Reading Notes: A Theory of Harmony (SUNY Series in Cultural Perspectives)

Ernst Levy

"Harmonic theory is about harmonic norms."

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"A glissando is a pitch motion, a continual becoming. A tone, however, is a being, an individual."

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"Pitch change may first be considered a continuum. The howling of a siren, the glissando on a string, are examples embodying that concept. Now, the human mind is so structured that it apprehends the continuum by starting from discrete quantities, and not vice-versa. The development of mathematics offers a case in point. We see it starting from units (integers) and slowly making its way towards the continuum (calculus). If we state 'There exists an infinity of tones', we have already separated the continuum into discrete quantities."

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"Music ... is not primarily 'something that happens in the air'. It is something that happens in the human soul on the basis of a response to universal norms expressed in the tone structure."