The historical path leading from modality to tonality has long been a confounding and contentious subject for musicologists. In his brilliant new study, Michael Dodds may well have written the definitive account of this epic story. We learn how the familiar major and minor key system emerged not through any direct evolution from the set of eight Ecclesiastical modes, rather through a radically new theoretical conception of tonal space catalyzed by the introduction of
keyboard instruments in the church service. A landmark book.
Michael R. Dodds is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. His callings as scholar, artist, and teacher are united by a life-long fascination with the conceptualization of tonal structures, especially in the contexts of sacred music. The story of Dodds as an artist is the subject of the 2023 documentary Blessed Unrest: A Composer's Awakening.