Thinking theory

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

[...] Bach is theory. Theory is Bach. [...]

Think "A rose is a rose is a rose.".

We very probably fail to perceive Bobby T. as a proponent of an extended concept of literature ...

Don'tcha all remember that ol' tune?

Hey my name is Bobby T
And everyone is mad @ theory
-- Frank Zapata --

[Bobby Timmons]

^ And the neurotic posts begin. Key symptoms of being mad at theory. Irrational posts are a given.

Peter: I didn't say it was bad, I meant it uses a strict structure, like all of his music, which he arrived at using theory. I used to play that piece on upright.

[pamosmusic]

Fun fact, I don't have my college diploma, but I do have my senior recital program framed on the wall by my computer. Priorities, dig?

(Also the program is signed by Andrew York which is kind of cool. I played the third cello suite, which York plays on a guitar tuned down into the cello range. Cool stuff. I got to play in a masterclass for him and hear him play that live, along with a piece of his that I also played on my recital. So that was neat.)

[pamosmusic]

^ And the neurotic posts begin. Key symptoms of being mad at theory.

Peter: I didn't say it was bad, I meant it uses a strict structure, like all of his music, which he arrived at using theory. I used to play that piece on upright.

You seem to have missed my point. Ah well.

[Bobby Timmons]

I replied to the part where you disagreed with me and misinterpreted me.. The other part I had no contention with. We're going into the twilight zone..

Oh buddy you're stepping into my wheelhouse now.

I don't know much about Bach as a person, but I did sit down on a stage once by myself with no music, start playing a cello suite, and not stop or stand up for 26 minutes.

So I have this student who is working on the second cello suite right now, and he gets a passage and is like "heck yeah I'm awesome." And I've been trying to tell him for a while that the thing that makes Bach hard to perform is not the density of the counterpoint or sophistication of the harmony or whatever, but that it's so through-composed. Even in one of the dance forms, once you start playing a phrase, you might not be able to find a stopping place until you hit the repeat. On a prelude? Forget about it. Before one phrase ends, the next one has already started. It's very very very difficult to know where you are and keep your place as you work through the piece. The whole thing might be superficially very put-together, but they can be really unusual and take strange twists and turns.

Truth be told, Bach is a little bit feral.

And honestly ... someone calling the Prelude to the first Cello Suite "regimented" and "nothing but outlining a chord progression with mostly arpeggios and some scale tones" is one of the saddest things I've ever heard.

It's one of a half dozen of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written for instruments and is wildly unpredictable. That ending build up with the pedal point and the dissonance? Come on.

[Christian Miller]

I feel worse about you and your complexes going around purporting Bach wasn't theoretical lol. You're quite pathological. I know the origin of your pathology too, but I'll save that for later.

Right, so a bunch of insults later, I still have no idea what you are actually trying to say. It’s an endless bunch of pivots to different subjects. I’m inclined to think you don’t know either tbh

And we end up at Bach for some reason, who you are characterising in all sorts of odd ways.

I’ve asked you to be specific. I don’t care about this word ‘theory’ - what I could do is describe the sort of skills I think are important to improvise for instance a solo on rhythm changes and my ideas of how players acquired these skills in the past. I’ll leave it up to you whether or not you want to classify them as theory. I really don’t mind.

Theory is not a binary yes/no thing. I know quite a few players who say they know no theory who can read chord symbols and solo using chord tones. Perhaps you can send them an angry email or something.

[pamosmusic]

I replied to the part where you disagreed with me.. The other part I had no contention with. We're going into the twilight zone..

The other part was the part where I was trying to tell you that Bach is not as rigidly structured as it might seem.

[Christian Miller]

Oh buddy you're stepping into my wheelhouse now.

I don't know much about Bach as a person, but I did sit down on a stage once by myself with no music, start playing a cello suite, and not stop or stand up for 26 minutes.

So I have this student who is working on the second cello suite right now, and he gets a passage and is like "heck yeah I'm awesome." And I've been trying to tell him for a while that the thing that makes Bach hard to perform is not the density of the counterpoint or sophistication of the harmony or whatever, but that it's so through-composed. Even in one of the dance forms, once you start playing a phrase, you might not be able to find a stopping place until you hit the repeat. On a prelude? Forget about it. Before one phrase ends, the next one has already started. It's very very very difficult to know where you are and keep your place as you work through the piece. The whole thing might be superficially very put-together, but they can be really unusual and take strange twists and turns.

Truth be told, Bach is a little bit feral.

And honestly ... someone calling the Prelude to the first Cello Suite "regimented" and "nothing but outlining a chord progression with mostly arpeggios and some scale tones" is one of the saddest things I've ever heard.

It's one of a half dozen of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written for instruments and is wildly unpredictable. That ending build up with the pedal point and the dissonance? Come on.

There’s a reason the Romantics loved him so much.


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[Bobby Timmons]

Christian, politely: cut the bs. Try going 1 post without a red herring, straw man, or alt fact, then criticize my conduct. I've told you 4 times what the definition of theory is, this being the 5th. It's how to get the structure of music that is explained in spoken language, not musical language. So yes this is all encompassing: chords, counterpoint, how to tune your guitar, CST, olden times how to associate melody with harmony, doesn't matter.

[Bobby Timmons]

The other part was the part where I was trying to tell you that Bach is not as rigidly structured as it might seem.

Well there's immense creativity and beauty interwoven with his structure.

[Christian Miller]

Christian, politely: cut the bs. Try going 1 post without a red herring, straw man, or alt fact, then criticize my conduct. I've told you 4 times what the definition of theory is. It's how to get the structure of music that is explained in spoken language, not musical language. So yes this is all encompassing: chords, counterpoint, how to tune your guitar, CST, olden times how to associate melody with harmony, doesn't matter.

And this should be important to me for what reason?

I’m not sure what value such a definition has. Literally calling ‘rhythm changes’ is a form of theory by this definition. Or a ‘blues.’

I don’t think this is a very widespread understanding of the term.

It also tells us nothing.

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[Bobby Timmons]

Calling rhythm changes can be conceptualized aurally or theoretically. If you call rhythm changes then put down a chart for a novice to read, that's theory.

If you call rhythm changes for a mythical musician who knows zero theory, grew up feral in the woods, but had access to an instrument and music recordings, and completely understands rhythm changes 100% aurally, then it's not theory.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

While looking for a Bach recording played by a friend to calm me down before I get tempted to write more "neurotic posts" ...

I came across this ...

which reminded me that we could talk about music in a totally different and also very practically oriented way.

[Christian Miller]

Pretty much the only thing I learned that you think most musical activity is music theory and have provided a definition whereby tuning the guitar and writing fugues are both music theory.

This doesn’t seem to me to be a very specific or enlightening definition, so I suggest we are more specific in our use of language in case it triggers another 100 posts. I’m ok with this.

I suppose it does allow you to conflate several completely different things together. You are the one who is insisting on using the term. I don’t care about using it if it’s so vague.

Other than that, no idea mate.

[Christian Miller]

You seem to have missed my point. Ah well.

It’s like wrestling a jellyfish. I say it’s less a bug, more a feature.


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[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

[...] so I suggest we are more specific in our use of language in case it triggers another 100 posts. I’m ok with this. [...]

Then we should at least call Guinness World Records Limited.

[Jimmy blue note]

If Bach had had a forum in his day through which he could discuss his process through discussion and letters, we'd probably have a great work on music in words for the ages to treasure. But he was actually making music instead of discussing it. Now all we have is music. Damn!

During his working life he wrote a contata a week. He hardly had time to eat. It was his wife (wives) and their children who literally sustained his compositional genius by bringing him small balanced meal packages while he could compose non stop. After he died, his children continued this tradition which came to be known as the Bachs' lunch.

[Bobby Timmons]

Pretty much the only thing I learned that you think most musical activity is music theory and have provided a definition whereby tuning the guitar and writing fugues are both music theory. This doesn’t seem to me to be a very specific or enlightening definition, so I suggest we are more specific in our use of language in case it triggers another 100 posts. I’m ok with this.

You're so intellectual but you can't understand that theory is any information about music structure that isn't music.

I suppose it does allow you to conflate several completely different things together. You are the one who is insisting on using the term. I don’t care about using it if it’s so vague.

I'm not the one creating confusion and red herrings, you are. My original premises were only that the vast majority of competent musicians use theory to some degree, and that you can't chalk up music structure info to somehow not being theory. Other people initiated tangents and I responded to them accurately.

[BreckerFan]

What exactly is "music structure"? I don't think guitar tuning really tells you about the structure of any particular piece of music. You can play the same piece of music on a guitar tuned in a multitude of different ways.

Does sheet music, as a medium of recording music, tell you about music structure? If so, do other mediums also qualify as music theory? Would a recording of a waveform tell you about music structure, and therefore qualify as music theory? Would the binary string used to digitally encode a waveform qualify? Should we all be learning binary in theory class?

I don't think this definition is as airtight as you think it is.

[Bobby Timmons]

You know what I'm referring to. 'Not aural skills.' Is intellectually knowing that the guitar is tuned EADGBE aural ability? No. Just tuning the guitar to those notes that they're supposed to be is aural skills.

I'm going to take a break from the forum and practice my alt-BH. Mad at theory thread redux has made me weary.

[pamosmusic]

I'm not the one creating confusion and red herrings, you are.

....

Christian, politely: cut the bs. Try going 1 post without a red herring, straw man, or alt fact, then criticize my conduct.

If I may be so bold, perhaps this is a good time to point out that we recently determined you'd spent five pages arguing with something I repeatedly never said (and repeatedly told you I never said).

So it's possible––just possible–that you're not reading people thoroughly here, and/or not fully grasping their replies.

For whatever that's worth.

[Bobby Timmons]

^ I'm trying sir. At least I'm not going: Bach didn't use theory, what was your definition of theory again? Bach didn't use theory, he played counterpoint, what was your definition of theory? chords aren't theory, what's your definition of theory? Bach didn't use theory, what's your definition of theory? Etc.

[pamosmusic]

^ I'm trying sir. At least I'm not going: Bach didn't use theory, what was your definition of theory again? Bach didn't use theory, he played counterpoint, what was your definition of theory? chords aren't theory, what's your definition of theory? Bach didn't use theory, what's your definition of theory? Etc.

If you're trying ... please do us the kindness of dropping a quote of the person who said "Bach didn't use theory."

[Bobby Timmons]

Posts 123 and 127 respectively.

This is theory.

Bach knew counterpoint.

Implying that it's not theory, otherwise he would have agreed.

Post 122.

We actually have a pretty good idea of how Bach taught music unlike Charlie Parker. It may qualify as ‘theory’ depending on what that is to you.

Post 135.

I also know of a music professor who would say, no, Bach did not use music theory.

[pamosmusic]

Post 122:



Post 135:

Lit. So one post where he literally says “it may qualify as theory” and happens to be citing another person, and a second post where he’s explicitly citing another person.