Basic Gestures for Music Theory, Performance, and Pedagogy

This book offers a groundbreaking introduction to the role of gestures in music, tailored for educators working with young students before university level. Written in clear, intuitive language and free from mathematical or musical prerequisites, this book makes complex ideas accessible.

Drawing from Guerino Mazzola’s influential work The Topos of Music, this volume presents gesture theory in a uniquely approachable way, richly illustrated with high-quality figures. It introduces the revolutionary concept of hypergestures — gestures within spaces of gestures — opening new possibilities for understanding and teaching complex musical interactions.

Born in 1947, Guerino Mazzola became a professor of mathematics (1980) and of computational science (2003) at the University of Zürich. He was a visiting professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris in 2005. Since 2007, he has been a professor at the School of Music, University of Minnesota. He developed a mathematical music theory and music analysis and composition software using presto and rubato. Since 2007 to 2021, he has been the president of the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music. He has published 33 books and 150 papers, 27 jazz CDs, two DVDs, and a classical sonata. His most important book is The Topos of Music (four volumes, 1700 pages) which is about mathematical music, performance, and gesture theory.