Traditional music theory is compared to medieval medicine books: full of superstitions, unjustified symbols, and Latin phrases. This is what Daniel Wilkerson, author of the article ‘Harmony Explained: Progress Towards a Scientific Theory of Music’, available on arxiv.org since 2012, claims.
The work proposes a scientific approach to understanding how harmony actually works. Instead of relying solely on the physics of sound, Wilkerson also considers the computational phenomena of any machine that needs to make sense of sound — including the human brain.
From this approach, the author derives three fundamental phenomena of music: the major scale, the standard chord dictionary, and the difference in sensation between major and minor triads.
According to the article, the major scale had already been derived in a similar way by other researchers, such as Helmholtz (1863) and Birkhoff (1933). However, Wilkerson states that the derivation of the standard chord dictionary and the explanation of the difference between major and minor triads are original.
The text criticizes the theory of Hermann Helmholtz, a 19th-century physicist considered an authority on the subject. Helmholtz claimed that notes are in ‘concordance’ because the sound produced when played together is ‘less worse’ than that of other combinations. Wilkerson points out that, according to this logic, adding more notes can only worsen the result — some less than others — and therefore, the most harmonious sound would be a single isolated note. This would make harmony nonexistent as a musical phenomenon.
The article was written in a deliberately simple and colloquial style, avoiding unnecessary formal language. The author states that he intends for the text to be satisfactory to scientists as an original contribution to science and art, but also accessible to musicians and curious individuals who have always wondered about the properties of tonal music and have been frustrated by the lack of clear explanations on the subject.
The latest version of the article, revised in June 2014, is available on arxiv.org. The work does not have a PDF, but it can be viewed in other formats on the site.
Wilkerson’s proposal fits into a tradition of attempts to explain music in a scientific way, but it innovates by incorporating computation as a central element. For him, the understanding of harmony cannot ignore how the brain processes sound.
The article is an invitation to rethink music theory from more solid foundations, away from superstitions and meaningless symbols. Recommended reading for those who seek to understand music beyond common sense.