Introspection. The word encapsulates 2020 for me. This year brought out inner tendencies that are seldom tested and proved. The circumstances unearthed underlying fears and anxieties along with more heroic resilience and compassion. At a societal level, deep-rooted tensions were brought to the fore as ideological battles ensued over how to deal with a quick-spreading silent killer. A reawakening to inequalities that have persisted for generations at systemic and individual levels compounded the impetus for reflection and action.
What does this have to do with music? It requires a framework to understand. For well over a century, musicians have been taught according to one theoretical tradition. This study includes a robust dive into historical tonal harmony, often accompanied by ear-training exercises based on tonal progressions. The intense study of a tradition reveals truths only found by digging deep. However, in a time of introspection such as this, it’s hard to not think what might be different.
For a layperson or budding musician, musical training should try to reach to the core of what music is and why it has such an effect on us. Doesn’t our listening experience lift our mood, make us think, inspire us to dance, enlighten us spiritually, and/or help us socially bond? A solid pedagogical method would use all the resources possible to understand why, even if fraught with paradoxes and unknowns. It would be interpret music of many varieties with traditional and contemporary theories.
A cursory glance over music theory materials reveals that much is missing. Some glaring omissions include:
Concert music happening today. 10 weeks (or less) out of a 60-week curriculum discusses 20th-century music, and usually music after 1960 receives 1 week (or less!).
Other styles of Western music. There are exceptional programs (Frost School of Music), but most see the Western classical tradition the only history worth tracing and manner of musical construction worth considering.
Non-western traditional musics across the world. While it would be wrong to pretend that all music theorists know the nuances of Indian raga or Balinese gamelan, it would be worth at least acknowledging similarities and differences that lead to further insights.
Musical elements besides harmony, counterpoint, phrasing, cadence, and meter (as it pertains to harmonic changes). What of melody, rhythm, timbre (tone color), instrumentation, texture, articulation, dynamics, and register? And what of noisiness, pitch nuance, spatialization, quotation (sampling), semantics, and gesture? What of the harmony, counterpoint, and cadence material outside the Western classical tonal tradition?
So what? The current system develops nuanced voice leading skills for powerful tension and release mechanisms through careful counterpoint. Most composers extrapolate these ideas to a broader context. The systems also give a deeper understanding and appreciation for Western tonal music and some post-tonal idioms.
But is it representative of Music? The tradition is of a time long past and a place far away. The archeological dig is fascinating but overlooks nearly all music, especially excluding minority groups. Only a number of composers and performers from Central Europe from 1750-1900 were women and/or non-white. Many try to uncover the exceptions of the past without acknowledging the omission of the much larger diversity of voices today. Simply said, a traditional curriculum marginalizes most people and their associated musical styles. Is that an honest approach to a class considered “core” knowledge for every musician to know?
Let’s reimagine music theory. I did so. It took starting from scratch. I wrote out my values—the most important lessons I learned through today. I asked friends to evaluate their most treasured musical values. What similarities and differences were there? I identified enough groundwork to gain vision of a new kind of course. Some of that foundation includes the following principles:
Music is perception-based. The best learning environment is experiential and thus psychological.
Music has everything to do with repetition, variation, and contrast. Our brain seeks after patterns and requires consistency for comprehension.
Music must first set expectations. Without expectations, how does the brain make sense of what is to come? The presentation of the music before, during, and after the music itself also sets expectations and can enhance or alienate the audience.
Musical ideas need cadence/breath to them. The brain needs to segment information to remember it.
Musical speak is metaphorical. We leap, skip, step, run, articulate, fall, rise, go high, go low, etc. Sounds are rough, smooth, gritty, dirty, clean, open, pinched, full, empty, weak, strong, etc. Embodied cognition theorizes that music empathetically connects to our bodily lived experience. So interpretative dancing does have something going for it after all…
Good musicians train their intuition to increase in sensitivity to musical relationships. Their interpretation of phrasing, dissonance, pacing, rhythmic placement, etc. comes from careful and unwritten experiential understanding. The notes we read rarely capture the music brought to life by an excellent performer. Ears govern musical interpretation.
Music is about community and sharing. It requires open, candid discussions of taste. Hard questions are good questions and welcome new perspectives.
Music is about relationships, and music is enhanced by layers of relationships called counterpoint. Good counterpoint sensitively mediates musical elements. It adds multi-faceted meaning to music and heightens artistic expression. In its purest sense, counterpoint crosses cultures and is the process of collaboration with other arts.
Every musician should be well-versed in technology. They should be able to record and use a DAW. Musicians should make basic videos to promote themselves online. They should then be confronted with this uncomfortable question: If you can give someone a perfect listening experience on headphones, then why should they come to your live concert?
Music is about the human experience, so rawness and vulnerability are common and prized expressive qualities. Because we all are built from different experiences, it would be tragic if there were only one right interpretation of the notes on the page. A musician only intent on playing the music right might miss the music...
I framed The Musician Certificate Program with these and other values. Students explore core musical questions grounded in psychological and practical concepts. They listen to music of many styles and train their ears to analyze music through their perception. Musicians outside the university get to experience it starting in January. Learn now and/or enroll here.
I’d also love to learn about your values and ideas. Comment or send me a message, and let’s talk.