tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6980672.post8413985890860998683..comments2023-10-08T08:38:09.714-04:00Comments on Musical Perceptions: What is Music Theory?Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286095156825716887noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6980672.post-21412588345723596452008-06-02T01:37:00.000-04:002008-06-02T01:37:00.000-04:00This is going far out from theory itself but I rea...This is going far out from theory itself but I really like Kenny Wheeler's 'Effortless Mastery'. Your students would no longer 'wrestle' with ideas...Shimmyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14893326322668604599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6980672.post-10338803294103579142008-05-30T15:14:00.000-04:002008-05-30T15:14:00.000-04:00Going in reverse order:Sator, Sonic Design is a go...Going in reverse order:<BR/><BR/>Sator, Sonic Design is a good suggestion, I'll look at ways to incorporate parts of it. I wouldn't use it as the main reference, but the sonographs alone will be fun for the students to look at.<BR/><BR/>Empiricus, Yes, counterpoint will be started early on in our curriculum, though perhaps spread throughout. Like, learn about intervals, learn first species; learn about dissonance, learn second species, etc; rather than all the species at once. As for hard-wired abilities, I think you are suggesting appealing to what the students already know/hear, rather than trying to impose a new schema based on Common Practice. I think it is important to give the students tools to explain what they are hearing. As for specific schema, I wrestle with how Common Practice-centric our curriculum should be. I want tools that can be generalized, but not so universal as to be useless, like Jay Rahn's conclusions that all musics are made of pitch and rhythm. And it comes down to the fact that we encounter all forms of music from a tonal perspective, thanks to the overlearning produced by nursery rhymes, TV jingles, most pop music, etc. Thus it is important that the students understand what tonality is, to be able to explain how these ingrained expectancies have been denied in other musical languages.<BR/><BR/>James, some of the students do latch onto Roman Numerals too much, a major reason why we are renovating the curriculum. I disagree that one can't hear Roman Numeral-ed progressions though. If I see a series of Roman Numerals such as: I - bII6 - V64-53 - I, I have a clear starting point to how that musical passage sounds. But I do agree that having a score to follow with is important, since any description in words will necessarily miss details. As for my Chopin analysis, that was a description of one aspect of the music, though still informed by my understanding of the voice-leading. I didn't supply Schenkerian graphs, because I didn't know how to upload those kinds of things to the blog, and felt the description worked as a summary of my results. The language used implies the various voice motions, to anyone familiar with this language. As for your goals for music theory, I look forward to reading your post explaining them. For now, I don't see any significant difference between my description and yours.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01286095156825716887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6980672.post-83274317774687691652008-05-30T14:45:00.000-04:002008-05-30T14:45:00.000-04:00And (although I didn't realize Empiricus was alrea...And (although I didn't realize Empiricus was already here!) I have to be a homer and recommend "Sonic Design" by Robert Cogan and Pozzi Escot as an integrated, totalist approach to music theory.<BR/><BR/>Sator Arepo<BR/><BR/>PS: I am all for driving Schenker crazy.Sator Arepohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00006808744513156317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6980672.post-40796493713128598952008-05-30T03:09:00.000-04:002008-05-30T03:09:00.000-04:00I don't have time to go into this at length, but! ...I don't have time to go into this at length, but! But, I would like to hear your thoughts about learning (i.e., intervals, syntax, memory formation at an early age, etc.), as well as your thoughts on starting with counterpoint (at least at the collegiate level), instead of tonal harmony. It seems to me to be a more clear, understandable/grasped path than, say, Kostka/Piston/Sessions (or many others for that matter), who rely on learned schema, not "hard-wired" (I hate that term, by the way) abilities.<BR/><BR/>Cheers, <BR/><BR/>EmpiricusEmpiricushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11629835829400843701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6980672.post-5631067012767393572008-05-29T16:55:00.000-04:002008-05-29T16:55:00.000-04:00I do like to talk about harmony, but my conception...<I>I do like to talk about harmony, but my conception of harmony is not as a discipline that can be separated from counterpoint, form, or motive.</I><BR/><BR/>This sounds all well and good, and maybe I do misunderstand your position; but when it comes right down to it, do you not <A HREF="http://depauwform.blogspot.com/search?q=Waldstein" REL="nofollow">teach your students</A> to analyze the beginning of the Waldstein sonata as "I I V⁴₂/V V6 V6 bVII bVII V⁴₂/IV IV6 iv6 V7 iv6 V7 iv6 V7 iv6 V7 i V"? (This would have driven Schenker absolutely crazy, as it does me.) For that matter, did you yourself not analyze mm. 2-3 of Chopin's E-minor Prelude as follows:<BR/><BR/>"The melody turns this dominant chord into a diminished seventh chord, which resolves as a common-tone chord to a secondary French augmented-sixth chord!" ?<BR/><BR/>Furthermore, you are guilty of an at least equally severe misunderstanding of my view on the purpose of music theory when you characterize it as "to explain how music is composed". That is what Lewis Lockwood or Barry Cooper do when they examine Beethoven's sketches. With respect to the creative process, the goal of music <I>theory</I>, in my view, is not to <I>describe</I> it, or even <I>explain</I> it in any historical sense, but rather to <I>demystify</I> it. This may be a subtle distinction, but it's an extremely important one. I'll do a post on it in the near future.<BR/><BR/>Briefly: whatever else it does, an analysis of the opening of the Waldstein sonata should take you from "How in the world could a human being possibly have <I>made up</I> something like that?! Out of nothing!" to "Oh, I see what's going on here; nothing mysterious. (But a clever fellow, that Beethoven!)". <BR/><BR/>On this score (pun intended), the above Roman numeral analysis fails miserably. In fact, it only makes the passage <I>more</I> mysterious; one would be better off just presenting the score of the piece as an analysis of itself. After all, with the score, you are least are in possession of something you can hear in your head; whereas the Roman numerals don't even give you that (at least not without requiring a tedious exercise in cryptography first).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com