Against Music Theory – some commentary

My fellow music tech student Laura Dickens had some thoughts about my recent music theory rant. This is a lightly edited version of our Facebook conversation.

Laura: Have you ever read any Susan McClary? I feel like you could probably get into that…

Me: Yes! Susan McClary is the best! She shares my belief in the joy of repetition.

Laura: Personally, I loved music theory when it became more about analysis and interpretation, and less about doing endless counterpoint exercises. All music theory is is a way of understanding music from the past, using certain rules gleaned from that music and seeing how those rules are played with by certain composers and and how those rules changed over time… although I agree with you that theory as it is taught in big institutions is very Eurocentric. It is a tool for analysis, and learning all those boring counterpoint rules aren’t so that you can then go out and write a bunch of chorales… it’s more like learning to read middle English so that you can read/analyze some Chaucer. Or learning about 17th century poetic/styles forms in order to which still influence the way poems are written today… So that’s why I think music theory is important/useful.

Me: Completely agree.

Laura: I guess what I mean is that the rules aren’t meant to be rules for how to make music, but how music has been made. In the same way that you have to follow certain rules to write a sonnet, but you don’t have to only write sonnets. And if you want to analyze some sonnets, you are going to need to know the rules. And I absolutely agree that it is the theory of people from the past’s preferences, which makes it (to me at least) very interesting indeed! For example, isn’t it interesting that in part some of the rules of counterpoint might have been informed by the acoustics of churches?

Me: YES, SUPER INTERESTING.

Laura: Music theory isn’t just one tool, but a bunch of different tools developed by different people at different times: counterpoint, harmony, Schenkerian analysis, that thing by that Strauss guy for studying atonal music… and even the history of music theory is kind of interesting! You can really get a look at people’s musical values from the past. I dunno, I guess it is the historical context that fascinates me.

They are observed rules, not rules to be followed. In the same way that we observed scientific “rules” and develop a theory, however unlike science, it is an art, and the rules depend on the historical/cultural/social context. If they are teaching it as “rules to be followed” then they are doing it WRONG.

Me: Totally with you on the historical value of learning how to bang out chorales. It’s a fine thing! I’m glad I learned it. But yeah, it’s too much with that stuff.

Laura: I really think it is only useful if you want to perform that music, write it, or analyze it. Otherwise kind of a waste of time.

Me: I am all about the ways that the grubby physical world shapes musical abstractions, the whole question of how much Beethoven’s upset stomach informed whichever symphony.

Laura: Seriously, THAT’s the kind of stuff they should be teaching.

Me: I’m all in favor of teaching the different rule systems, but it becomes a problem for me when everyone is required to know the one set of rules extremely well, and everything else is elective. When I run a music school, everyone’s going to have to learn how to figure stuff out from recordings, how to improvise, how to sing, how to play percussion, and yes, deriving chords from the major scale etc.

Laura: Your school sounds like a very good practical school, but I think that there also needs to be spaces for theory.. which is what historically universities have been for, but since they got all cozy with conservatories, things got a little confused.

Me: I learned all my theory in the jazz context, so it was more like, here’s this solo, go transcribe it, and it’ll be much easier if you understand the chord/scale theory at work. Ditto with improvisation — gotta know your theory very very well if you’re going to blow over changes. But it’s conceptualized more as a box of tools rather than a set of rules.

Laura: The concept of “conservatories” is kind of repulsive, like musicians/music are something that has to be conserved like creepy sickly hothouse flowers. But actually, never mind. I think that if you want to play the harpsichord just like they did hundreds of years ago, then go for it. Hmmm. Well classical theory has been used that way in the past… when people were writing that way, but more recently it has been used for analysis. Also I guess I think it is also useful because composers should be able to draw from/understand music from the past in order to say something that people will understand. Kind of like a dialog with dead people… T.S. Eliot has this great essay called “Tradition and the Individual Talent” that I kind of can get into. Here.. the wiki gives a great breakdown. Although have you read any of that audio scene analysis book? Bregman? It ties some counterpoint rules to psychoacoustic rules. like voice spacing etc.

Me: LOL, “creepy sickly hothouse flowers.” I love it. Didn’t Bregman come up in Psychology of Music? I haven’t had the brain space to look into it, but the minute I’m done with my thesis, I’m diving deeply into that stuff. The dialog with dead people is a good way to frame things. It’s not, the dead people telling you what’s allowed and what isn’t, it’s more like, here are the dead people offering you some wisdom, and you taking it and running with it. Have not read this TS Eliot essay and look forward to doing so on the train home.

Laura: Exactly.. and if you know how the dead people talk, you can argue with them! Tell them to shut the fff up, if you feel like it. Eliot is definitely a product of his time/place, and his writing comes off as a little know-it-all-y, but he has some interesting ideas. Enjoy that train ride!

Me: So, any of you people reading this want to jump in? Please do.