A Treatise on Harmony

A structured approach to the study of harmony with exercises, and one of three textbooks on music theory by Ouseley.

Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley (Author)

9781108030229, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 May 2011

298 pages, 3 b/w illus.
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

Sir Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley (1825–1889), English church musician, composer, Professor of Music at Oxford and Precentor of Hereford Cathedral, is best remembered for the foundation of St Michael's College, Tenbury, and its extensive music library in 1856. Here he was concerned to maintain the tradition of sung daily offices and to provide a model for others to follow. This book, first published in 1868, is the first of Ouseley's three works on music theory, and offers a structured approach to the subject, beginning with an explanation of musical notation and the harmonic series, then moving through the rules of harmony from tonic and dominant triads, to chord inversions, augmentation, diminution, modulation, the use of suspensions, pivot notes and cadence sequences. Of interest to music students and historians, the book contains exercises for the student and an appendix giving a number of musical examples.

Preface
1. The Stave
2. Harmony as derived from natural phenomena
3. Different positions of the tonic triad
4. General paradigm of harmonics
5. The minor mode deducible from nature
6. Natural origin of the chord of the minor ninth
7. Descending minor scale
8. New discords
9. Retardations
10. Sequences of dominant sevenths
11. Origin of secondary roots, in nature
12. Chord of the minor seventh and minor third
13. Cadences
14. Cadences of modulation
15. Irregular modulations by the chord of the dominant seventh
16. Formation of sequences of sevenths and ninths, without modulation
17. The pedal or 'point d'orgue'
18. Broken harmony
Exercises on the preceding chapters
Short examples from the works of various great masters.

Subject Areas: Music reviews & criticism [AVC]