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Essays arrive in groups rather than one at a time, and a group usually opens up a subject not covered before. Between one group and the next nothing changes, so a reader who has seen the most recent group has seen everything.
5 November 2026
9 essays on harmony and voice leading, intervals and chords, instruments and their design, perception and the listener, form and structure, rhythm and metre, scales and modes, timbre and acoustics and pitch and tuning
Harmony and voice leading
A trill is half a consonance unless it borrows its own resolution
A struck suspension loses roughness because its tied note is old, and the obvious repairs are all things a player already has. Three of them fail in ways nobody would predict. A re-strike under about nine decibels below the chord is smoother than the tie it replaces. No rate of trill stops the fading, because the three notes under the trill are what is fading. And a trill on the upper neighbour spends half its time on a chord note: only the trill that alternates a suspension with its own resolution gives back more than a single strike.
Intervals and chords
One walk round the bearing measures the piano and the tuner together
A tuner who counts twelve fourths and fifths to the printed table and comes home flat has measured something. Divide the closing beat's rate by three and correct the whole table by that share, and the worst interval improves from a hundred per cent off to about twenty, on any piano. It keeps the table with one number. And the number cannot tell a stiff string from a slow count: a tuner counting nine per cent slow gets the right bearing from the wrong table, and one correction removes that luck along with the error.
Instruments and their design
A vibraphone's valve is a door on the sound and a drain on the bar
A vibraphone's motor is usually described as a duty cycle: loud while the valve is open and quiet while it is shut, with a tremolo as deep as the gap between them. Put the tube's own time back and the description comes apart. The door and the drain obey different laws. A low note's tremolo is a third shallower than a high note's at the same speed, the note rings almost three times longer than with the valve left open and well beyond any mean of the two states, and the same stroke can land eight decibels apart according to where the motor happens to be.
Perception and the listener
A hall forgets almost everything but the last part to leave
A hall's bass outlasts its treble, so a thinning ending ought to care which parts it drops first: top down should leave the tail's darkness to fill the gap, and bass up should remove what the tail holds longest. Searched over all 720 orders, it barely does. Give the tail a spectrum and the drop moves by under half a phon, in the direction that helps the order expected to suffer. What sets the ending is two notes: the one left sounding, and the one that went just before it. Everything earlier has gone.
Form and structure
An octave down a third part is heard and harmless, with nothing to spare
A flue pipe cannot be marked down, but it can be moved, and the expected answer was upward: an octave higher clears the carrier's main region and spreads over partials that are already faint. The count says the opposite. Up an octave a third part takes half as many partials again. Down an octave it takes a quarter of what it took, gives a voice back its whole upper spectrum, and is still heard in nearly every arrival. No level reaches that. The price is that the part has spent its spare level, and three decibels soft takes it out of a third of them.
Rhythm and metre
More marks are worse until they sound different
Two points in a slow gong cycle take a newcomer four hearings to tell apart, and the obvious way to shorten that is to make them sound unlike each other. For two marks it barely matters: the saving is a sixth, the first hearing is lost whatever they sound like, and the best pair stays the best pair. The surprise is what happens to more than two. Marks told apart by position alone are worse the more of them there are, for dozens of cycles. Past a very small difference of sound, four marks beat two inside the first four hearings.
Scales and modes
A melody's pull can be counted only where a step is a skip
A melody drifts back towards its centre, and nobody has said in what unit: a distance on the keyboard or a distance in the scale. On even scales the two cannot be told apart. On unequal ones they can, and an exact reckoning puts a price on it: about five hundred thirty-note tunes on the major scale, a dozen on hirajōshi. The price falls with the square of how uneven the scale is, and then drops seventeenfold at the point where a step of the scale gets wide enough to be counted as a skip.
Timbre and acoustics
A wall puts antiphonal seconds back beside the firsts
Second violins seated opposite the firsts have their plates turned away from the audience, and in a hall a section's pizzicato depends on its beam. With nothing behind them they keep their worst note in about one seat in a hundred. A perfectly hard wall two metres behind gives them back a cone as large as the firsts' own, but a wall that loses three decibels takes most of it away again. And the seats that cone serves turn out to be, within a seat or two, the seats the same section would serve sitting beside the firsts.
Pitch and tuning
A split key buys one of everything, and two buy C and E
An organ builder with money for two extra keys could have put them anywhere, and the arithmetic of triads cannot say where. On a meantone keyboard every added key buys exactly one major triad, one minor triad, one major key and one minor key, wherever it goes. So the count is no guide, and the choice was about which keys. The two accidentals most often divided, G♯/A♭ and D♯/E♭, are one on each side of the chain, and they are exactly what completes the minor keys on C and E. What they buy by the roughness sum is seven per cent.
Before that
Everything published earlier, newest first. Titles only — the cards are on the full listing.
2 November 2026
9 essays on harmony and voice leading, intervals and chords, instruments and their design, form and structure, pitch and tuning, perception and the listener, scales and modes, timbre and acoustics and rhythm and metre
- A tied note is the oldest thing in its own dissonance — harmony and voice leading
- A stiff string gives the bearing a comma of its own — intervals and chords
- A fast run is a crescendo nobody wrote — instruments and their design
- A singer needs a quarter of the breaths the page offers — form and structure
- A set free to change key becomes a set in two — pitch and tuning
- A blown note parts by its register, not its family — perception and the listener
- A tune's range is a number of notes, not an interval — scales and modes
- A section keeps its pizzicato only inside a cone — timbre and acoustics
- A bell can mark a cycle without moving a stroke — rhythm and metre
30 October 2026
10 essays on scales and modes, form and structure, harmony and voice leading, instruments and their design, intervals and chords, perception and the listener, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics and pitch and tuning
- A gamelan's shimmer can slow to a fifth before its clock notices — scales and modes
- A goal tone that returns should swell only once — scales and modes
- A quieter third part gives back only as deep as it took — form and structure
- A cadence that votes must not vote as the drum — harmony and voice leading
- Two strings undo what two quills were regulated for — instruments and their design
- A bearing set by its thirds carries five eighths of its octave — intervals and chords
- A hall leaves a thinning ending most of its diminuendo — perception and the listener
- A newcomer learns a cycle's landmarks in four hearings — rhythm and metre
- A straight tone drifts out of step and stays there — timbre and acoustics
- A set steps by fifths where the capo moves — pitch and tuning
23 October 2026
9 essays on scales and modes, form and structure, harmony and voice leading, instruments and their design, intervals and chords, perception and the listener, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics and pitch and tuning
- A gamelan's shimmer has no cheaper shape, only a slower one — scales and modes
- A third part takes what it would have taken alone — form and structure
- A cadence has to empty the reading, not weaken it — harmony and voice leading
- A row that hears its neighbours moves its tuning, it does not hide it — instruments and their design
- A bearing counted correctly is stretched by its route, not its strings — intervals and chords
- A ring of minor bells rings a second scale a major third below — perception and the listener
- The felt channel carries the inner beats, not the downbeat — rhythm and metre
- A narrow vibrato needs no lock — timbre and acoustics
- A set ordered by key relation moves the capo most — pitch and tuning
21 October 2026
8 essays on intervals and chords, pitch and tuning, harmony and voice leading, form and structure, instruments and their design, perception and the listener, timbre and acoustics and rhythm and metre
- The progression of thirds votes for the bearing, not the octave — intervals and chords
- A capo left in place serves one key — pitch and tuning
- A fill cannot end a reading, but it can win the next one — harmony and voice leading
- A carrier gives up room, not partials — form and structure
- The venturi is heard by every resonance — instruments and their design
- The page can write a diminuendo and not a climax — perception and the listener
- Two octaves up, a sung chord can bind at every swing — timbre and acoustics
- A varied bell can be a landmark or a false start — rhythm and metre
18 October 2026
9 essays on intervals and chords, pitch and tuning, harmony and voice leading, perception and the listener, form and structure, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics, instruments and their design and scales and modes
- The octave that fails both checks least — intervals and chords
- A capo is a transposition the tuning cannot see — pitch and tuning
- A silent break has to outlast the reading's lead — harmony and voice leading
- The raised tierce points the bell at its own note — perception and the listener
- An announced plan pays the cycle and punishes the blocks — form and structure
- A felt drum reaches only where the heard one already does — rhythm and metre
- A chord comes back into step too briefly to bind — timbre and acoustics
- Sixteen singers cannot all oppose each other — instruments and their design
- A gamelan's shimmer should rise only downward — scales and modes
14 October 2026
10 essays on intervals and chords, pitch and tuning, harmony and voice leading, perception and the listener, timbre and acoustics, instruments and their design, rhythm and metre, scales and modes and form and structure
- The fourth–fifth check cannot hear the note it checks — intervals and chords
- The thirds and the fourths check different octaves — intervals and chords
- The minor half's own tuning belongs to one key — pitch and tuning
- A break rescues a late drum only by ending the reading — harmony and voice leading
- The major-third bell has no mirror problem — perception and the listener
- A shared vibrato cannot hold a tuned chord together — timbre and acoustics
- Singers who hear each other late lock their vibratos in opposition — instruments and their design
- In a crowd the downbeat belongs to the drum — rhythm and metre
- A degree's three swells are one landmark only if they agree — scales and modes
- A listener who learns the plan keeps only the far pair's immunity — form and structure
5 October 2026
9 essays on intervals and chords, pitch and tuning, harmony and voice leading, instruments and their design, scales and modes, perception and the listener, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics and form and structure
- A stiff string slows the fourths and quickens the fifths — intervals and chords
- One retuning is worth what the pop songs pay for the minor tuning — pitch and tuning
- An honest drum has to come first — harmony and voice leading
- A choir's vibratos must lock to two milliseconds — instruments and their design
- A gamelan's shimmer has to start again at every octave — scales and modes
- A bell can be made minor by the third nobody tunes — perception and the listener
- In a loud room the accent has to be loud — rhythm and metre
- A tuned chord stays in step for half a cent-second — timbre and acoustics
- Two functions far apart outlast four that blur — form and structure
2 October 2026
8 essays on pitch and tuning, harmony and voice leading, instruments and their design, scales and modes, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics, perception and the listener and form and structure
- A guitar set tunes for its minor chords only when nearly half its songs are minor — pitch and tuning
- Two honest bars convict a lying root — harmony and voice leading
- A vibrato hides a choir's tuning above four hundred hertz — instruments and their design
- A gamelan tuner can name the goals for nothing — scales and modes
- A dancer who hears the crowd can trust the quiet — rhythm and metre
- In a hall a section of violins loses the notes it saved — timbre and acoustics
- A bell is never minor alone — perception and the listener
- A section that says what it is for places a first hearing — form and structure
30 September 2026
9 essays on instruments and their design, perception and the listener, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics, form and structure, intervals and chords, harmony and voice leading, scales and modes and pitch and tuning
- A leadpipe tunes the series, and its average does not — instruments and their design
- A page has twelve phons, and its entries always said so — perception and the listener
- The bell pattern's order is for arriving — rhythm and metre
- A tuned chord's flutter binds it only if its notes start together — timbre and acoustics
- A passenger under its mask is still heard in the arrival — form and structure
- The plane of the blow matters only where the unison is clean — intervals and chords
- A late root is believed because the record is kept by the reading — harmony and voice leading
- The leading note is already inside the chord that hides the key — scales and modes
- A guitar set keeps its tuning until the third minor song — pitch and tuning
28 September 2026
9 essays on rhythm and metre, form and structure, instruments and their design, intervals and chords, perception and the listener, timbre and acoustics, harmony and voice leading, pitch and tuning and scales and modes
- Two landmarks in a cycle help only if they can be told apart — rhythm and metre
- New music says only that it is new — form and structure
- A cone radiates like a cylinder only if its holes grow — instruments and their design
- The scale's ii chord borrows the dominant's bass — intervals and chords
- A bell's strike gives its tierce a millisecond — perception and the listener
- A section of violins fills in the note one violin gives away — timbre and acoustics
- The habit worth bringing is to distrust the tune — harmony and voice leading
- Two minor songs retune a guitar set for their dominant — pitch and tuning
- A gamelan's beating names its goal only if each goal beats at its own rate — scales and modes
26 September 2026
12 essays on intervals and chords, harmony and voice leading, perception and the listener, scales and modes, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics and pitch and tuning
- A tempered seventh chord already has the tuned one's low note — intervals and chords
- The octave is counted best over a unison left two and a half cents wide — intervals and chords
- A listener who weights its witnesses needs eight bars of bass, not twelve — harmony and voice leading
- A bowed bass line is placed by its entrance; a violin line by every note — perception and the listener
- The bar a gamelan can least afford wrong is the one its skeleton lands on — scales and modes
- An elaboration is a clock hand where the skeleton has none — rhythm and metre
- A violin's worst doubling note is wherever its own body resonates — timbre and acoustics
- A tuned close seventh chord low on the keyboard flutters at one rate — intervals and chords
- One guitar tuning serves every key, and it is the D shape's — pitch and tuning
- An elaboration that arrives early makes every goal tone the bar to tune first — scales and modes
- A bowed bass line has an onset at every step, in its upper partials — perception and the listener
- A listener who knows the style needs no introduction — harmony and voice leading
25 September 2026
11 essays on instruments and their design, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics, pitch and tuning, harmony and voice leading, perception and the listener, scales and modes, intervals and chords and form and structure
- The second row of resonators keeps the neighbours out of the attack — instruments and their design
- A feel heard half the time gives the bell half its lead — rhythm and metre
- A lid darkens a staccato only inside a narrowing cone — timbre and acoustics
- A guitar tuned for a set is tuned for the D shape — pitch and tuning
- Two bars of drum hold the barline; a dozen bars of bass do not — harmony and voice leading
- A bowed note is placed as if it were quieter — perception and the listener
- A crowd that hides bars is kinder than one that hides onsets — rhythm and metre
- A return is cheaper to avoid than to pay for — scales and modes
- A tuned seventh chord does not beat; it buzzes — intervals and chords
- A floor under each member is paid for in steps — form and structure
- In a hall the balanced ending is a louder chord — form and structure
24 September 2026
14 essays on timbre and acoustics, perception and the listener, rhythm and metre, pitch and tuning, intervals and chords, harmony and voice leading, scales and modes and form and structure
- Four notes cannot get below the seventh partial — timbre and acoustics
- A quiet bass is further off-centre than a loud violin — perception and the listener
- A crowd costs a late dancer the silences, not the steps — rhythm and metre
- A silent string tunes the minor chord — pitch and tuning
- The notes name the ghost bass before it has a cycle — intervals and chords
- A melody marks the barline by where it lingers — harmony and voice leading
- The dynamic chooses which D the scale has — intervals and chords
- A second slot hears every modulation as a tonicization — scales and modes
- A syncopated melody needs its phrases to land — harmony and voice leading
- A part that must stay changes over in shifts — form and structure
- An onset can only hand over what the chord leaves — perception and the listener
- A modulation is a dominant that keeps coming back — scales and modes
- A guitar tuned for a still hand is tuned for nothing — pitch and tuning
- A pair entering as one hides the part that cannot be heard — form and structure
23 September 2026
14 essays on form and structure, rhythm and metre, pitch and tuning, timbre and acoustics, intervals and chords, perception and the listener and scales and modes
- Only a lapse of attention keeps a form's top vague — form and structure
- A repeat sign loses a listener that a refrain does not — form and structure
- No rest balances a louder chord held past a ninth of a second — form and structure
- The strokes between the gongs are a clock — rhythm and metre
- The best gong cycle halves at every level — rhythm and metre
- Against both feels, the bell pattern's order stops mattering — rhythm and metre
- Tuned for one shape, a cent is worth five frets — pitch and tuning
- Tune a guitar for the shape of its key's open chord — pitch and tuning
- A tuned guitar has no minor chord in tune — pitch and tuning
- Half the worst notes of a doubling are notes nobody can play — timbre and acoustics
- A ghost bass an octave lower needs notes twice as long — intervals and chords
- A moving tenor is heard because it is struck again — perception and the listener
- Looking ahead rescues the relative minor, not the bridge — scales and modes
- A pointing source's staccato ends dark, not bright — timbre and acoustics
21 September 2026
8 essays on harmony and voice leading, intervals and chords, timbre and acoustics, perception and the listener and scales and modes
- A walking bass marks the bar by the note it is on — harmony and voice leading
- A texture in which nothing says where the bar begins — harmony and voice leading
- The leap at the barline is a fact about register — harmony and voice leading
- A tempered third cannot be one sound with its own ghost — intervals and chords
- The seventh has two places to be — timbre and acoustics
- A doubling's worst note belongs to one instrument, not to the pair — timbre and acoustics
- A bell's tierce does not arrive late, it leaves early — perception and the listener
- The bridge is not a labelling problem — scales and modes
17 September 2026
18 essays on pitch and tuning, form and structure, harmony and voice leading, intervals and chords, timbre and acoustics, scales and modes, perception and the listener and rhythm and metre
- Counting beats moves the price of a chord, not the tuning — pitch and tuning
- The chord a tuning gives up is a fingering — pitch and tuning
- A louder final chord is a deeper silence and a brighter sound — form and structure
- An exit is worth nothing until the tutti is given up — form and structure
- Checkpoints sharpen the middle of a form, not its top — form and structure
- The bass errs fast where the content errs slow — harmony and voice leading
- The played notes already name the ghost bass — intervals and chords
- A firm touch buys beats until the aftersound sinks with it — intervals and chords
- A seventh chord cannot be spaced to last like a triad — timbre and acoustics
- The ceiling is thirteen bars with names — scales and modes
- Only the player hears a staccato end — timbre and acoustics
- The arch belongs to hearing, not to the series — perception and the listener
- A late dancer needs the landmarks, not the rhythm — rhythm and metre
- Against a pulse the bell pattern is the easiest to place — rhythm and metre
- An expectation cannot rescue a cycle too slow to time — rhythm and metre
- A bass chord low enough to balance has already hidden its tenor — perception and the listener
- A wrong bar beats the same on either instrument — scales and modes
- A bass that holds through a change marks the barline — harmony and voice leading
16 September 2026
4 essays on pitch and tuning, timbre and acoustics, perception and the listener and scales and modes
- A tuning is right for some chords and wrong for the rest — pitch and tuning
- A damper cannot reach into the room — timbre and acoustics
- The error that moves straight ahead — perception and the listener
- The two parameters turn out to have a ceiling between them — scales and modes
15 September 2026
20 essays on timbre and acoustics, intervals and chords, form and structure, pitch and tuning, rhythm and metre, harmony and voice leading and scales and modes
- A bow holds the number a blow hides — timbre and acoustics
- The room is the slower of the two — timbre and acoustics
- A damper changes the clock, not the colour — timbre and acoustics
- A minor triad can be spaced to last — intervals and chords
- Three harmonics of the bass arrive before the bass — intervals and chords
- The ghost bass drops a twelfth at a forte — intervals and chords
- One note in the compass loses its pizzicato — timbre and acoustics
- A count is not an estimate — form and structure
- A form is sharp at the bottom and vague at the top — form and structure
- A golden section is a coin toss with six coins — form and structure
- The ceiling everybody names is the loose one — form and structure
- One tuning has no comma to place — pitch and tuning
- The quartet settles at two pitches, not four — pitch and tuning
- Repetition buys least where it is needed most — rhythm and metre
- The change reading follows the chords, not the bar — harmony and voice leading
- Asked for the rate, it answers a multiple — harmony and voice leading
- The tempo moves a scale further than the touch — scales and modes
- The scale belongs to the ringing instrument — scales and modes
- Given the bar in octaves, the degree comes back — scales and modes
- A sharper cue is worth nothing to a reading that moves — scales and modes
13 September 2026
15 essays on form and structure, harmony and voice leading, intervals and chords, pitch and tuning, rhythm and metre, scales and modes and timbre and acoustics
- A proportion is only as fine as its two durations — form and structure
- A return is shorter than its first hearing — form and structure
- A final chord stands out for a twentieth of a second — form and structure
- The chords mark the barline by changing there — harmony and voice leading
- A rough arrival is rough because of its spacing — harmony and voice leading
- A combination-tone bass needs a forte — intervals and chords
- An open triad lasts as long as its tenth — intervals and chords
- An open string pulls the quartet flat — pitch and tuning
- A guitar tuned by harmonics hides a comma — pitch and tuning
- A string that decays twice is counted early — pitch and tuning
- Knowing every metre is slower than knowing none — rhythm and metre
- The bell pattern is slowest only to a perfect memory — rhythm and metre
- A scale is committed to how long its instrument rings — scales and modes
- A room keeps a pizzicato from giving its note away — timbre and acoustics
- A dancer who comes in late needs the downbeat marked — rhythm and metre
12 September 2026
17 essays on pitch and tuning, intervals and chords, timbre and acoustics, scales and modes, harmony and voice leading, rhythm and metre and form and structure
- Counted in the decay, or not at all — pitch and tuning
- The third sound magnifies cents, not hertz — intervals and chords
- The tone on the root changes hands at the fifth — intervals and chords
- A major triad's combination tones are its own notes — intervals and chords
- The bass line under a passage in thirds — intervals and chords
- The tuning a string quartet cannot change — pitch and tuning
- The cello cannot hear its own tempering — pitch and tuning
- An inversion lasts as long as its outer sixth — timbre and acoustics
- A doubled pizzicato gives its note away early — timbre and acoustics
- Two cues meet in a corner — scales and modes
- A bass line is not a list of roots — scales and modes
- The smoothness is in the skips — scales and modes
- The chords never move the barline — harmony and voice leading
- The chords are a weak witness to the barline — harmony and voice leading
- The other censuses keep evenness, not locating — rhythm and metre
- The accent buys two units, however loud it is — rhythm and metre
- Room is used up by whoever enters first — form and structure
9 September 2026
20 essays on form and structure, intervals and chords, pitch and tuning and scales and modes
- An entrance is a change of colour — form and structure
- The release is on the wrong side — form and structure
- A part that leaves is not a part that arrives — form and structure
- The chord that has room for an entrance — form and structure
- An interval is two posteriors subtracted — intervals and chords
- Which end the mistuning is on — intervals and chords
- The setting is not the preference — intervals and chords
- An orchestra is given a note — pitch and tuning
- Who listens to whom when an orchestra tunes — pitch and tuning
- The unison is the coarsest thing in the room — pitch and tuning
- A consensus with nothing to hold it — pitch and tuning
- One fluctuation or two — pitch and tuning
- How hard the note was struck — pitch and tuning
- A note lasts until the next one starts — scales and modes
- The notehead that is not a note — scales and modes
- Leaps do not fall where offbeats do — scales and modes
- One number for a page — scales and modes
- A boundary beside a fifth — scales and modes
- The best seven of the twelve — scales and modes
- The unequal scale that is easier to name — scales and modes
8 September 2026
20 essays on instruments and their design, perception and the listener, intervals and chords, harmony and voice leading, timbre and acoustics, rhythm and metre and form and structure
- Which notes go brassy first — instruments and their design
- The throat that decides both — instruments and their design
- The interval between two quills — instruments and their design
- A bar and its pipe are one object — instruments and their design
- Where a woodwind actually sounds from — instruments and their design
- Where a wrong head gives itself away — perception and the listener
- A subito piano is four seconds longer in the bass — perception and the listener
- A clarinet keeps what a string loses — perception and the listener
- A short note is heard more in tune than it is — intervals and chords
- A tonic bought with the function — harmony and voice leading
- A fourth decision, and two that were never made — harmony and voice leading
- Eighty-one chords, one number — harmony and voice leading
- A fifth on a piano is not a fifth a second later — timbre and acoustics
- An orchestrator doubles a line, not a chord — instruments and their design
- The blend arrives before the note does — timbre and acoustics
- A twenty-five is a nine until its last unit — rhythm and metre
- The longest silence is not a third axis — rhythm and metre
- A general pause is spent by the note after it — form and structure
- Where the note is costs more than which note it is — rhythm and metre
- Every member of a beat family is the same depth — intervals and chords
5 September 2026
50 essays on instruments and their design, perception and the listener, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics, form and structure, harmony and voice leading, intervals and chords, scales and modes and pitch and tuning
- The resonator at the far end — instruments and their design
- The mouth that decides nothing — instruments and their design
- The cutoff that is a list — instruments and their design
- The partials the tube makes itself — instruments and their design
- The turn is half the angle — perception and the listener
- A smaller head in the same hall — perception and the listener
- A blown note does not start late, it starts slowly — perception and the listener
- Eleven partials is one too many — perception and the listener
- How long a limping bar can be — rhythm and metre
- The cycle that outruns the memory — rhythm and metre
- The frontier and the ruler — rhythm and metre
- The parent nobody measured — rhythm and metre
- The hair runs the wrong way — instruments and their design
- What the rosin is worth — instruments and their design
- What the second register is for — instruments and their design
- What the tongue actually removes — rhythm and metre
- Read at two different heights — perception and the listener
- A part entering is not a change of level — perception and the listener
- A staccato is a dynamic mark — perception and the listener
- The listener is given the top voice, and the bass as a sine — perception and the listener
- A low chord stops being rough by stopping being a chord — perception and the listener
- A section has a loudest member, not a colour — timbre and acoustics
- The blend table has a row for every note — timbre and acoustics
- A soft chord has to fade in — form and structure
- The fourth player is a spectrum, not a decision — instruments and their design
- A bar's partials are the odd numbers, squared — instruments and their design
- One cut cannot place two partials — instruments and their design
- The tube shuts on the partial the arch placed — instruments and their design
- The four ways a marimba loses what its arch placed — instruments and their design
- The bars a key is made of — harmony and voice leading
- The key-finder with no tonic — harmony and voice leading
- The surprise of nothing happening — harmony and voice leading
- Where the chord actually lands — harmony and voice leading
- The long note and the strong note — harmony and voice leading
- Three beats at most, and only in the middle of the keyboard — intervals and chords
- The scale least committed to its own instrument — scales and modes
- A boundary costs the same wherever it is put — scales and modes
- The part of the error a key cannot touch — intervals and chords
- One cup and seven lengths — timbre and acoustics
- The top that falls while the note lasts — timbre and acoustics
- The middle nobody could have guessed — timbre and acoustics
- The collapse belongs to the bass — timbre and acoustics
- A standard moves the page, and not the seam — pitch and tuning
- A standard is a point, and a performance is a band — pitch and tuning
- The partial that gets louder as it goes sharp — instruments and their design
- The rate that does not rise with the partial — instruments and their design
- Twelve violins are more punctual than one — rhythm and metre
- An attack time is not an attack — perception and the listener
- A rest needs a dry room — form and structure
- Four parts are easier to read than two — harmony and voice leading
3 September 2026
20 essays on instruments and their design, timbre and acoustics, rhythm and metre, pitch and tuning, form and structure, intervals and chords, perception and the listener, harmony and voice leading and scales and modes
- What a cup does to the support — instruments and their design
- The bell is tuned for the cup — timbre and acoustics
- A hole is a short tube — instruments and their design
- Three exciters and three wires — instruments and their design
- The bow is not a point either — instruments and their design
- The pitch that does not wobble — instruments and their design
- A note starts twice — rhythm and metre
- The instrument that cannot be moved — pitch and tuning
- Two players on one note — timbre and acoustics
- The dissonance arrives and the dynamic does not — form and structure
- A beat is never one beat — intervals and chords
- The hall through a head — perception and the listener
- An equal note cannot be masked — perception and the listener
- The cue that settles it — perception and the listener
- A page has two decibels — perception and the listener
- The listener who forgets — harmony and voice leading
- Two surprises and one event — harmony and voice leading
- A reader does not read notes — scales and modes
- A rest is a diminuendo — form and structure
- The passage that separates two players — rhythm and metre
1 September 2026
20 essays on instruments and their design, pitch and tuning, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics, intervals and chords, perception and the listener, harmony and voice leading, form and structure and scales and modes
- A note takes a number of periods to speak — instruments and their design
- The higher note speaks sooner and takes longer — pitch and tuning
- The hardest place is also the latest — rhythm and metre
- A family resemblance in the heights — instruments and their design
- The vent a cone cannot place — instruments and their design
- The flare that makes a series harmonic — timbre and acoustics
- The crossing belongs to the felt — timbre and acoustics
- A woodwind cannot be pulled to a new standard — pitch and tuning
- The beat a tuner can actually use — intervals and chords
- The mean survives the window — intervals and chords
- A position and a width — perception and the listener
- The exchange rate nobody has — perception and the listener
- Expectation is a curve, not a list — harmony and voice leading
- A loud chord is a smaller chord — harmony and voice leading
- The reading was a step response — form and structure
- A subito piano is a rate, not a level — form and structure
- A family of readings — rhythm and metre
- How many bars an ensemble needs — rhythm and metre
- How much of the reading arrives late — scales and modes
- The page is read by an eye — scales and modes
30 August 2026
40 essays on instruments and their design, timbre and acoustics, pitch and tuning, intervals and chords, perception and the listener, rhythm and metre, form and structure, scales and modes and harmony and voice leading
- Only two shapes make a series — instruments and their design
- What the mouthpiece is actually for — timbre and acoustics
- A horn has one length per partial — pitch and tuning
- The hand goes in, and the note jumps — pitch and tuning
- Two dials the player turns together — instruments and their design
- The corner does not come back a corner — timbre and acoustics
- Sixteen sweeps against sixteen — intervals and chords
- A room with directions in it — perception and the listener
- The spectrum that will not fuse — perception and the listener
- A low note cannot start on time — rhythm and metre
- The shape a wall leaves behind — rhythm and metre
- The dynamics are in the score already — form and structure
- A final chord is not made loud by adding to it — form and structure
- The notes in between — intervals and chords
- It was never the strings that stopped the climb — pitch and tuning
- The axis that is not a time axis — scales and modes
- The number every claim here has been quoting — scales and modes
- A modulation and a borrowing are one number apart — scales and modes
- A count and a correlation — harmony and voice leading
- Surprise is a number — harmony and voice leading
- Who plays what and how loud is one question — form and structure
- The ranking survives the dynamic and the chord does not — harmony and voice leading
- A dynamic mark changes what a note is — timbre and acoustics
- A resonance has a strength as well as a frequency — pitch and tuning
- The cutoff a maker can actually measure — instruments and their design
- The hardest place on the fingerboard — instruments and their design
- An echo is prevented by the crowd around it — perception and the listener
- The partials that do not die together — perception and the listener
- Four terms, and only one of them binds — timbre and acoustics
- A roughness with a rate of its own — intervals and chords
- A beat has a depth, and six essays held it at one — intervals and chords
- The quantity a rival account says is not there — intervals and chords
- The parameter that did not decide the answer — form and structure
- A detector whose resolution the performance sets — form and structure
- A chord, given a key and a predecessor — harmony and voice leading
- The passage built to make them disagree — harmony and voice leading
- Which notes have to be played early — rhythm and metre
- The margin the dynamic program already had — scales and modes
- How much music a page holds — scales and modes
- A cycle that says where it is — rhythm and metre
28 August 2026
20 essays on rhythm and metre, instruments and their design, perception and the listener, form and structure, timbre and acoustics, pitch and tuning, intervals and chords, scales and modes and harmony and voice leading
- A note is heard after it starts — rhythm and metre
- The players who have to be early — instruments and their design
- Playing louder is playing earlier — perception and the listener
- Loud is relative, and it comes down slowly — form and structure
- A quantity resting against a wall — rhythm and metre
- Which player on which note — timbre and acoustics
- Every partial beats at its own rate — pitch and tuning
- A section against another section — timbre and acoustics
- How much an anchor would have to be worth — intervals and chords
- The listener the model was never run for — scales and modes
- Where the two ears stop agreeing — perception and the listener
- The hand that changes the bore — pitch and tuning
- The fourth top is the maker's — intervals and chords
- The same note is a different width — instruments and their design
- The pulse that was assumed — timbre and acoustics
- What the climb was a search for — pitch and tuning
- A key-finder that keeps the order — harmony and voice leading
- The cadence as evidence — harmony and voice leading
- The level the tempo chooses — form and structure
- The notations invented for the overflow — scales and modes
27 August 2026
15 essays on perception and the listener, timbre and acoustics, intervals and chords, pitch and tuning, instruments and their design, harmony and voice leading, rhythm and metre, scales and modes and form and structure
- A chord is not as loud as its notes — perception and the listener
- Which instrument is underneath — timbre and acoustics
- An interval is two errors — intervals and chords
- The boundary that barely moves — perception and the listener
- The pair tuned apart on purpose — pitch and tuning
- The partial the lips cannot reach — pitch and tuning
- The hammer that is heavier than its string — instruments and their design
- The note the body will not let start — instruments and their design
- The alternation a key-finder cannot follow — harmony and voice leading
- Three decisions that constrain each other — harmony and voice leading
- What the clave buys with its unevenness — rhythm and metre
- The short note is sitting on the floor — rhythm and metre
- The note that sounds twice — intervals and chords
- The clef is an integer — scales and modes
- A boundary at a stated level — form and structure
26 August 2026
15 essays on harmony and voice leading, scales and modes, form and structure, intervals and chords, instruments and their design, perception and the listener, timbre and acoustics, rhythm and metre and pitch and tuning
- Why the exercise is in four parts — harmony and voice leading
- The set with fewer modes than notes — scales and modes
- The repeat that is not in the notes — form and structure
- What the onsets left out — form and structure
- Two keys at once — harmony and voice leading
- How many boxes an octave holds — intervals and chords
- The chord that is not played at once — intervals and chords
- Three strings, and the note that comes back — instruments and their design
- The hammer is not a point either — instruments and their design
- How long a note has to be — perception and the listener
- The beat that is not in the air — perception and the listener
- The note that gets duller as it dies — timbre and acoustics
- An instrument is not one timbre — timbre and acoustics
- How unequal a beat is allowed to be — rhythm and metre
- Blowing harder is playing sharper — pitch and tuning
24 August 2026
15 essays on scales and modes, pitch and tuning, rhythm and metre, timbre and acoustics, instruments and their design, harmony and voice leading, perception and the listener, form and structure and intervals and chords
- The stave is not a ruler — scales and modes
- Two names for one key — pitch and tuning
- The time signature is a claim — rhythm and metre
- The mark that is not a level — timbre and acoustics
- What a tablature keeps — instruments and their design
- Three notations, one progression — harmony and voice leading
- The note that has a length — rhythm and metre
- The part of the tune that is kept — perception and the listener
- The twelfth, and where it comes from — form and structure
- The pitch that moves the wrong distance — perception and the listener
- The one note that decides the mode — scales and modes
- The series has three tops — intervals and chords
- A standard is a specification — pitch and tuning
- The hole that spoils a note — instruments and their design
- Where a phrase ends — form and structure
22 August 2026
15 essays on scales and modes, form and structure, instruments and their design, pitch and tuning, timbre and acoustics, rhythm and metre, intervals and chords and harmony and voice leading
- A melody is a walk, not a set — scales and modes
- The leap that pays itself back — form and structure
- The shape that survives everything else — form and structure
- The register where the series becomes a scale — instruments and their design
- The note that is sharp because of where it goes — pitch and tuning
- The sound a listener knows best — timbre and acoustics
- What a choir does that a soloist cannot — timbre and acoustics
- A degree is where it goes next — scales and modes
- The ratio that stops being two — rhythm and metre
- The rotation the necklace cannot see — rhythm and metre
- The note has to start somewhere — instruments and their design
- The series is not a chord — intervals and chords
- The same distance, under two names — intervals and chords
- Which notes are the chord — harmony and voice leading
- The note that moved by a minor third — pitch and tuning
21 August 2026
15 essays on instruments and their design, timbre and acoustics, pitch and tuning, intervals and chords, harmony and voice leading, form and structure and scales and modes
- The other instrument with a reed — instruments and their design
- Two mechanisms, and the seam between them — instruments and their design
- One voice over ninety players — timbre and acoustics
- A note that is never at its pitch — pitch and tuning
- The inversion that cannot end a phrase — intervals and chords
- The root an ear supplies — intervals and chords
- A chord is a register — intervals and chords
- A stack that is not thirds — harmony and voice leading
- An ending is a deceleration — form and structure
- An ending that can be heard coming — form and structure
- A silence long enough to be an ending — form and structure
- The reed is a valve, not a vibrator — instruments and their design
- A wind instrument is a thermometer — pitch and tuning
- The bell decides what gets out — timbre and acoustics
- A scale built downward from a fourth — scales and modes
20 August 2026
15 essays on scales and modes, pitch and tuning, perception and the listener, intervals and chords, harmony and voice leading and timbre and acoustics
- The only sizes a fifth will make — scales and modes
- Every universe has one, or none — pitch and tuning
- Nothing in the census knows which note is home — scales and modes
- What a tonic costs in seconds — perception and the listener
- The mode with no fifth — intervals and chords
- One dominant among seven — harmony and voice leading
- Seven rotations that are not seven modes — scales and modes
- Parallel and relative are two different maps — scales and modes
- The third the model has no opinion about — intervals and chords
- Three answers to how finely a pitch can be heard — perception and the listener
- The spectrum that was supposed to explain the gamelan — timbre and acoustics
- A tuning is not a table of cents — pitch and tuning
- Three ways to measure how far a key is — harmony and voice leading
- How much evidence a modulation needs — perception and the listener
- The circle is a circle, and the map is not — scales and modes
19 August 2026
15 essays on rhythm and metre, pitch and tuning, perception and the listener, form and structure, instruments and their design and timbre and acoustics
- The third pattern nobody played — rhythm and metre
- Which of the two is the beat — rhythm and metre
- The bell is not a polyrhythm — rhythm and metre
- One player is not two clocks — rhythm and metre
- A comma is a polyrhythm that never closes — pitch and tuning
- The right period at the wrong phase — rhythm and metre
- Syncopation is a number about the metre — rhythm and metre
- The beat that is never sounded — perception and the listener
- No term for an unequal beat — rhythm and metre
- A metre has to be able to change its mind — form and structure
- The deviations are not noise — rhythm and metre
- Two players and no clock — instruments and their design
- How late is a different note — perception and the listener
- The first eighty milliseconds are a different room — timbre and acoustics
- The model has nobody in it — instruments and their design
17 August 2026
15 essays on form and structure, perception and the listener, harmony and voice leading, intervals and chords and instruments and their design
- How long until it comes back — form and structure
- The form a first hearing cannot have — form and structure
- The same thing somewhere else — form and structure
- A return has to be remembered — perception and the listener
- Where a repeat is changed — form and structure
- What the rules cost — harmony and voice leading
- Two criteria that are taught as one — harmony and voice leading
- The resolution the metric cannot find — harmony and voice leading
- A voice is a stream, and the ear decides which — perception and the listener
- Which harmonics carry the pitch — intervals and chords
- Two pipes for a note neither makes — instruments and their design
- A pitch with nothing to match — perception and the listener
- The bass a small loudspeaker does not make — instruments and their design
- A dissonance is what has to be resolved — harmony and voice leading
- The same chord is harsher when it is louder — intervals and chords
16 August 2026
15 essays on pitch and tuning, harmony and voice leading, scales and modes, intervals and chords, timbre and acoustics and perception and the listener
- A fraction of a comma — pitch and tuning
- What a temperament cannot do — pitch and tuning
- Somebody has to pay the comma — harmony and voice leading
- A comma under the threshold — pitch and tuning
- Where the chain was never closed — scales and modes
- A spectrum chooses its own scale — intervals and chords
- Roughness cannot choose a scale — intervals and chords
- A dissonance has to last — intervals and chords
- Where to put the third — harmony and voice leading
- Where a room stops being a room — timbre and acoustics
- How far away the room takes over — perception and the listener
- A room does not decay evenly — timbre and acoustics
- Every interval a different number of times — scales and modes
- The same algorithm made a Cuban rhythm — scales and modes
- Why seven — scales and modes
14 August 2026
15 essays on form and structure, harmony and voice leading, timbre and acoustics and rhythm and metre
- A piece is mostly itself again — form and structure
- The boundary is where the neighbourhood changes — form and structure
- How much of this is new — form and structure
- A phrase is a number of seconds — form and structure
- One of these eight-bar phrases accelerates — form and structure
- What makes an ending an ending — form and structure
- An ending that exists so a bigger one can — form and structure
- The bar above the bar — form and structure
- The key plan is the form — form and structure
- The chord that did not come — harmony and voice leading
- How often the chord changes — harmony and voice leading
- The room chooses the harmonic rhythm — timbre and acoustics
- A cycle cannot cadence — form and structure
- A process that enumerates its own form — rhythm and metre
- A melody that can accompany itself — harmony and voice leading
13 August 2026
15 essays on instruments and their design, timbre and acoustics and pitch and tuning
- A tube that skips every other partial — instruments and their design
- A cone is not a cylinder — instruments and their design
- The tube ends after it ends — instruments and their design
- Above a certain note the holes stop working — instruments and their design
- One hole doing a dozen jobs — instruments and their design
- Where the hammer lands — instruments and their design
- A hammer is not an impulse — instruments and their design
- The bow makes a corner — instruments and their design
- How much bow is allowed — instruments and their design
- A bell has no fundamental — instruments and their design
- What a drum is doing instead — instruments and their design
- The body is the filter — timbre and acoustics
- The other wolf — timbre and acoustics
- A guitar cannot be in tune — pitch and tuning
- An instrument points — timbre and acoustics
11 August 2026
15 essays on perception and the listener, timbre and acoustics, pitch and tuning, intervals and chords and rhythm and metre
- The quietest thing audible, and why the volume knob is a tone control — perception and the listener
- One sound hides another, and it hides upward — perception and the listener
- A sound hides what came before it — perception and the listener
- The ear builds objects, and sometimes offers a choice — perception and the listener
- What makes two partials one note — timbre and acoustics
- Two ears, and the whole of the difference is 655 microseconds — perception and the listener
- The first wavefront wins — perception and the listener
- How small a difference is audible — perception and the listener
- The octave that is not two to one — perception and the listener
- A memory for the note itself, and it is dated — pitch and tuning
- The chord is still major, and that is why temperament works — perception and the listener
- Counting produced the hierarchy — perception and the listener
- Consonance is half learned, and this is the half — perception and the listener
- The ear makes its own sound, and it is not the missing fundamental — intervals and chords
- The beat has a preferred rate, and it is not the notation's — rhythm and metre
10 August 2026
12 essays on pitch and tuning, intervals and chords, scales and modes, harmony and voice leading, rhythm and metre and timbre and acoustics
- A tuner counts beats, and that is the whole method — pitch and tuning
- The pitch nobody agreed on, for four hundred years — pitch and tuning
- Three is the largest agreeable number — intervals and chords
- The ear sorts into boxes, and the boxes are the theory — intervals and chords
- Two sizes of every step, which is why the names work — scales and modes
- A scale without an octave, and the spectrum that asks for it — scales and modes
- The progression that never comes home — harmony and voice leading
- Two voices that stop being two — harmony and voice leading
- A rhythm fast enough to be a chord — rhythm and metre
- The beat is inferred, and sometimes wrongly — rhythm and metre
- How long a room rings, and where the formula stops — timbre and acoustics
- The first fifty milliseconds — timbre and acoustics
3–7 August 2026
34 essays on pitch and tuning, intervals and chords, scales and modes, harmony and voice leading, rhythm and metre and timbre and acoustics
- Twelve fifths and seven octaves, which are not the same thing — pitch and tuning
- Where to hide the comma, which is the only real question — pitch and tuning
- The wolf at the end of the chain — pitch and tuning
- A second comma, arriving by a different road — pitch and tuning
- Keys that had characters, and could be measured — pitch and tuning
- Nineteen, thirty-one and fifty-three — pitch and tuning
- Two notes and a ratio, which is the whole of consonance — intervals and chords
- Beats are arithmetic that anybody can hear — intervals and chords
- Roughness can be computed, and the answer looks like a scale — intervals and chords
- The note that is not there — intervals and chords
- A third is rougher in the bass — intervals and chords
- Seven of the twelve, chosen unevenly — scales and modes
- The same seven, started later — scales and modes
- Keys are neighbours, and the map is computed — scales and modes
- Five notes, and no semitones — scales and modes
- What a raised seventh is for — scales and modes
- A scale is not a set of pitches — scales and modes
- Three notes at once, and why these three — harmony and voice leading
- The shortest move, which is what a chord change is — harmony and voice leading
- A progression is a path, and the map can be drawn — harmony and voice leading
- The interval that inverts to itself — harmony and voice leading
- Chords as a space — harmony and voice leading
- Rhythm is a circle, and the bar line is a choice — rhythm and metre
- As evenly as possible, which turns out to be a famous rhythm — rhythm and metre
- Two clocks at once, and where they agree — rhythm and metre
- Swing is a ratio, and it is not two to one — rhythm and metre
- Beats of unequal length — rhythm and metre
- The milliseconds that are the groove — rhythm and metre
- A string does everything at once — timbre and acoustics
- The ear hears the list, not the shape — timbre and acoustics
- The shape of a note, which is most of what an instrument is — timbre and acoustics
- The room is part of the instrument — timbre and acoustics
- A vowel is two resonances — timbre and acoustics
- The piano is tuned wrong on purpose — timbre and acoustics