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given that "classical" music theory extends through modern times, it has been/continues to be forced to explain anything that noteworthy composers can think of.
if it can deal with atonalism and serialism, it can deal with 12 bars of dom7 chords.
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01-30-2014 10:31 PM
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Here's what the wiki page says under "Analysis":
Originally Posted by fumblefingers
The twelve-bar blues, a chromatic chord progression, is a logical formula for blues music: without the dominant's major minor seventh chord (in C: G7), the sequence does not accord with the tonal "V-I" relationship. Instead, it would be based mostly on a plagal cadence—an IV-I change (in C: F-C). The key is fully verified with the V7 (G7) chord,[citation needed] but only after going over the subdominant (F) and tonic (C).
Additionally, the chord progression meshes elements of major and minor. The major-minor (dominant) seventh chords used on each degree alone seem to fall in some grey area between the strong, content major chord and the somber, conflicted minor chord.[citation needed] The subdominant's seventh chord is of note here, because of its odd relationship with the tonic.
In classical music, the dominant (major-minor) seventh chord on the tonic would almost certainly resolve elsewhere (rather than being resolved to), especially its subdominant (from C7: to F). While, at first it seems to resolve well to the subdominant, this is merely a tonicization (brief leave to another key), because of the earlier emphasis on the dominant seventh (C7), and because of the dominant seventh that appears on the subdominant, an element found in the Dorian mode. Traditionally, the seventh of the subdominant chord would not be flattened, as it would contradict the third of the tonic chord. This undermines the expected resolution and also questions whether the actual tonic is major or minor in quality: this seventh chord (F-A-C-E♭) resolves back to the tonic by resolving both up a step to
(E♭-->E) (mediant), and down a step to from 
(F-->E) (leading tone); and down harmonically to I.
When returning to the I7 chord, the major third sounds like a Picardy third resolution, and the minor seventh no longer seems to resolve to the sixth (B♭-->A, the third of IV; instead it seems like a blue note that adds a tense, funky, thick color to the tonic.
There's a lot of hedging there.
I'm not saying it's impossible to describe the blues using classical theory. I'm saying that in doing so, you get a contortion of terminology, and if you're looking for the big difference between the systems, this is probably it.
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Haha. Well you get what you pay for. That's pretty tortured.
On the other hand, how did T-Bone Walker describe it?
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Much pre 20th century Classical music theory deals with the evolving expansion of the major and minor system.
Blues, while it also operated around a strong tonal center, at it's core was a dominant I chord.
This was different than the secondary dominant, V7 of IV (C7 to F) although blues also incorporated this move.
The emergence of Blues music was more related to African American people expressing themselves from a sound canvas drawn from their cultural roots than creating a variation on the Classical theories of the day.
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This is exactly what I meant! Originally Posted by fumblefingers
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Hi
No no no, definitely not Bach! I love and have studied Bach for years, but he was anything but an innovator or theorist! In fact, he still used old fashioned (even in his time!) soon-to-be nearly extinct forms like the fugue while others were already writing opera's. Originally Posted by MattC
He was pretty conservative (though also very pragmatic) and brought existing forms to a height never surpassed! He was the dinosaur that closed a stylistic period, but afaik didn't publish any theoretical works.
For fundamentals rather look to earlier guys like Josquin de Prez, Glarean, Gaffurio and of course Zarlino.
In later years, around the time Bach lived too, the main theorist to look for is undoubtedly Jean-Philippe Rameau.Last edited by Pukka-J; 01-31-2014 at 03:51 AM.
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to be fair, MattC didn't say he was; he said "the fundamentals of "classical" theory... can be boiled down to...Bach"- quite a different claim. It's quite true that Bach chorales form a substantial part of academic SATB harmony study (if we can call that the "fundamentals" of classical theory). Originally Posted by Pukka-J
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Well, even so I still don't think it's true. Bach's works may serve as the ultimate example and as such are indeed a huge part of harmony study, but that doesn't mean classical theory can be boiled down to him. Don't know, might be a language thing though :-) Originally Posted by JonR
In any case, musical theory certainly didn't stop developing post Bach. As I remember correctly the second Viennese school did its thing with serialism, atonalism and such (and then I'm skipping classssicism and the folk influenced romantic period, among others!). Then there's Bartok with his polytonality. Stravinsky with his jazz thing.
Many examples of new concepts, often derived from folk and popular culture, that ask for explanation.
There's no classical or jazz theory. There's music theory.
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Theory is describing the nature/ practice in predefined terminology. Once something's explained, becoming a common place, it receives an idiomatic name. Just like, as somebody mentioned, there is "neapolitan something", with clear meaning to those familiar with terminology (no, not me, I have no idea), there is "blues other thing", so you don't have to explain it all from the beginning, from some axioms, but rather just say the name of it.
So "classic" theory may have already incorporated "blues" as a term, or if not, it surely have described it in some previously defined terminology. I mean, how much more complex can it be than "I-IV-V, with blue notes"?
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Pukka-J, you misunderstood my post. Sorry, I didn't really make it clear. I by no means was suggesting that Bach himself was a theorist, or that the study of music theory ends with his death. All I was trying to say is that the fundamentals of minor/major tonality, chord function, resolutions, cadences, etc. as taught in many/most college "classical" theory classes really heavily on those 4 voice Bach chorales, at least for the first semester or two. At least in my own experience this was true. I'm not even saying this is right or wrong, I'm just saying for the OP, you could probably get a lot of this basic stuff just by studying Bach.
I do agree that those other names and styles you mention are part of "classical" theory study as well. Good point about the earlier, pre-Bach guys. IIRC, college theory teaches about the renaissance composers as great in their own right, but also as the links between the early "church mode" stuff and Bach's era. As for the later stuff, to my memory much of the study of the classical (Mozart, etc.) era focused on form. Even later, I remember we had assignments involving serialism (in our last semester of theory classes)-but learning how to use 12-tone rows would certainly not be what I consider fundamentals, or even really practical in terms of most music.
To shift back to "jazz" theory, didn't Miles Davis say something about if you just study Gil Evans scores, "you won't need no school" or something to that effect?
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Hi Matt, fair enough, it seems I misread your post alright as I seem to agree with what you say :-)
As for Miles, I never studied Gil Evans but since many of those cats were classically schooled, Gil could have had a good knowledge of both 'classical' theory and jazz tradition, so there might be some truth in that statement. Miles would know since he too attended music college before dropping out :-)
And not to mention he was a great fan of Strawinsky and Varese from early on.Last edited by Pukka-J; 01-31-2014 at 06:47 AM.
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This is such a wonderful read (so far, at least)! Pity I do not have enough knowledge, but I think I can understand enough to enjoy it. Originally Posted by Stevebol
"The conquest of a vantage point from which to subject music to the laws of proportion and correlation seems evident also in a new awareness of the distance of time." Real beauty, isn't it?
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This is what I was trying to say. You can attempt to explain the blues using classical music theory, but it ends up strange since the theory is not intended to describe that kind of music. Attempting to explain Indian classical music rhythms and song forms using standard Western notation methods is another example of this problem. Originally Posted by bako
European or Western music theory is awesome, but it's not a catch-all.
Exactly. Originally Posted by fumblefingers
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How about a little classical study by Carcassi that uses both the Neapolitan Sixth and a tritone-sub (German Augmented Sixth).
http://www.johnhallguitar.com/blog/c...p_60_analysis/
John
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I don't have the knowledge of classical music to contribute much to this discussion, but wanted to say I appreciate that it's happening!
here's a little "blues" by Maurice Ravel, 1920s:
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I would say that the biggest difference is that in Jazz, the focus on improvisation leads theorists to try to look at things in as many different ways as we can, so as to give us more possibilities for improvising. In classical theory, they're looking to explain why something a composer did works, so they try to narrow stuff down to fewer explanations. There's nothing wrong with either approach, it's just a question of what your goal is. In jazz, it's to find possibilities. In classical, it's to find explanations.
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Originally Posted by Boston Joe
seems to me that theorists are trying to codify/explain, regardless of style. and artists are trying to create, regardless of style.
finally, "classical" is an order of magnitude larger than jazz. i don't see how that equates to "narrowing stuff down".
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Classical musicians, players, instrumentalists, etc., could give a shit about theory. Put the chart in front of them and this is what they've basically trained for. I know classical players that don't even know enough theory to build chords. Pianists that can't tell the names of the chords they're playing. In classical music, theory is for mostly composers and arrangers.
In jazz, a level of theory is in use by players because many play a form of jazz that demands it. So it is in much more common usage with a jazz musicians than a musician in a symphony orchestra.
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yes indeed, a lot of truth in that.
i asked a well known recording & concert classical guitarist a question about a big expansive chord played at the dramatic end of a piece that she had just performed. her eyes got big, she smiled and said "oohhhhh!"
She didn't have the first darned clue, and couldn't care less. why should she? she had the job of playing it right and playing the same way every time.
of course the range and scope of "theory" in the jazz context is overwhelmingly constrained to song form, most of which repeat the form in no more than 32 bars.
that's a very small space, relatively speaking.
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Why would the scope of theory be constrained relative to the form?
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form is a constraint, a significant one.
music theory typically concerns itself with what has been/can be observed in practice. so if practice is constrained theory follows.
as was stated before, jazz music confines itself to song form the overwhelming majority of the time. why would "jazz theory" need to go beyond jazz practice?
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This I can relate to. Having been trained a classical player I use theory different now I'm dabbling in jazz. Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
I already knew how to build chords all right, but indeed didn't need to: it was all written down by the composer...Last edited by Pukka-J; 02-03-2014 at 11:35 AM.
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Nice to see you contributing here on jazz forums, John Hall! Unless I err, John is a very accomplished classical guitarist, composer, and arranger. Thanks for your erudite contribution.
Jazz is just an extension of Western classical music tradition. While theory may not be the focus of many classical musicians in their formative learning period, I think to suggest that classically trained musicians do not study or know any theory is a bit of a stretch. Let's see who can read notation for starters.Last edited by targuit; 02-03-2014 at 04:43 AM.
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Reading music doesn't require any theoretical knowledge. It's only notation/nomenclature. Ask the average kid that's sight reading orchestra charts in a high school band how much theory they know. Originally Posted by targuit
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perhaps we should define the bounds of "theory" here.
i think that a broad and deep capability in reading music could be considered as "knowing some theory", at least the fundamental part of theory. of course theory goes way beyond that though...
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