Editor’s Message

[1] Fall is in the air, which can mean only one thing: it’s time for another issue of Music Theory Online! The MTO editorial team is pleased to present Volume 32, Number 3, with six crisp articles that are sure to turn your back-to-school blues a warm shade of ochre. These offerings may not be pumpkin-spiced, but they do serve as the perfect accoutrement to fuzzy sweaters and golden apples.

[2] For those of you finding autumn a time of reminiscence, we have two history-of-theory contributions. In sixteenth-century Spain, music theorist Juan Bermudo found himself struggling to explain the musical practice of his time through concepts derived from Ancient Greek theory. As Nicolás Medina demonstrates in his discussion of Bermudo’s 1555 treatise Declaración de Instrumentos Musicales, Bermudo solved his conundrum by proposing a new theoretical framework—the “semi-chromatic genus”—that reconciles ancient ideas with musical practices of the Spanish Renaissance. Moving Northeast in space and a century and a half forward in time, we find early-eighteenth-century French music under the rule of the règle des octaves as presented by François Campion in 1716. Co-authors Johannes Menke, Markus Neuwirth, Johannes Hentschel, and Martin Rohrmeier offer a heap of data—often presented in colorful and fun, not to mention illuminating, interactive examples—that sets Campion’s theory of the règle against contemporary compositions by the similarly named François Couperin.

[3] The remaining four articles all center on music since WWII. In the 1950s, Woody Guthrie was known for adding or dropping measures in his folk songs, creating irregular hypermetric structures. Ryan H. Jones investigates Guthrie’s non-standard hypermetrical practice throughout his output, treating such irregularities not as random insertions or deletions but as tools for meaningful musical expression. Meanwhile, in a different musical circle, a recurring practice was cropping up in hundreds of compositions throughout the late twentieth and early twenty-first century: initiating a piece or section on a sustained unison. Noah Kahrs discusses how these unisons became a schema, analyzing their function in several works while discussing their psychoacoustic effects.

[4] Genre, these days, is fluid, and artists across the popular-music landscape are combining elements of multiple genres in strategic, meaning-forming ways. As Noriko Manabe shows us, the J-pop artist Yoasobi uses genres as musical topics in her 2023 global smash “Idol,” resulting in a tapestry of extramusical signification that complements the lyrical narrative. And if genre fluidity in an original pop song is not enough, what of the phenomenon of reworking classic tunes as epic soundtracks to movie trailers? Eric Drott describes how these and other related practices emerge from music’s increasing assetization, offering the potential for the value of a song’s rights to grow over the long term.

[5] What better way to break up a day of grading and/or committee meetings than to break out a steaming mug and dive into these brand-new music theoretical offerings? We at MTO hope you enjoy our latest publications and, as always, wish you Happy Reading!

Drew Nobile, MTO Editor
University of Oregon