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Petty, Jonathan Christian
Dr. Jonathan Christian Petty received his Ph.D. from Mellen University and received his B.A. in music from the University of California, Berkeley. He has published articles on opera, Korean music, and music theory. His musical compositions include Five Elements for woodwind quintet, Magnificat for chamber orchestra, soloists, and chorus, and Rabindra Sangeet, for orchestra. He is an Administrator at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Korean Studies and Director of Music at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Berkeley.
2021 1-4955-0859-5"This model has implications for music, language of emotions. For the psychological content reflected in the MNS and regulated by SES is emotion - primarily the feeling of personal safety in the presence of others, and secondarily, the eudaimonic or positive feelings made possible by such safety. The musical dimension of this maybe intuited when we consider the musical cadence - the 'descent to the tonic' - as a decisive feeling of arriving safely home, 'there's no place like home.' Music's ability to qualify feelings of mild apprehension - i.e. 'dissonance' - may well understood as maneuvers to heighten feelings of stability ('consonance') and homecoming ('tonic'), the essential feelings of personal belonging upon all other eudiamonic feelings are built."
From the Introduction
2022 1-4955-0991-5
This work employs tenets of Group Mental System theory in considering the musical syntax and affective semantics of Anton Bruckner's last adagio. "The main tenet of this theory is that the sole linguistic object of music, language of the emotions, is Self. Musical language qualifies Self by qualifying its affect (emotions, moods, dispositions). ...[I]t is of particular interest to consider those musical works in which alterations to the Self play a direct role." -Jonathan Christian Petty
2022 1-4955-0990-7
This work applies tenets of Group Mental System theory to the Madama Butterfly: "The main tenet of this theory is that the sole linguistic object of music, language of the emotions, is Self. Musical language qualifies Self by qualifying its affect (emotions, moods, dispositions). ...[I]t is of particular interest to consider those musical works in which alterations to the Self play a direct role. One such work is Puccini's Madama Butterfly." -Jonathan Christian Petty
2005 0-7734-6007-1
This book re-theorizes Wagner’s post-Opera and Drama tonal language in the linguistic terms in which the composer himself conceived and executed the Ring of the Nibelung and Parsifal. Topics include Wagner’s lexical use of key; the composition of semantics from tonal lexicality and orthodox tonal syntax; the cognitive structure of tonal language [TL] semantics, the linguistic coordination of words and keys; Wagner’s concept of Tonal Households and the alignment of TL syntax with poetically specified protagonists, objects, and dramatic situations; key characteristics and TL Lexemes as public cultural linguistic properties; the virtual spatiality of TL syntax and semantics; TL spatiality and spatialized emotions; and tonal cartography. The four scores of the Ring dramas are analyzed bar-by-bar to derive a complete linear harmonic analysis-based readout of each of its keys and claimed lexical referent. The result–over 3,780 TL lexemes–is the first TL Lexicon of the entire Ring. Two concluding chapters on Parsifal discuss its mediaeval sources as suggested by Wagner’s prose writings, letters, and religious discourse to argue for the Gnostic and alchemistic basis of its libretto imagery, lexical tonality, and anti-Semitism. Throughout, lexical theory is argued against in-depth critiques of the theories of Heinrich Schenker and others.