Why Music Theory Is So Frustratingly Confusing!
“I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it”
— IGOR STRAVINSKY
It is amazing to learn that our prehistoric ancestors already knew how to turn a bone into a flute by drilling holes at the right places. Together with dancing, music can put you into a different “place” in your mind and create feelings that are very special.
I suspect that finding new ways to express musical feelings has been an interesting challenge to most musicians. Because of my background, I am of course focusing only on Western music.
We all know how important singing and music as a whole was for religious ceremonies in all religions. The spiritual leaders of the Christian church felt it was important to lay down some rules as to what was permissible music for religious occasions. That attitude was not reserved only for spiritual leaders; I find it fascinating to learn that when something as harmless as the waltz came into being the bourgeois leaders condemned it as being morally degrading.
It turned out to be impossible to keep the lid on new developments in music, of course.
The outcome of all of this was that we now have lots of different genres of music, one of which we call Classical Music. Google informs me that “The major time divisions of classical music up to 1900 are the early music period, which includes Medieval (500–1400) and Renaissance (1400–1600) eras, and the Common practice period, which includes the Baroque (1600–1750), Classical (1750–1820) and Romantic (1810–1910) eras.”
Within each of these periods there was enough opportunity for composers to find new styles to express their music.
Not surprisingly that gave rise to a new profession, the high priests of classical music who analysed the music and discovered what “rules” it was based on and documented it. Even though to me being creative is probably not an inducement to be analytical there have been composers who wanted to be experts in music theory and at the same time brilliant as composers as well. Frequently when that happened, the reason was that the composer in question had broken ranks with the established order and broken the rules as to what was acceptable technique in composing. The led to a need to justify one’s new approach and to look for supporters. Alternatively a composer may have wanted to set the bar for what was the right way to compose, feeling that other composers were not living up to such standards.
I imagine that you, like I, can listen to music from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner and Mahler and enjoy it all. The music speaks to you without there being any need for you to recognize that each of these composers was applying different “rules” for their compositions.
It probably takes a Musikwissenschaftler, (in English a scientist in music theory) to recognize the differences when hearing music.
When it comes to more modern composers like say Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, to name a few, many who love more or less all composers from the prior eras do not feel that listening to the modern classical music produces those magical moments of wonderful and deep feelings that the earlier music did.
I have gone to music concerts for more than 50 years now and remember that very often a concerto was “arranged” so that you would get a piece of music from say Bach or Mozart as the opening piece which I would then be followed by a piece, usually shorter, from a very modern composer and after the interval you might hear a symphony of Brahms. Concerto goers would always grumble why they had to listen to that crazy music in the middle section.
This not so subtle effort to bring the lovers of classical music to accept and like the music modern composers produce has not really been successful with the exception of universities and music high schools, where God, it appears, now only speaks, sings and plays instruments in 12 tone music style. The fact that the music loving audience has escaped into other genres like pop, jazz or others does not bother these new high priests of classical music. I wonder if in the days of Bach classical and pop where the same? Bach did write a Coffee Cantata and the music sounds exactly the same as one of his religious cantatas.
Personally I can enjoy music from composers like Stravinsky and Bartok and find that Debussy is a tremendous composer. Schoenberg wrote some very romantic classical music before he created his new 12 tone music technique. To date, June 2018 I have not yet been able to see any compelling reason for the need to create 12 tone music just to get away from what Schoenberg considered to be a stifling focus on cadences and the tonica in music.
To me it appears that the focus in writing in 12 tone music style has gone into what I call “engineered” music. A good example to me is Stockhausen’s Kreuzspiel, where a computer program would have been very helpful to apply all the complicated rules in order to create the score.
I have asked one of my teachers at university to give me examples of songs that were written in 12 tone style and that folks like me would be happy to sing along to. He said “sure” but I never heard about that topic again.
It is still early days for me as far as my ability to appreciate more and different music is concerned, so I am not closing any doors. For me my composition effort starts with music that pops into my head. It just comes and I like it and think that maybe I can do something with it.
When I start working with an idea I first try to discover what other musical ideas can work with that idea; so I am still allowing the creative aspects free reign. It is when I am ready to add support in the form of multiple instruments, applying harmonies to make the sound more complete that the engineering aspect of music comes into being.
The engineering aspects of music are covered by music theory. So if you are clever enough you can learn to compose exactly like Bach did or Mozart or anybody else. Since these composers created incredible music that is indeed a tempting idea. The question is whom would you pick?
Or would you be able to write one piece like Bach and another like Mahler? Folks would say “this sounds like Bach or this sounds like Mozart”, but would you not want them to say “this sounds like Rolf?”
Developing his or her own style has been very important to every composer I am aware of. Usually a composer thought that there were good reasons to push the envelope so to say and create a more novel sound compared to what was the state of the art at the moment.
For someone like me who in 2018 wants to compose classical music what am I to do? Pushing the envelope and going beyond 12 tone music is not what I am after, since I don’t get 12 tone musical ideas to pop up in my head.
I just love Schubert, for example, but trying to compose like Schubert would not be a good idea. It would turn into a poor copy.
So I am not sure to what degree it helps you to fully understand all the different classical music compositional techniques in depth if it is not a good idea to compose like that? Schoenberg famously stated that before tackling 12 tone music you needed an in-depth understanding of what came before (which means a lot of ground to cover). It made me think that this is a little like before you learn to drive a car you need to be able to ride a horse?
The question that still interests me is how can someone who loves classical music and who wants to compose best use music theory to develop his or her own style? For me as a result of my interest in understanding Stravinsky, Bartok and Messiaen I am currently spending a lot of time exploring writing music based on the octatonic scale, I.e. a scale with 8 notes rather than 7. If you are more interested in this topic please read the section How Octatonics Changed My Life!
There is still a lot for me to discover about harmonies using an 9 note scale and I want to look at scales with 9 notes as well. At the end I hope I will land up with a style that suits my desire to create the music I like to listen to.
Wiesbaden, June 2, 2018