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Music Theory under rated

#61
projectMalamute said:
Both Mozart and Bach had formal training in music theory and read plenty of text books.

Funny how this background didn't prevent them from being amongst the most innovative and influential figures in Western music history.
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They read text books? I don't believe so...certainly not in the sense that college students today use the Piston or any of the other multitude of books now available.

Look...Bach was certainly familiar with Italian styles that came before him, but he basically wrote music that was in his own style, and adhered to "rules" that he felt were relevant and sounded good to him. This style is now studied by today's students of counterpoint via a text book, as it has been analyzed and formalized by scholars over the past couple of hundred years.
 
#62
lsabina said:
They read text books? I don't believe so...certainly not in the sense that college students today use the Piston or any of the other multitude of books now available.

Look...Bach was certainly familiar with Italian styles that came before him, but he basically wrote music that was in his own style, and adhered to "rules" that he felt were relevant and sounded good to him. This style is now studied by today's students of counterpoint via a text book, as it has been analyzed and formalized by scholars over the past couple of hundred years.
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I'm not sure in what 'sense' you think people read books. Books on music theory and performance practice of his day existed. While attending music school read them. I suspect he read them in the same sense that people read stuff now.

Bach was absolutely aware of things like species counterpoint, fugue and canon form, harmony, voice leading, figured bass notation and like a million other things. He could also read music, a fact which alone seems to make one a scholar by the standards of these debates.

Bach was an extremely accomplished and smart composer that could absolutely explain what he was doing in the theoretical terms of the day. The notion that he would 'just feel it, man' is laughable.

If you are looking for someone to point to as proof that knowing about music theory is a hindrance you are going to need to keep looking.
 
#63
projectMalamute said:
I'm not sure in what 'sense' you think people read books. Books on music theory and performance practice of his day existed. While attending music school read them. I suspect he read them in the same sense that people read stuff now.

Bach was absolutely aware of things like species counterpoint, fugue and canon form, harmony, voice leading, figured bass notation and like a million other things. He could also read music, a fact which alone seems to make one a scholar by the standards of these debates.

Bach was an extremely accomplished and smart composer that could absolutely explain what he was doing in the theoretical terms of the day. The notion that he would 'just feel it, man' is laughable.

If you are looking for someone to point to as proof that knowing about music theory is a hindrance you are going to need to keep looking.
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I don't think I said he would "just feel it, man." But the fact is, Bach wrote in his style. Any scholar of the history of music theory will tell you this. The "theory" was codified after the fact.
To give you another example along the same lines: Do you think that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie had a textbook (or any other written source available to them) that illustrated bebop or passing tone scales, chord substitutions, or chord extensions/enhancements? They simply played what they heard as sounding correct to them, at their particular point in music history. Only later did David Baker, Jerry Coker and others write out in a methodical manner exactly what the founders of bop where doing from a melodic and harmonic standpoint.
But, of course, you're entitled to believe what you want...
Enjoy.
 
#64
lsabina said:
I don't think I said he would "just feel it, man." But the fact is, Bach wrote in his style. Any scholar of the history of music theory will tell you this. The "theory" was codified after the fact.
To give you another example along the same lines: Do you think that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie had a textbook (or any other written source available to them) that illustrated bebop or passing tone scales, chord substitutions, or chord extensions/enhancements? They simply played what they heard as sounding correct to them, at their particular point in music history. Only later did David Baker, Jerry Coker and others write out in a methodical manner exactly what the founders of bop where doing from a melodic and harmonic standpoint.
But, of course, you're entitled to believe what you want...
Enjoy.
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You are talking nonsense.

You want to know if Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker had textbooks explaining the music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, before it existed? I am not sure what the question has to do with anything, but barring the intervention of time traveling astronauts from the future I am going to guess no.

On the other hand both Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie read music and had extensive backgrounds in the theory and performance practices of the musical culture they functioned in. If you think bebop was the result of people screwing around at random you are out of your mind.

Try again.
 
#66
lsabina said:
If you say so.
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Well, let's examine the argument being put forth.

Music theory explaining the details of a musical innovators work did not exist until after the work had been done.

Which is to say, before 'A' existed, 'A' did not exist.

Okay, I can get behind that. Hard to refute the iron clad logic of a tautology. Before something exists, it doesn't exist.

Please explain to me the mental gymnastics that get you from this to the notion that musical innovators cannot have any knowledge or context in which the innovations take place.

Did Bach just happen to come up with the concept of a fugue independently of the musical tradition of a fugue which existed before him? And then through some cosmic coincidence give it the same name?

Or is it possible that maybe, just maybe, JS Bach had an understanding of what had come before him and moved forward from that point?
 
#67
Just a thought...

Someone such as Bach certainly had a deep intuitive as well as learned knowledge of the workings of the language of music. But I'd venture to say (simply my humble uneducated but intuitive opinion) that what he created formed the basis of new ways of looking at music... that are studied now but were quite new at the time.

Don't know why I'm posting this... maybe just to add fuel to the fire. :cool:
 
#68
Slowgypsy said:
Just a thought...

Someone such as Bach certainly had a deep intuitive as well as learned knowledge of the workings of the language of music. But I'd venture to say (simply my humble uneducated but intuitive opinion) that what he created formed the basis of new ways of looking at music... :
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Well of course it did. I don't know who the most influential thinker in the history of Western music is, but any short list would have to include JS Bach.

Why does it follow that he didn't have knowledge of music theory?
 
#69
lsabina said:
If you say so.
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I'd say so too.

Sure...opinions are sacrosanct here on TB, fact or fiction.

But the historical facts of music history are well documented with regards to Bach, and Dizz and Coltrane and everything that came before, way before Bach..Start with Organum and keep reading.

They knew exactly what they were doing.
 
#70
Slowgypsy said:
Just a thought...

Someone such as Bach certainly had a deep intuitive as well as learned knowledge of the workings of the language of music. But I'd venture to say (simply my humble uneducated but intuitive opinion) that what he created formed the basis of new ways of looking at music... that are studied now but were quite new at the time.

Don't know why I'm posting this... maybe just to add fuel to the fire. :cool:
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To add to that, when someone like that comes along it is nearly impossible to appreciate their contribution without understanding theory. That is, for instance, how do you explain what Beethoven contributed to music without talking about it on a theory level?

EDIT: AND, if you try to describe what it is that makes any composer's music special, how can you do it without terms? You can say, "Oh, this music is 'pretty' or that music is 'dark' or another music is 'happy,'" but what does that mean really? Beethoven bridged the gap between the Classical and Romantic periods. Try to explain that without delving into theory.
 
#71
Bassmunnky said:
I'd say so too.

They knew exactly what they were doing.
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People, people, people...of course Bach et al knew what they were doing. The only thing I have an issue with is the statement that Bach "read text books". As we all know, creativity doesn't come to one through the such codified means. I was simply stating that "text books" (as we know them to be) are produced "after the fact." Hence, practice precedes theory (again, theory being defined in this case as a codified methodology, such as found in a text book), Whew...hope that explains my thinking...

(although as a previous poster mentioned, there are exceptions to this, notably, Schoenberg's 12-tone system of composition--but even that system came to him after years of working intuitively)
 
#74
from wikipedia - sounds like this forum lol : Johann Sebastian Bach, organist here at the New Church, appeared and stated that, as he walked home yesterday, fairly late at night ... six students were sitting on the "Langenstein" (Long Stone), and as he passed the town hall, the student Geyersbach went after him with a stick, calling him to account: Why had he [Bach] made abusive remarks about him? He [Bach] answered that he had made no abusive remarks about him, and that no one could prove it, for he had gone his way very quietly. Geyersbach retorted that while he [Bach] might not have maligned him, he had maligned his bassoon at some time, and whoever insulted his belongings insulted him as well ... [Geyersbach] had at once struck out at him. Since he had not been prepared for this, he had been about to draw his dagger, but Geyersbach had fallen into his arms, and the two of them tumbled about until the rest of the students ... had rushed toward them and separated them
 
#76
lsabina said:
(although as a previous poster mentioned, there are exceptions to this, notably, Schoenberg's 12-tone system of composition--but even that system came to him after years of working intuitively)
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Intuitively ? Schoenberg ? When ?

Schoenberg was a world famous music theorist after publishing the Harmonielehre, before later gradually transitioning from contemporary harmony as used by Mahler into atonality.

There can hardly be a better example of a professional academic who was completely and totally steeped in music theory, eventually extending it to come up with his own major innovation, which was always a lot more rooted than his audience gave him credit for as his published essays and books make very clear.
 
#77
teleharmonium said:
Intuitively ? Schoenberg ? When ?

Schoenberg was a world famous music theorist after publishing the Harmonielehre, before later gradually transitioning from contemporary harmony as used by Mahler into atonality.

There can hardly be a better example of a professional academic who was completely and totally steeped in music theory, eventually extending it to come up with his own major innovation, which was always a lot more rooted than his audience gave him credit for as his published essays and books make very clear.
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Well, I'd go with Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, and other works from his atonal period. Atonality is a largely intuitive method, since it dispenses with traditional Western harmonic rules, such as chord function, chord progressions, etc. Now, of course, motives are manipulated, transposed, etc., etc, so, I suppose, that part of the writing, is also systemized, and not intuitive. But Schoenberg himself stated that he was forced to abandon this method of composition--he wanted a "system"--hence his creation of the 12-tone method.
 
#78
longfinger said:
Since that other thread is so popular, with many people disagreeing with the title, I figure it might be good to start this thread where advocates can chime in. (But feel free to debate as well!)


Music Theory defined:
I think of music theory as simplifications/reductions of specific topics, derived from thousands of individual real world music compositions and practices, into models and paradigms that can be more easily learned and communicated.

For example, if people take a 1000 compositions of a similar genre, from a similar geography and era, and compare them all, they can find many commonalities of the salient musical practices among these compositions. Simplifying the 1000 into a few models than can represent the 1000 accurately, is the process of creating music theory. This has been going on for centuries now and will continue as to be developed as the art of creative music making continues to be developed.


It takes hindsight, to create new music theory, one has to look at pieces already made in order to compile them and sort them out. In time, people will be able to make very accurate abstract models to describe the music of specific genres being made today. (Taking thousands of pieces developed over many decades of full time work, and making reasonable accurate simplified models of them that can be learned in a mere 4 months time by future students of the music of our era.)

Music Theory is not just about pitch, though in western european music that was what was the most easily notated and discussed. It can also be about Timbre, Rhythm, Form...
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Theory is under rated by too many posters here mainly because they don't know anything about it and don't put the smallest effort to study it !
 
#79
lsabina said:
Well, I'd go with Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, and other works from his atonal period. Atonality is a largely intuitive method, since it dispenses with traditional Western harmonic rules, such as chord function, chord progressions, etc. Now, of course, motives are manipulated, transposed, etc., etc, so, I suppose, that part of the writing, is also systemized, and not intuitive. But Schoenberg himself stated that he was forced to abandon this method of composition--he wanted a "system"--hence his creation of the 12-tone method.
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You're making my point for me, because "Five Pieces" is actually not from his atonal period, it's from his earlier transitional period of Mahler influenced chromaticism. And yet it kind of sounds like and is often mistakenly referred to as atonal. He created the 12 tone system over a decade later.

It's just not as different from his earlier music as a description on paper might lead you to believe. It's perfectly connected, and if you just listen to it all in the order it was created, you can't tell where actual atonality begins.
 

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