John Rahn, born on February 26, 1944, in New York City, is a
music theorist
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the " rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (k ...
,
composer,
bassoonist, and Professor of Music at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
School of Music, Seattle. A former student of
Milton Babbitt and
Benjamin Boretz, he was editor of ''
Perspectives of New Music'' from 1983 to 1993 and since 2001 has been co-editor with Benjamin Boretz and
Robert Morris.
Forte number and prime form
There are three methods of computing
Forte number
In musical set theory, a Forte number is the pair of numbers Allen Forte assigned to the prime form of each pitch class set of three or more members in ''The Structure of Atonal Music'' (1973, ). The first number indicates the number of pitch c ...
and
prime form
In algebraic geometry, the Schottky–Klein prime form ''E''(''x'',''y'') of a compact Riemann surface ''X'' depends on two elements ''x'' and ''y'' of ''X'', and vanishes if and only if ''x'' = ''y''. The prime form ''E'' is not quite ...
.
Allen Forte Allen, Allen's or Allens may refer to:
Buildings
* Allen Arena, an indoor arena at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee
* Allen Center, a skyscraper complex in downtown Houston, Texas
* Allen Fieldhouse, an indoor sports arena on the Univ ...
published the first in his book ''The Structure of Atonal Music'' (1973). The second was introduced in Rahn's ''Basic Atonal Theory'' and used in
Joseph N. Straus's ''Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory'', where it was declared that the two algorithms only differed in five cases: 5-20, 6-Z29, 6-31, 7-20, and 8-26.
Forte (1973) and both list the prime forms of a
set as the most left-packed possible version of the set. Forte packs from the left and Rahn packs from the right ("making the small numbers smaller" versus making "the larger numbers smaller").
[Nelson, Paul (2004).]
Two Algorithms for Computing the Prime Form
, ''ComposerTools.com''. Programmers tend to prefer Rahn's method.
[Tsao, Ming (2007). ''Abstract Musical Intervals: Group Theory for Composition and Analysis'', p.99, n.32. . Algorithms given in Morris, Robert (1991). ''Class Notes for Atonal Music Theory'', p.103. Frog Peak Music.]
Bibliography
*
*Rahn, John (2000). ''Music Inside Out: Going Too Far in Musical Essays''. intro. and comment. by Benjamin Boretz. Amsterdam: G+B Arts International. p. 177. . OCLC 154331400.
*Rahn, John (1989, "New Research Paradigms", ''Music Theory Spectrum'', xi/1), 84-94.
References
External links
John Rahn's home page , ''Faculty.Washington.Edu''.
American music theorists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
{{US-music-bio-stub