Organized Time: Rhythm, Tonality, and Form

Organized Time is the first attempt to unites theories of harmony, rhythm and meter, and form under a common idea of structured time. Building off of recent advances in music theory in essential subfields-rhythmic theory, tonal structure, and the theory of musical form-author Jason Yust demonstrates that tonal music exhibits similar hierarchical organization in each of these dimensions. Yust develops a network model for temporal structure with an application of mathematical graph theory, which leads ultimately to musical applications of a multi-dimensional polytope called the associahedron. A wealth of analytical examples includes not only the familiar tonal canon-J.S. Bach, Mozart, Schumann-but also lesser known masters of the musical Enlightenment such as C.P.E. and J.C. Bach, Boccherini, and Johann Gottlieb Graun. Yust's approach has wide-ranging ramifications across music theory, enabling new approaches to musical closure, hypermeter, formal function, syncopation, and rhythmic dissonance, as well as historical observations about the development of sonata form and the innovations of Haydn and Beethoven. Making a forceful argument for the independence of musical modalities and for multivalent a approach to music analysis, Organized Time establishes the aesthetic importance of structural disjunction, the conflict of structure in different modalities, in numerous analytical contexts.

Table of Contents:
Contents Introduction Time and Landscape Dimension Chapter 1: Rhythmic Hierarchy and the Network Model 1.1 Metric and Rhythmic Structures as Temporal Hierarchies 1.2 Rhythmic Classes and Transformations 1.3 Inferring Rhythmic Hierarchies 1.4 Metricality Chapter 2: Tonal Structure 2.1 Melodic Structure 2.2 Backgrounds 2.3 Repetition 2.4 Keys 2.5 Tonal Models for Binary Forms Chapter 3: Formal Structure 3.1 Elements of Form: Repetition, Contrast, Fragmentation 3.2 Small Baroque Forms 3.3 Expositions and the Secondary Theme 3.4 Interactions of Form and Tonal Structure Chapter 4: Structural Networks and the Experience of Musical Time 4.1 Depth, Distance, and the Classification of Structural Shapes 4.2 A Phenomenology of Structure 4.3 Center, Skew, and Bias 4.4 Splitting and Disjunction Chapter 5: Timespan Intervals 5.1 Large-Scale Rhythmic Design in Bach's F Minor Fugue 5.2 Classification of Timespan Intervals 5.3 Hypermetric Hemiola in a Bach Prelude 5.4 Transformations of Rhythmic Structures Chapter 6: Hypermeter 6.1 Hypermeter in the Eye of the Beholder 6.2 Some Criteria for Hypermetric Analysis 6.3 Functions of Hypermetric Shift in Haydn's Symphonies 6.4 Indefinite Hypermeter and Hypermetric Reinterpretation Chapter 7: Hypermeter, Form, and Closure 7.1 Hypermetric Placement in Cadential Syntax 7.2 Mozart's Afterbeat Melodic Ideas 7.3 Main Theme Endings in Haydn's Symphonies 7.4 Elided Cadences and Expositional Closure 7.5 Beethoven's Open Expositions Chapter 8: Syncopation 8.1 Contrapuntal and Tonal versus Structural Syncopation 8.2 Contrapuntal Syncopation and Metrical Dissonance 8.3 Hypermetric Syncopation and Contrapuntal Displacement 8.4 Rhythmic Process as Formal Process in Beethoven Chapter 9: Counterpoint 9.1 Rhythmic Counterpoint 9.2 Brahms's Use of Rhythmic Irregularity and Rhythmic Counterpoint 9.3 Counterpoint of Tonal Structures 9.4 Formal Counterpoint Chapter 10: Harmony Simplified 10.1 Harmonic Syntax and Structure 10.2 Voice Leading on the Tonnetz 10.3 Enharmonicism Chapter 11: Reforming Formal Analysis 11.1 Tonal Disjunction and the Phrase 11.2 Ritornello Form in the Eighteenth-Century Symphony 11.3 Form(s) and Recipes 11.4 Outside the Frame Chapter 12: Tonal-Formal Disjunction 12.1 High-Level Tonal-Formal Disjunction in Sonata Form 12.2 Alternate Subordinate Keys 12.3 Disjunction in the Exposition: Modulating Subordinate Themes 12.4 Off-Tonic Recapitulations Chapter 13: Graph Theory for Temporal Structure 13.1 Planarity and Cycles 13.2 Direction and Confluence 13.3 Chords and Holes 13.4 Reduction Trees, Event Trees, and Spanning Trees over MOPs 13.5 Spanning Trees and the Cycle/Edge-Cut Algebras Chapter 14: A Geometry of Temporal Structure 14.1 Associahedra 14.2 Higher-Dimensional Associahedra and their Facets 14.3 Evenness Epilogue