2024 - NEW EDITION Description Ernst Levy was a visionary Swiss pianist, composer, and teacher who developed an approach to music theory that has come to be known as "negative harmony." Levy's theories have had a wide influence, from young British performer/composer Jacob Collier to jazz musicians like Steve Coleman. His posthumous text, A Theory of Harmony, summarizes his innovative ideas. A Theory of Harmony is a highly original explanation of the harmonic language of the modern era, illuminating the approaches of diverse styles of music. By breaking through age-old conceptions, Levy was able to reorient the way we experience musical harmony. British composer/music pedagogue Paul Wilkinson has written a new introduction that offers multiple points of entry to Levy’s work to make this text more accessible for a new generation of students, performers, and theorists. He relates Levy's work to innovations in improvisation, jazz, twentieth-century classical music, and the theoretical writings of a wide range of musical mavericks, including Harry Partch, Hugo Riemann, and David Lewin. Wilkinson shows how A Theory of Harmony continues to inspire original musical expression across multiple musical genres. Ernst Levy (1895-1981) was a Swiss music theorist, composer, and conductor. Reviews "Ernest Levy's idea [was that] any chord in any key, has a reflection, a polar opposite … based on rotating every single note around the axis of the key center." - Jacob Collier "The extreme symmetry that Levy is dealing with … reminds me of some of the work I’ve done as well as elements of Bartók's work, Henry Threadgill's work, W.A. Mathieu, Howard Boatwright, Schwaller de Lubicz, and ancient Egypt, Pythagoras, Plato, and the work of the ancient Greeks, Babylonian ideas of reciprocity and the work of Umayalpuram Sivaraman and other related Vedic symmetrical ideas." - Steve Coleman sunypress.edu/Books/A/A-Theory-of-Harmony3 Amazon:- www.amazon.co.uk/Theory-Harmony-Introduction-Paul-Wilkinson/dp/1438496338
I just bought your book. I really thank you for this break down. I feel like im slowly getting the hang of the basic terms in music which makes learning these concepts a bit easier. watching your videos make me more curious about music . I appreciate your content!
Found this by searching for Ernst Levy. Thank you for this. I have seen other videos on this topic, but this one is best for practical application. Seems very useful for ideas in composition.
This is really metaphysical harmony, it seems to me. These concepts have existed for a long time. Composers from the Ars Nova would use inversions, retrogrades etc. These are wonderful 'portals' as you say to lead us to dynamize and add variety to our music. At some point though, I suppose round about the beginning of the 14th century, the bass voice, the lowest voice, started to impose itself as an incontrovertible organizer in harmony. I don't think that music has wavered very much since then, excepting of course, interventions from Schoenberg et co. I don't think people are going to hear F minor as a 'shadow' version of C. The 'teluric' influence of the overtone series is too powerful. Having said that, thank you for your insightful and easily comprehensible video on this interesting subject. It was much needed since the term 'negative harmony' became such a buzz word.
Hi Nigel. Many thanks for the comment and sharing your perspective. 🙏 I have been working with this theory recently and will have more to share about this concept in 2024. Keep an eye on my channel. Best. Paul.
hi Paul, i really enjoyed this video, the only thing you didn't explain, is why do you make each subsequent chord major before finding its reciprocal, which results in every chord being minor accept for the initial one? Why not let them follow the same logic of "reciprocal chord creation" which would result in alternating majors and minors?
Hi, I have watched all of your videos on this topic, and those from others, and I have read the book. I'm still having a hard time understanding why the axis of reflection is used on the circle of fifths. Can you point to a place in Levy's book that discusses this point of dissecting the fifth between the major/minor thirds?
