I. The Melodic Foundations
1. The subtle mathematics of music
2. The Ramellian paradigm
3. The children's chant
4. The pentatonic scale
II. The Harmonic Revolution
5. Primitive harmony
6. The discovery of tonality
7. Rivals to tonality
8.
Dissonance and discord
9. The evolution of tonality
III. The Melodic Counter-Revolution
10. The invention of folk-music
11. The cantilena style
12. The debt to the East
13. Drones and ostinatos
14. Melodic line
15. Sequences
16. Relatively diatonic
modes
17. Chromatic modes and scales
18. The polka family
19. The early waltz
20. The later waltz
21. The waltz suite
22. The continuing Italian ascendancy
23. Melody
24. Harmony
25. Tonal counterpoint
26. Romantic nationalism
27. The symphonic
tradition
28. Wagner and the vernacular
29. The roots of Modernism
30. The Modernist conspiracy
31. The late vernacular
32. The blues and early jazz
There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.
Peter Van der Merwe spent two years at the South African College of Music in Cape Town but is largely self-taught. He is now working as a qualified librarian. He published his first book, 'Origins of the Popular Style' with OUP in 1989.