Odd Index
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For the musician: theory, the music of Greece and Rome, and folk music from Africa to Mexico

How music was studied and written down: a German theory handbook, ancient music rebuilt, African music archived, the music of Cuba and Mexico traced.

El folklore y la música mexicana: Investigación acerca de la cultura musical en México (1525–1925), Rubén M. Campos

C. F. Weitzmann’s Hand-Buch der Theorie der Musik is a German handbook of music theory from 1888. François-Auguste Gevaert’s history and theory of ancient music works through the systems, notation and instruments of Greece and Rome. Hugh Tracey’s handbook explains how to run a library of African music transcriptions, Fernando Ortiz traced the African roots of Cuba’s folk music, and in 1928 Rubén M. Campos surveyed four centuries of Mexican musical traditions, with folk melodies and scores.

Hand-Buch der Theorie der Musik, C. F. Weitzmann
No. 0059 · 1888
A German handbook of music theory, 1888

C. F. Weitzmann’s handbook, edited by Felix Schmidt.

Histoire et théorie de la musique de l'antiquité (2 volumes), François-Auguste Gevaert
No. 0066 · 1875 / 1881
The music of Greece and Rome, rebuilt from the sources

François-Auguste Gevaert’s history and theory of ancient music, in two volumes.

African Music Transcription Library: Librarian’s Handbook, Hugh Tracey
No. 0053 · undated
How to keep a library of African music

A handbook for Hugh Tracey’s African Music Transcription Library.

La africanía de la música folklórica de Cuba (Con 108 ilustraciones), Fernando Ortiz
No. 0056 · 1965 (Segunda edición revisada; 1ra. edición 1950)
Cuba’s folk music, traced back to Africa

Fernando Ortiz’s study, in its revised 1965 second edition.

El folklore y la música mexicana: Investigación acerca de la cultura musical en México (1525–1925), Rubén M. Campos
No. 0064 · 1928
Four centuries of Mexican music, set down in notation

Rubén M. Campos’s 1928 study, with folk melodies, photographs and scores.

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Odd Index · written from the catalogue records
  • Every statement about a copy (stamps, inscriptions, condition, edition) comes from that copy’s own catalogue record and photographs; nothing is carried over from another copy.
  • Interpretations are labelled as interpretations. Background that the records do not contain has not been added.
  • Several readings here are tentative or carried over from earlier records (Carmichael, Howland, Havens, the Stately Game’s addressee); each is hedged in the text and flagged on the object page.

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