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Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

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Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#31

Post by baddox »

lucasgw wrote: post #26
tobr wrote: post #9

I appreciate the style of presentation, but why do we still pretend this is "music" theory? Most of this is completely useless for anyone who is interested in understanding music that wasn't written by people in powdered wigs. For some actually useful music theory, I can recommend the goldmine that is Ethan Hein's blog: http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/category/music/music-theory/

Listen to techno, house and tribal, and you hear Koyaanisqatsi, 18 Musicians, and the work of Glass, Reich, and Riley. Listen to Glass, Reich, and Riley - and you hear the deconstruction of symphonic structure. Listen to Beethoven's symphonies and you hear the struggle of form from Mozart's classical era construction to what would become Beethoven's pure romanticism. Listen to the interplay of an Alberti Bass and mel…

There's even plenty of music theory to learn with Miley Cyrus, particularly if you want to know about just intonation and harmonic theory. Even the simplest and most ubiquitous pop chord progressions with just I IV and V require a fair amount of harmonic theory to reason about.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#32

Post by archagon »

baddox wrote: post #29
archagon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most enlightening things I learned while studying music in college was discovering why classical harmony ended up the way it did. What makes a V7 chord work? Where did augmented 6th chords come from? How did the Neapolitan chord fit into these systems? By looking at the progression of music history from one-voice chants to counterpoint to harmony and then to the explosion of ideas in the Romantic era and b…

Out of curiosity, have you studied just intonation? I'm currently reading the mostly excellent Haromonic Experience [0]. I'm reasonably well educated on music theory, but I had never looked into just intonation and the way frequency relates to our perception of pitch and harmony. I'm finding this stuff enlightening. An ideal string (or any oscillator) when disturbed (e.g. plucked) will tend to vibrate at a fundamenta…

Yeah, a little bit! What's interesting is that we're so used to equal temperament (i.e. a bit of error added to most intervals in exchange for greater flexibility) that pieces played in just intonation sound "off" to us, even though they're more mathematically correct.

Also, I believe instruments with arbitrary pitch (violin, voice) tend to naturally drift closer to just intonation.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#33

Post by baddox »

archagon wrote: post #32
baddox wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, have you studied just intonation? I'm currently reading the mostly excellent Haromonic Experience [0]. I'm reasonably well educated on music theory, but I had never looked into just intonation and the way frequency relates to our perception of pitch and harmony. I'm finding this stuff enlightening. An ideal string (or any oscillator) when disturbed (e.g. plucked) will tend to vibrate at a fundamenta…

Yeah, a little bit! What's interesting is that we're so used to equal temperament (i.e. a bit of error added to most intervals in exchange for greater flexibility) that pieces played in just intonation sound "off" to us, even though they're more mathematically correct. Also, I believe instruments with arbitrary pitch (violin, voice) tend to naturally drift closer to just intonation.

I've been trying to train myself to hear the JI resonances (Harmonic Experience has tons of exercises for this). I can hear the sharpness of the ET major third and the flatness of the ET minor third fairly easily.

Barbershop quartet music (and other a capella music) is a great place to hear just intonation. The consonant barbershop seventh chord was a relevation to me when I first learned of it. It's really close to the dissonant dominant 7th interval, but serves a very different purpose harmonically. The minor seventh is also a different interval. Thus there are actually 3 seventh intervals, all of which are approximated in ET by a single note. This blog post has a good summary:

http://www.garygarrett.me/?p=1575

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#34

Post by erikschoster »

quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

James Tenney's thesis "META Meta / Hodos" is another great attempt at constructing a real music theory. https://www.scribd.com/doc/167561563/James-Tenney-Meta-Hodos

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#35

Post by [deleted] »

archagon wrote: post #19
ambler0 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. For one thing, a lot of what one learns studying Common Practice music theory most definitely is applicable to modern styles. Things like dominant function, for example, aren't going anywhere. That said, I agree with the point that is implied by your post, namely, that "music theory" as the term is usually used is actually a description of a specific period of music (Common Practice) and it is…

One of the most enlightening things I learned while studying music in college was discovering why classical harmony ended up the way it did. What makes a V7 chord work? Where did augmented 6th chords come from? How did the Neapolitan chord fit into these systems? By looking at the progression of music history from one-voice chants to counterpoint to harmony and then to the explosion of ideas in the Romantic era and b…

[deleted]

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#36

Post by theOnliest »

quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

> A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon.

That's true, but if you take the "observed phenomenon" to be "Western, common-practice tonal music (and notation)," then this certainly helps to explain it. It's certainly what gets taught in undergraduate music theory classes (much of it in "fundamentals" courses). Graduate work in music theory involves doing exactly what you say: explaining observed phenomena, in both "classical" music as well as about any other musics you might imagine. That's not to say that all music is Western, common-practice tonal music, but a great deal of music comes out of that lineage; an understanding of these basics are often necessary (or at the very least, useful) before branching out.

You see this sort of thing in all disciplines. I might find an "Introduction to computer science for normal people" that explains big-O notation, or teaches some basic Python, or what have you. Someone might well say "This isn't 'computer science,' but instead 'jargon and programming.'" This person might be right, of course, but for "non-computer scientists and normal people," the distinction is not so clear.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#37

Post by pierrec »

quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

This is music theory, or at the very least, the bulk of the document is about the theory of harmony. The first few pages may give the impression of solely exposing jargon, but as you progress through the pages, the author moves on to the theory of harmony, or what has been referred to as such for the last century and a half (at least). I'm not saying the expression is semantically perfectly sound, but it's been in use for long enough to be considered correct. It's true that a better expression may have been "Harmonic Aspects of the Practice of Composition".

Schoenberg's classic 1910 Theory of Harmony is a shining example of this. It's pretty much a practical guide for composition, and follows a structure strikingly similar to that of this document.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#38

Post by archagon »

ambler0 wrote: post #30
archagon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classical music theory is a rigid, structural, almost mathematical system that emerged over several centuries. In those centuries, composers learned some very powerful techniques to express ideas in their music. Although the specifics of classical music — the rhythms, the chords, the tonalities — may be antiquated, I really do think that the forces that guided their development are just as relevant to modern music. F…

You're making plenty of sense, beers or no I would say that the V7 gets it's power from the flatted fifth interval, aka the tritone, aka the most dissonant interval this side of a minor second. And like you say, it can be understood in terms of voice leading, e.g.the 7th (the "leading tone"!) "wants" to resolve up to the tonic. It's interesting that you mentioned motif because I think that fits well with what I was s…

I mean, there are many ways to be satisfying in music. I am very satisfied by the exploration of texture and improvisation in modern music, for instance, and I am very grateful that we live in such an exciting time for musical experimentation. But at the same time, in a way that's hard to describe, the moment where the theme returns in the third movement in Beethoven's 5th[1] just absolutely trumps any musical moment I've heard in popular music. I'm talking Schindler's List level goosebumps. There are plenty of long pieces in popular music, too — prog is big on that. But the techniques of Beethoven and ilk just aren't getting used, which I think is a great shame. I don't think it's "magic" or "genius". I really do think it's a matter of harnessing the medium to its full potential, which might require more education in music theory than (in my experience) many musicians feel comfortable with.

I don't think you need a long piece to develop motif. Look at something like "Vocalise"[2], or, heck, any of Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier.

One of my teachers used to stress the original meaning of the word "sublime". I think that's what's missing in modern music. A feeling of awe that leaves you speechless.

Zappa's been on my to-do list for a while, I'll have to give him a listen soon!

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdvsRJL4Mtw

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBVkYGLEUpg

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#39

Post by dominotw »

quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

>Our first sensory impression as we float in our mother's womb is the rhythmic sound of her heart.

http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/htmlRT/1%20intro.html

Umm..what?

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#40

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

dominotw wrote: post #39
quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

>Our first sensory impression as we float in our mother's womb is the rhythmic sound of her heart. http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/htmlRT/1%20intro.html Umm..what?

It's pretty dark in there.
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