Attempt at a New Theory of Music

...of which no account is taken. However, we have referred the judgment of these individual matters back to numerical exponents, in which the entire power and nature of both individual consonances The term "consonance" refers to intervals that sound harmonious or stable to the ear. and the succession of two or more are contained. From this were born, first, the exponents of simple consonances; second, the exponents of the succession of two consonances; and third, the exponents of series of several consonances following one another in turn. By these three things, universal music, considered in its general sense, is completed. From here, we were further led to the various types of musical compositions; and first, indeed, the doctrine of musical genres original: "generibus musicis"; here referring to the mathematical classification of scales or systems, such as the Diatonic, Chromatic, and Enharmonic presented itself. A musical genre is thus defined as a combination of various sounds suitable for producing harmony; the treatment of which we have likewise reduced to the consideration of exponents. We have therefore enumerated all musical genres, beginning from the sim-