Page 66 - Glasbenopedagoški zbornik Akademije za glasbo, letnik 20, zvezek 40 ◆ The Journal of Music Education of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, volume 20, issue 40

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science, ‘dimensions’ means the axes in a coordinate system; however, after its
glasbenopedagoški zbornik ◆ letnik/volume 20 ◆ številka/number 40
first (official) introduction, and especially after Einstein’s introduction of rela-
tivity as the fourth dimension (Kennedy, 2013), the term has been widely used
in contexts unrelated to its actual technical meaning, for example, as a meta-
phor for anything unreachable, as expressions referring to a different aspect or
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perspective, as a ‘parallel universe’ and so on.
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In the area of music, a clear definition of musical dimensions or just di-
mensions is not to be found in any of the music dictionaries. Surprisingly, the
term is included in the United Kingdom’s Department for Education’s pu-
blished music curriculum for Key Stages 1, 2, and 3. Musical dimensions are
described as the ways in which each sound may be characterized and altered to
create distinct musical effects (Department for Education, 2021). The fact that
(musical) dimensions are hardly described or included in music dictionaries/
lexicons, etc. is because the idea of ‘dimensionality’ is so ingrained in the way
music theorists think, that it often goes unnoticed and it is only occasional-
ly mentioned or looked at closely, i.e. considered as obvious, whenever we talk
about musical parameters (Yust, 2018, p. 5).
McAdams (1989) argues that a musical structure is based on dimensions
which can be divided into four categories: classes of pitch, duration, dynami-
cs, and timbral identity, and that these dimensions are found in many cultures.
The purpose of these categories is to provide optimum information with mini-
mal cognitive effort, which is achieved when information from a particular di-
mension within a category is perceived as similar and dissimilar to informati-
on from another category.
An element is considered as ‘a necessary or typical part of something; one
of several parts that something contains’ (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, n.d.).
The term is defined in a similar way in the Cambridge Dictionary (Cambrid-
ge University Press & Assessment, n.d.b). Plato is believed to have used this
term for the first time in his dialogues in Theaetetus, in which he investigates
the nature of knowledge (episteme) and introduces his theory of the elements,

1 René Descartes introduced the two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system in 1637, whi-
ch represents the independent variable along the vertical axis (Y coordinate) and the depen-
dent variable along the horizontal axis (X coordinate). See Lafleur (1960).
2 See Elsa Barker’s book The Son of Mary Bethel (1909, p. 204): ‘And the golden sun was like a
window through which he looked into another dimension of space, a universe within, and ye
unmixed with our visible universe … In the darkness behind my eyelids I beheld Him; then
must that inner region coexist with the universe of matter, interpenetrating it, as another di-
mension of space.’
3 ‘It would permit us to attain a higher view—from another dimension,—which would allow
us to look down’ (Carrington, 1920, p. 164).
4 In his earlier works, H. G. Wells did not employ the term ‘dimension’ in the sense of a paral-
lel universe, but rather as a property. The term parallel universe first appeared in his 1923 no-
vel Men Like Gods.

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