Theory

Hi all,

Mike mentions (passionately I might add) in the question section of Composition 2 (around 2:03:00 or so) that approaching music from a theory perspective is a bad idea, and theory should be left really to the end.

I can completely understand why, in a way -- most of my favourite musicians started off writing fantastic music with little to no theory knowledge, instead learning in intuitively (or at least so I argue).

However, I haven't had this experience myself -- what would be considered useful vs. not useful theory? Starting composing as an adult, I didn't really have the opportunity to jam along to my favourite songs for 15 years prior to starting. Isn't it useful to at least know what key one is in, what makes a minor scale, which notes are in which scales, etc? Not prescriptively, but I found a bit of music theory made the piano make a hell of a lot more sense, and when writing melodies or parts, at least having an idea of what kind of mood I'm going for made writing a lot easier and quicker. Similarly, transcribing something and knowing what intervals sounds like, or what a minor add 9 chord sounds like has made transcribing a whole lot faster. Similarly, when messing around and trying to find a melody idea, knowing what scale I'm in makes improvising something sound a lot less like hunting and pecking.

So...where does one draw the line? Sitting down and thinking "I'm going to write in Lydian" may indeed be missing the point, but isn't it useful to think "I'm kind of after that middle eastern vibe (i.e. Arabic scale)" or "I'm sort of after that Japanese folk vibe" and know, at least on a basic/general level, what fits in there?

 

Thanks for the reply, Mike.

Your parallel with language is quite helpful -- it's something I've long considered after taking 11 years of required French in Canadian gradeschool, only to realize I didn't learn a damn thing until the last year where we had a teacher who actually made us speak it, rather than write down grammatical concepts.
So, in essence, the idea is that the sentence "going to the store" is incomplete should be an intuitive one, not a declarative sense of "my analysis tells me there's no subject in that sentence". I can't help but wonder though -- have you seen this approach work well with adults? Intuitively it makes a whole lot of sense, but I can't help but wonder at how poor many adults seem to be at learning a new/foreign language, often ending up with strange or formal grammar . We unfortunately don't have the kind of extreme neuroplasticity that a child has, and I wonder if this would affect our ability to learn quickly in this manner, especially considering we're not a linguistic "blank slate" the way a child is -- in the learning of all other languages, we tend to codify and organize using our native language.

Certainly true. When it comes to transcribing, then, is it most useful to simply write it down accurately and learn to play it on piano and really try and leave one's analytical brain out of it, simply trusting that having it under one's fingers will be the remembering)? I find it hard to turn off that desire to contextualize and piece together as an adult. I also can't help but wonder how I've learned a boatload of guitar riffs and leads in the last 3 years but can't really improvise worth a damn (haha).


EDIT: It also seems difficult, at least from the "other side" (not being an accomplished composer), to see how one would be able to internalize things properly without a very basic knowledge of what keys correspond to which notes, how to find what key one is in, etc. You do mention at 2:02:50ish (paraphrased) that one needs to listen to melodies one grew up with and figure out "they have a lot of chord tones in them" or "they use scalar motion rather than stepwise motion", etc. Am I possibly misunderstanding what you mean by theory? I.e. learning that "oh, that sound is a suspended 2nd chord, which means that the 3 is omitted and you instead insert a 2", not for some academic purpose of preplanning a composition but for internalizing the idea that "If I want that 'floaty', suspended sound, this is what gets me started"? Or simply learning what constitutes a triad and why it sounds a certain way, i.e. major/minor/diminished.
Going back to the parallel of language, isn't learning very basic theory kind of like learning how to write? I.e. "this shape makes an 'ahh' sound", or "these are the letters that make your name and their sounds", vs "you've correctly drawn letters that exist in a coherent structure to spell 'ahblisferdif' and therefore it is a good word"?

PS:
What I'd be interested in knowing is how themes are developed and changed in a JW score or Howard Shore score (not technically speaking); knowing if, after the basic theme and mood development, theory is used (i.e. inversions, etc) to change and meld ideas or if it's done purely intuitively (again, not prescriptively, but as a starting pointing or a tool).

 

Mike, I think your point about remembering that it is about organization is really key. The idea of writing something based on theoretical structure alone leaves a foul taste in my mouth -- while I love certain aleatoric parts for the purpose of communicating chaos or mood (though the best chaos tends to be order disguised as chaos), I hated writing 12-tone pieces or aleatoric pieces in school. The idea of approaching music purely from a theoretical perspective or as an intellectual exercise feels like it kills it for me.
I was concerned that maybe I need to re-think my approach, but I've found the theory I have learned has served me well for mental organizational purposes, and understanding basics as they become relevant (i.e. after piano lessons as a kid, on and off playing as a teen, and 3 years of focused guitar playing learning by ear with little knowledge of the fretboard when it comes to notes). I think this idea is expressed even in Comp 1 where you talk about which intervals tend to be the most important in a chord, using common notes to modulate between keys, justifying nonfunctional harmony, etc. In Comp 2 you specifically break down chord types and common moods, connections, etc, so I think my perception of theory in a basic sense may differ from what you meant in the original quote. More or less trying to consolidate the majority of your instruction in those classes with that quote.

Doug: Thanks for the link. Your idea about thinking "in" rather than "about" music is really important, but I think I fortunately do this naturally unless I'm at a place where I panic and fear that I'll never be able to write something as cool as I'm hearing (haha). As I mentioned above, I think theory as organization has really been quite helpful in understanding music, but I absolutely see the supremacy of transcribing and writing over learning technical theory. It's really nice to have things demystified sometimes though.

Thanks for the video link, he seems like a good speaker and that actually sounds quite interesting, though I'll separate that for random intellectual endeavors, rather than letting it take up "pool" time (I know what you mean about question asking, I'm guilty of that quite apparently).

PS -- for the record, while I do find theory breakdowns of interesting/non-conventional pieces to be interesting, I wouldn't say that I spend much time studying it, if at all, and I'll be the first to admit that studying it further gives me no confidence that it will improve my writing ability. Transcribing, playing and writing really do take the forefront, and when I hear music, I think in "moods" or "emotions" -- trying to recognize a particular sound technically is purely for reproduction purposes.

 

Part 2:

I suppose then, I have another question: Mike, when it comes to actually practicing (I'm a crap piano player), despite my years on guitar and with music, would you strongly recommend against playing scales around the circle of fifths (or something), forming chords through different keys, etc as practice or warmup? Not for a brand-new beginner, but someone that's familiar with music. Would you instead recommend learning to play pieces learned by ear as a means or improving one's chops (for lack of a better term), for warmup, etc?

 

I definitely don't play to a metronome often enough. Is playing along over top of a piano piece in a similar camp as playing to an isolated drum track? I find it helps get the "feel" of a part down, but I'm not sure if it's a good habit.