I’ve had a very good, productive, exciting term. It’s wrapping up smoothly and with so many exciting events that remind me how much Edmonton has become home and a very exciting art place. On Tuesday come see @peter.morin.morin and Leah Decter perform their amazing work x: where our paths cross in Studio 2-7 at the university of Alberta. They’re the best. It’ll be great and an ideal end to the term.
SPECIAL:SALON:LITERALLY @fitz_books_and_waffles
"what music did" by tony conrad
edited by @patricknickleson patrick nickleson @uofmpress
book launch & conversation
FREE • 7pm • friday march 13th • 2026 • 7pm • FREE
• d.i.y.l. (donate if you'd like) d.i.y.l. •
SALON series of Performances/Presentations/Screenings followed by panel discussions;
Audience Is The Panel @fitz_books_and_waffles
FITZ books • 1462 Main Street • Buffalo
(((NFTA METRO-RAL : UTICA Station / BUS #8 - MAIN)))
Saturday I’ll be in Montreal and @librairie.resonance.bookstore has kindly agreed to host the first launch event for WHAT MUSIC DID. They have copies on hand! And I’ll be joined by @ericmtl to talk about working with Tony Conrad on the @cstrecords album Transit of Venus. Come hang and say hello on short notice, Montreal pals!
In What Music Did, experimental filmmaker and violinist Tony Conrad explores in depth the relationship between music and mathematics. A work of decades that was left unfinished at the time of his death in 2016, Conrad’s expansive history of the interrelationship of music and mathematics is published here for the first time. Editor Patrick Nickleson describes Conrad’s method as that of an anarchic, interarts haberdasher; much of the research comes from musty and out-of-print sources, giving the impression that Conrad followed paths opened up for him in used book shops and conversations, rather than seeking a direct scholarly argument.
Throughout the book, readers encounter scenes from over two thousand years of history, mathematics, and music: Pythagoras using pebbles to articulate didactic number games to his disciples; Galileo fretting a hill and listening with a musician’s ear to calculate the rate of acceleration under gravity; Rameau trapping Western music in a five-limit tuning system, and what could have been if he were more adept with numbers. Even when drawing on classical sources to explore canonical figures like Saint Augustine, What Music Did offers idiosyncratic critical insights that highlight our ongoing cultural reverence when answers result in simple whole number ratios like 3:2, 4:3, or 5:4. What Music Did is Tony Conrad’s extended indictment of music’s role, from the Pythagoreans to the twentieth century, in upholding the use of number as a clandestine and circumscribed armature of power... thank you @patricknickleson for 9 years of effort on this beast and beautifully shaping it over 470 pages ‼️ Thank you Sara Cohen @uofmpress for ushering it into the world‼️
In What Music Did, experimental filmmaker and violinist Tony Conrad explores in depth the relationship between music and mathematics. A work of decades that was left unfinished at the time of his death in 2016, Conrad’s expansive history of the interrelationship of music and mathematics is published here for the first time. Editor Patrick Nickleson describes Conrad’s method as that of an anarchic, interarts haberdasher; much of the research comes from musty and out-of-print sources, giving the impression that Conrad followed paths opened up for him in used book shops and conversations, rather than seeking a direct scholarly argument.
Throughout the book, readers encounter scenes from over two thousand years of history, mathematics, and music: Pythagoras using pebbles to articulate didactic number games to his disciples; Galileo fretting a hill and listening with a musician’s ear to calculate the rate of acceleration under gravity; Rameau trapping Western music in a five-limit tuning system, and what could have been if he were more adept with numbers. Even when drawing on classical sources to explore canonical figures like Saint Augustine, What Music Did offers idiosyncratic critical insights that highlight our ongoing cultural reverence when answers result in simple whole number ratios like 3:2, 4:3, or 5:4. What Music Did is Tony Conrad’s extended indictment of music’s role, from the Pythagoreans to the twentieth century, in upholding the use of number as a clandestine and circumscribed armature of power...
Thank you Patrick Nickleson 💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋(one for each year) for shaping the beast, 472? pages. Thank you Sara Cohen at University of Michigan press 🩷
I somehow woke up today feeling pretty sure this would arrive and it did. I started working on this project nearly NINE YEARS AGO, basically moments after I finished my PhD. I’m so glad it’s nearly out in the world, jut about ten years after Tony Conrad passed away in April 2016. All love to @tonyoursler and @blackfaurest and @gastrdelsol and @uofmpress (and especially the incredible Sara Cohen for trusting this project) and Conrad’s estate and more.
I’m so happy to be part of this book. It’s genuinely one of the most beautifully designed books I’ve seen. It’s such an honour to be alongside so many artists and writers that I admire and love. Thanks @dylan.w.robinson and @candicebhopkins for including my short chaotic little essay about scores: something music scholars sometimes try to escape as conservative and limiting while artists run to them as generative, inclusive, and relational.
Final proofs for What Music Did. Printing it out to work through absolute last changes always makes me see things entirely anew. I had no memory of Conrad describing it as “painful” to imagine an everlasting and indestructible system of pitch and number (as put forward by La Monte Young, on his reading, or the Pythagoreans, or some music theorists today, really).
Cider day made me forget the teacher support rally. Love to the teachers and the province is gonna lose. Thanks to @naamby_paamby for the fun DIY press loan.
