 In 2004, "U.S. Highball" was selected by the Library of Congress's National Recording Preservation Board as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".Partch made public his theories in his book "Genesis of a Music" (1947).He opens the book with an overview of music history, and argues that Western music began to suffer from the time of Bach, after which twelve-tone equal temperament was adopted to the exclusion of other tuning systems, and abstract, instrumental music became the norm.