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I agree regarding most 'music theory' in actuality being 'music notation', but disagree that 'real theory' is about the construction of major and minor scales a

I agree regarding most 'music theory' in actuality being 'music notation', but disagree that 'real theory' is about the construction of major and minor scales and the relationship between notes. I'd argue that one is only doing music theory if they're using the notation to analyze a piece of music. E.g. taking apart a Bach Fugue to understand - or hypothesize - about a larger structure, uncover motivic developments, etc. Or analyzing a Bird solo to get at how he's interpreting the chord changes, how certain changes work together to form larger structures, where/how he's using enclosures, where and whether or not he's quoting other players, etc.

codeulike 6y ago
Yeah I'd agree with that. I think of 'Music Theory' as being that which distinguishes between 'music' as commonly understood vs random plinky plonk notes with random percussion. Which can also be stated as 'why does music sound good?'. So that starts with the stuff about frequency ratios which then leads to chords and keys and scales, and then at a deeper level yes you start looking at song structure and the balance between repetition and progression, the different types of progression like key changes and the overall art of the balance between meeting expectations and subverting them.
- megameter 6y ago
  One of the deepest issues I see with music theory as it stands is simply that harmony is "overworked". It has a lot of baggage that is of some use conversationally to discuss different eras and genres and to play polyphonically, but also not really needed to write interesting music or make sense of an existing piece. Most harmonic structure can be described very well just in terms of scale degree emphasis, and overlapping scales where the structure is complex. And it's quite easy to stumble into "spicy" yet listenable results by setting yourself up with two scales, playing monophonic arpeggiations that interchange them, and then condensing those into chord progressions. It's much harder to reach those chords by starting with a list of block chords, because that medium works in one scale at a time, so the notation quickly gets unwieldy.

codeulike 6y ago

Yeah I'd agree with that. I think of 'Music Theory' as being that which distinguishes between 'music' as commonly understood vs random plinky plonk notes with random percussion. Which can also be stated as 'why does music sound good?'. So that starts with the stuff about frequency ratios which then leads to chords and keys and scales, and then at a deeper level yes you start looking at song structure and the balance between repetition and progression, the different types of progression like key changes and the overall art of the balance between meeting expectations and subverting them.

megameter 6y ago
One of the deepest issues I see with music theory as it stands is simply that harmony is "overworked". It has a lot of baggage that is of some use conversationally to discuss different eras and genres and to play polyphonically, but also not really needed to write interesting music or make sense of an existing piece. Most harmonic structure can be described very well just in terms of scale degree emphasis, and overlapping scales where the structure is complex. And it's quite easy to stumble into "spicy" yet listenable results by setting yourself up with two scales, playing monophonic arpeggiations that interchange them, and then condensing those into chord progressions. It's much harder to reach those chords by starting with a list of block chords, because that medium works in one scale at a time, so the notation quickly gets unwieldy.