonic rules, were developed in a technological context that has since changed, it stands to reason that the theory should evolve as well. Several artists have expanded their artistic practice by exploring new systems, such as serialism, stochastic music, and microtonality. Composers such as Xenakis, Partch, Johnston, Tenney and Barlow have laid the foundation for a new computational system in music.

Understanding the perceived root phenomenon is essential to explain the most fundamental structures in twelve-tone equal temperament or 5-limit just intonation, as well as proposing new chords for new tunings. Through a music perception study conducted on 41 participants and 10 different tunings empirically establishes harmonic dualism, negative harmony and Barlow’s harmonicity as the key factors for the perception of the harmonic root and the origin of the major and minor triads, and proposes a model as a basis for a tuning-agnostic – trans-spatial – music theory.

As a result, a set of rules and algorithms are introduced to expand music’s harmonic system through computation. This thesis proposes a tuning-agnostic music theory, organizing and codifying the principles and rules of harmony into a systematic and recognizable form.