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Is Music Theory Really
Necessary?
The term music theory may not be
something you want to drop into casual conversation at
your next party. For some musically inclined persons, it
has all the charm of a cuss word and none of the
vitality. It means a bunch of difficult and arcane rules
that don't seem to have any relevance to actually
playing music, not to mention creating your own. For
many, it is just a bunch of complicated procedures that
they can't seem to understand, and this only leads to
frustration. It is thought by composers to be the chief
stifler of inspiration. Composers often like to use it
as a punching bag. And they may have a point.
Notwithstanding personality issues--and, believe me,
many of my own theory professors did not seem like the
most interesting people in the world (at least until I
got to grad school)--the things that we theory types
teach (for I have also been an instructor of bored
college students like myself and I have vowed not to be
as dull as my own mentors) seem mostly concerned with
music of past centuries, and to dwell forever in
trifling details. Surely the composers themselves didn't
think of their music this way--as an homage to the
inviolable past, and as an exercise in trying not to do
what you weren't allowed to do? Many have
suggested, in fact, that the inspiration of the gifted
creator came first and brought in its wake a host of
critics and persons determined to justify and explain
the music once it was safely non-controversial, and
arguably no longer relevant to the mental and emotional
climate in which it is performed--when it became a
museum piece rather than an artistic response to the
here and now. These persons, the line goes, are just
draining all the joy out of music. I don't intend to
defend people who actually do this, or who substitute
analysis for actual music making--merely to suggest that
trying to picture theory as a bunch of useless rules and
musical creation as an act of complete freedom whereby
no knowledge or mastery of anything is necessary--this
too is asking for trouble.
I don't believe that the majority of
good composers have little or no grasp of some kind of
theory, simply that it may not resemble the kind we
teach in school. The larger world of theory, it seems to
me, involves a concentrated effort to create, or
recreate, music in a way that convincingly communicates,
or at least seems to communicate, something logical,
something emotional, something didactic, something
profound, something ridiculous--but that in any case
provides an insight into the heart of the music so that
it is not a mere string of notes. It allows creators to
seek direction and flow in their pieces, to make the
details blend smoothly and the completely into their
larger purpose. Moment to moment constructions do not
sound awkward unless dictated by the larger purpose to
do so. For an interpreter, this understanding means an
awareness of why a composer chose the notes and rhythms
he or she did, sometimes down to the last detail, not
out of a desire to explain away mystery but to enable
the piece's purpose to shine through the mountains of
notes. Persons who are able to do this are always more
interesting to listen to as performers because they have
established a real connection to the music and are not
following the plethora of apparently disconnected
instructions (notes, rhythms, dynamics, written
instructions, and so on) and hoping things will turn out
alright. Simply following a recipe blindly will serve me
when I am making a batch of cookies (perhaps), but it
will not do when I am interpreting a Beethoven Sonata.
Still, many people would like to
abandon theory because it suggests intellectual effort
it required. Those persons are probably not going to
read this article anyway--for them music is a powerful
stimulant for the emotions, and only that. They do not
believe in the use of one's brain as an ally in this
process, and see it only as an enemy (boy, that is a
popular notion!) I can't tell you how many times I have
run across persons with that mindset. I have noticed
that without exception their own music making is not
nearly as exciting as they think it is! When you do not
recognize the significance of a powerful musical moment,
how can you call our attention to it? And simply playing
the passage louder or faster only works on robots and
small children.
But is learning a series of
prohibitions that were in vogue hundreds of years ago
the same as understanding what is and is not important
in a piece of music, of determining what should be heard
and how it should be expressed?
A recent survey of music on the
internet has convinced me that, notwithstanding the
abuses that such a definition of theory can
create, in most cases the answer should be a
definite yes. Many persons of questionable musical
talent are still trying to compose in the style of Bach
and Mozart, convinced that music died with those august
gentlemen. And it would help if they were able to
observe the same methods that their models did. Bach and
Mozart didn't double their thirds or leading tones, and
it sounds awkward when the people who are trying to
imitate them do so. It sounds even more awkward when
these neophyte composers write bizarre leaps in their
melodies and forget which chords they are outlining so
that one voice does not match the other; my ear was
rudely surprised on several occasions. Mozart himself
wouldn't have been at all nice about it--he wrote a
piece called "A Musical Joke" in which he lampooned
composers who commit just these sins, as well as
ill-conceived phrase lengths and general lack of
direction. This is really no different than encountering
a writer who doesn't know how to spell, use punctuation,
or make his or her point effectively.
The internet has brought about a real
revolution in our lives--it also means that just about
anyone can have their effusions made very public. This
means that untold millions of persons can now clothe in
music their imitations of past eras, famous persons, and
what they think of as the musical good old days. This is
much safer and easier than trying to be an artist and
engaging the musical here and now with one's own voice--
whether it be considered stylistically conservative or
bold, it will still resonant something original, and
something unique to a person and his or her environment.
Mozart has already been Mozart more effectively than
anyone else can be.
The irony here is that those with
talent, who hold out the hope of having something to
say, don't seem to be following a bunch of old rules.
But study their compositions and you will find, not that
they have ignored them, but rather have assimilated them
to such a degree that the music sounds free and
confident because they are not occupied with the
difficulty of avoiding things they should avoid, rather,
they do it almost instinctively.
At its best, theory is about
communication--at figuring out how the composer intended
to communicate with us, at deciding how much
communicative territory is appropriate--or necessary--
for the performer, and how one can do it without running
contrary to the spirit of the composition, and at being
able to communicate with persons in the profession about
how those first two things are going on. Those who
understand how to do this are able to concentrate on the
larger picture, not because they shun the details and
the steps needed to get them there but because they have
done the gruntwork and have mastered it. But for the
rest, theory is a bunch of disconnected and useless
details. Stuff you've just got to know for some
reason--like to pass the next test.
Every occupation has its own series of
buzzwords and buzzphrases that the rest of us don't
understand. The point isn't to keep outsiders from
understanding (hopefully), the point is to accurately
describe a process or an idea or an object quickly and
easily so we don't have to go into great detail every
time we are talking about something which is quite
simple. So in music we talk about intervals (the
distance between notes, a musical measurement which is
sort of like feet and inches) or dominant seventh chords
(which have been around for the last 300 years and have
a particular harmonic function that needs to be
understood and used properly) or invertible counterpoint
(which isn't nearly as complicated as it sounds). We
have key signatures and four-bar phrases and ternary
form. It's a lot of stuff to learn. But then, so is
English. And if you are reading this, you have already
come to terms with a language that has lots of rules and
common agreements about how letters are put together to
form words which represent ideas. It took a lot of work
to understand, but now--voila! We are able to
communicate.
It is a common notion to suggest that
music is a language (which I think oversimplifies things
greatly; maybe it is more accurate to suggest it is a
series of languages, or at least a vast language group
with many dialects). People often make this remark
without reflecting that languages require that we
understand them, and that that means we have to learn
them--either by observing people around us using the
language (which is how children begin learning their
native language) or by having a series of broad concepts
and small details taught to us in some more formal way.
Having a thorough acquaintance with the way such a
language is traditionally put together allows us to
listen or read for meaning and not have to stumble over
a jumble of symbols we can't quite understand. It allows
us to know when a writer is using language in an unusual
way to and appreciate the individual style of a
particular author. The customs, and traditions, the
patterns of letters and words--all of these can either
form a barrier to our understanding, or, if we are well
versed in them, can open the door to all sorts of simple
and complex shades of meaning and ideas. They may
provoke emotional response (joy or outright irritation)
or intellectual delight. The biggest difference with
music is that it can also deliver a visceral thrill
which is present before we have any concept of the
grammar of the music. The beauty of the tones themselves
might cause us to not wish to spoil them by knowing
anything about how they are arranged. After all, "Beauty
is its own excuse for being" so why justify it? This
only works if you are a passive receiver of music (and
only arguably then). If you are going to make
it, or interpret it, you are going to want to know
something about it.
But before we discuss how the music
itself communicates with its listeners, let's consider
how musicians themselves communicate with each other
about music itself.
Suppose you are in a rehearsal with a
group of musicians and you find that the performance
lacks something. First you tell the violins to raise the
leading tone a little. Do they have any idea what you
are talking about? Do they know why that is important?
Suppose the third of the chord is being drowned out by
the trombone section which likes to wail away on their
open fifths. Perhaps the composer didn't understand how
to write well for orchestra. Or maybe the trombones
could just chill out and let that important note come
through. Were they listening to the sounds around them
or did they just bask in their own loudness? When you
explained the reasoning behind your request, did they
understand? If the change is not made, at the
performance some necessary harmonic information may be
lost to the audience. It might be as if an important
plot twist in a novel was garbled or raced through.
Much about theory sounds like a bunch
of rules and regulations, a series of "thou shalt nots"
that doesn't seem like it has much to do with the way
the music sounds. And unfortunately, a lot of teachers
themselves don't understand how to make the connection.
But despite how legalistic some of theory's tenets
sound, they do affect the flow of the music.
At a rehearsal of a children's choir
here in Illinois, the choir was reading through a new
piece. One measure kept giving them trouble. The person
who had composed the anthem had ignored something that
used to give a theory professor I worked with fits. It
was something called an "improperly resolved seventh."
In other words, a particular note needed to go down to
the next note, and she made it go up. Present rules
about how to resolve sevenths and you've got a lot of
people complaining that you are cramping their style, or
that at the very least this is boring. But the reality
was that this measure was awkward, and even though I'll
bet none of the kids present knew why, their ears knew
it, and they were struggling with an otherwise easy
piece of music.
I've included examples that show why I
believe understand music theory is important both to
composers and performers, those who create and recreate
music. But that doesn't mean I love music theory as it
taught in most schools and by many teachers. That
nightmarish notion of theory as being a bunch of
nitpicky rules that get in the way of a good melody is
not without foundation. There are hundreds, if not
thousands of quotations by composers who complain that
we should be led by the ear, not the rule, and that the
pedantry of the theory classroom opposes innovation and
can only explain but never create. (or, as Saint Paul
said, "the letter kills, but the spirit gives life")
They have a point.
One of the most important things that I
believe theory, or in a broader sense, understanding
musical construction, can do for us is to distinguish
what is important from what is relatively unimportant.
What does the ear need to hear in order for the grammar
of the musical phrase to make sense? What is the most
important thing the composer is try to tell us
musically? There may be hundreds of notes on the page,
but they are hardly created equal. Just as, if you were
to read this essay aloud, you would stress certain words
and not others, speed up in certain sections and slow
down in others, trying to underline what you felt were
the key points (and let us hope my composing has made
that fairly clear), in a musical performance you would
not always perform in absolutely strict rhythm, and you
would not play every note with the same volume. There
may be certain indications on the page to do both of
these things, but they will not be detailed enough that
you can simply follow a recipe without some
understanding of the contents. If you want it to sound
like a human being is engaged in the music you will have
to do some interpreting. Responsible interpreting
assumes that you will at least try to get at what the
composer had in mind rather than simply telling us what
you think about the piece. It also assume you know
something about the tradition and customs out of which
the piece was written. Which moments are a real surprise
and which are standard formulas? If you were reading a
letter, you would not make a big deal out of "DEAR
Albert!" unless you had some evidence that the writer of
the letter hated Albert's guts and the use of the word
dear was either a real shift in relations or vicious
sarcasm. Otherwise it is merely a polite way to start a
letter. Your knowledge of the style and customs of
letter writing combine with your personal knowledge of
the writer and her recipient.
Unfortunately, this is were much music
school theory falls down. We spend a great deal of time
on details and little time on applying them. And many of
these details have to do with styles which are in some
ways buried in the past.
I remember spending an awful lot of
time on figured bass. This is a procedure that was in
vogue about 300 years ago. Bach and composers before him
used it as a shorthand method of indicating which
harmonies a keyboard player should use to fill in above
the written out bass line. It allowed the player some
freedom in the notes he chose, but also required a
thorough knowledge of intervals and voice leading. In
that respect it was useful. But since very few of us
have had anything to do with figure bass in our
professional lives, it is arguably not the best way to
spend hundreds of hours of classroom instruction.
When it came to harmonic analysis we
were only about 200 in the past. Learning about dominant
functions was useful--I was good at it--but I find that
as a composer most of my harmonic progressions bear
little resemblance to anything that Mozart wrote, and I
don't think they should. A lot has happened since--a lot
of musical history filled with complaining composers
suggesting that their theory teachers couldn't apply the
rules of the past to the music of today and therefore
assumed that the music they were writing was of no
value. There are people like that in every profession.
As our semesters of theory progressed,
we began to concentrate on styles closer to our own era.
At first we had been concentrating on simple harmonies,
less adventurous harmonic syntax (diatonic harmonies)--a
musical phonics, if you will, in which we might spend an
entire class period writing four measures on the
blackboard in four part harmony, trying not to run afoul
of a myriad of rules. By the next year we began to chart
the course of increasing harmonic complexity in music
and to analyze larger sections of it. By this time, we
were firmly rooted in the Romantic era: music that is
around 150 years old.
And in graduate school, we finally got
around to music of the twentieth century! This was a
time when many of the "rules" for musical style that we
had been learning so assiduously up to this point seemed
to go out the window. Didn't Debussy live and die by
parallel fifths? Since nobody modulates into the
dominant anymore, how does analyzing a sonata exposition
the old way have anything to do with Prokofiev? If a
piece (like Cage's 4'33") doesn't even have notes, how
does voice leading matter at all?
All of which calls into question
some theorist's pet notions on what is necessary to
know about music, and particularly what is "universal"
about music. Such a divergence of musical styles calls
for real virtuosity--or flexibility-- on the part of
those handing down holy writ on how music should be
made. Unfortunately, many professors share a fondness
only for the past and a thorough disgust for the
musical present and future. (They don't call it a
conservatory for nothing!) Some of us were
lucky enough to study with composers or theorists who
did not believe that music was buried with Beethoven.
But before we get too carried away by a zeal to remove
all of the things Mozart wouldn't have done, let's not
forget that some of those stylistic niceties may have
more to do with laws of acoustics than simple
Victorian politeness. We are still affected by gravity
the same way we were in Newton's time, even though we
now understand it quite differently.
At the conservatory, we never really
made the link to performing music. I think it would be
great to someday see a course in Applied Theory where
students could take pieces they are working on for
recitals and lessons and have them coached on the basis
of musical theory instead of instrumental technique.
Students would probably also learn to memorize their
music faster, overcoming a common phobia in a music
school.
If somebody in central Illinois wanted
to include this in their curriculum I would take them up
on it. I find that whatever the age of the student,
whenever I start discussing music theory I find it
exciting. Not because I am a pedant, but because I find
it a way to connect--cerebrally and emotionally with the
music, and to discover things I may not have noticed
before, and impart new insights to the student. Charts
and graphs, tables of key signatures and non-harmonic
tones, proper resolutions of augmented sixth
chords--this is, at least in some situations, necessary
stuff. On the ground floor. But to soar above it, and be
passionate about the music itself is, unfortunately, a
lot like the real language of theory. You have to be
able to see the connections. And feel them. And think
them. Only a few of us seem truly able to do that.
Meanwhile I do whatever I can to ensure that my students
are able to connect with the reality behind the notes.
That is the real joy of making music.
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