In this dissertation, I argue that hearing a musical chord—a simultaneity of two or more notes perceived as a single object—is perceptually different from hearing separate concurrent tones, and that the object status of chords shapes our experience of listening to harmonic music. Following an outline of the acoustic and contextual cues that pro…[Read more]

William Byrd’s three published motet collections (1575, 1589, 1591) offer a tantalizing point of entry to the study of Byrd’s harmonic practice: while Byrd grouped many of his motets according to their final bass pitches, it is unclear what these groupings reveal about his concepts of tonal organization. Though ordering by final is a hallmark of…[Read more]

The “Bolero rhythm,” a triplet-infused rhythm pattern derived from Maurice Ravel’s _Boléro_, appears in a number of rock music singles beginning in the late 1960’s. Although Ravel’s highly recognizable pattern is commonly quoted in many genres of popular music, the Bolero rhythm takes on added significance in the realm of hard rock: it acts as a…[Read more]