New Musical Resources

by Henry Cowell

David Nicholls has provided annotations and an explanatory essay. The essay traces the sources for the book, compares its text with that of the original manuscript, and attempts to place Cowell's theories in the broader context of musical modernism.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1930

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my life! Cowell explains the overtone series and its relationship to the historical evolution of the concepts of consonance and dissonance, and how these ideas could be applied to rhythm. Some of the ideas seem obvious now and are indeed taken for granted, but something about this text makes them revelatory and seems to open up so many possibilities for what music could be. I could only imagine how exciting it must have been to read it upon publication in 1930!

The book is just so dense with whole concepts of possible music: dissonant counterpoint, rhythmic harmony, etc., all clearly and eloquently explained. In fact, there's a passage where he says something like: "These rhythms probably couldn't be played by a human performer, but you could theoretically realize them using a player piano", an idea that Conlon Nancarrow ended up devoting his entire life to exploring!

Probably the only down side to the book is that I read it and got so excited about writing music incorporating its ideas but then realized that other composers had already been doing that for like 70 years. Oh well... If you want to understand 20th Century classical music, this isn't a bad place to start.

[Burak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cowell's analogy between harmony and rhythm is pretty exciting and the best part of the book. Even though at first it might sound a little far-fetched, I think this whole idea is much more than just an analogy.

Polyrhythmic harmony is a thing!

Listen to What Happens Now by Porcupine Tree. The tension and resolution being created using polyrhythms after the 5th-minute mark are beyond the capabilities of boring old tonal harmony. I think this song demonstrates Cowell's ideas better than his own musical works.

I believe Cowell would have enjoyed this unusual snare roll by Danny Carey (Tool). Subdivisional changes create an effect pretty similar to a sliding note approaching the tonic.

Thanks to these ideas and talented musicians (especially drummers), musical progress chose a more rhythmic path and I am really glad. But I am curious, is this the natural path of musical progress, slowly exploring the overtone series or did Cowell steered music to his way?

[Pedro Proença · Rating 5 out of 5]

Way ahead of its time, that's why it gets 5 start. Unfortunately, I was already familiar with most of the subjects in this book, which made it redundant. But I imagine that reading this when it came out must have been a mind blowing experience.

[Meara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still in the middle of this, but I can tell that I'll be reading it over and over again for years! As a musician, musical theory has always bored me out of my mind, and, in fact, the more I know about it, the less impressed I am with it's range of short-cuts and compromised notations. This book is the first that I've read on any sort of notation or theory of frequency and rhythm that actually felt like it contributed towards the experience and exploration of sound, rather than serving as a crude mausoleum for what has sounded. Cowell outlines his fascinating theory on the history of harmony, dissonance, and its acceptance in society, and then launches into an equally mind-blowing discussion of rhythm. I'll have more to say when I've finished, I'm sure!

[Onsetsu Evan Cordes]

So many ideas come out of one in this book.

The launch of a thousand ships.