Research on the "Neutral Pitch" Phenomenon: A Series of Doctoral Dissertations in Music

Author: Li Mei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-08-01
Features: This paper is dedicated to studying the colorful phenomenon of neutral tones. It conducts musical acoustics analysis and cultural reflections on the various collected special tonal structures containing neutral tones. Striving to comprehensively examine the long-standing but theoretically unsummarized phenomenon of neutral tones, the paper analyzes the natural and human reasons for the formation of neutral tones from morphological, musical physics, and ethnological perspectives, and fills the gaps in the study of musical theory. The entire paper is divided into six chapters.
Chapter 1 introduces the existing achievements and shortcomings of the research on neutral tones in China and abroad from the perspectives of musical theory, musicology, and organology, and provides a personal evaluation of the development and progress of research methods. Chapters 2 to 6 form the core of the paper, discussing the musical physics essence and theoretical norms of neutral tones, specific tonal forms, practical application situations, and broad cultural connections, etc. The paper adopts a narrative framework based on the form of dissemination, arguing that although there is a long history of cultural dissemination in this vast region and complex ethnic cultural evolution, the dissemination is primarily within each cultural system through inheritance.