William Waite

William G. Waite (b. October 1917, Massachusetts, d. 1980) was an American-born musicologist.

Waite was educated and taught solely at Yale. He began his teaching career in 1947 and received his PhD in 1951. His dissertation, The "Rhythm of Twelfth-Century Polyphony: its Theory and Practice" outlines his ideas on modal interpretation of organum duplum. The second half of this work is a transcription of organum from the "Magnus liber organi". [http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=music.29803#music.29803] His textbook, "The Art of Music" (1962), written with Beekman Cannon and Alvin Johnson, was a popular introductory music text for many years. He died from pancreatic cancer in 1980.