Theory vs. playing by ear

[Bobby Timmons]

Lol nice try. Speak the truth then try to direct.

[Christian Miller]

Didn’t miss it. I even agree with it. I just don’t agree with the whole idea that some aspects of the thing are fundamental. Meaning that bullseye isn’t always in the same place.

Folks hear things in different ways and that’s pretty much fine.

it makes musicians happy to feel music is of some cosmic significance, and this belief has deep cultural roots. It’s a colourful, interesting and (mostly) benign tradition, but it has nothing to do with modern science.

[Chris236]

Lol nice try. Speak the truth then try to direct.

Not sure what you’re talking about but please continue.

[James W]

it makes musicians happy to feel music is of some cosmic significance, and this belief has deep cultural roots. It’s a colourful, interesting and (mostly) benign tradition, but it has nothing to do with modern science.

Interesting - how come only mostly benign?

[Chris236]

it makes musicians happy to feel music is of some cosmic significance, and this belief has deep cultural roots. It’s a colourful, interesting and (mostly) benign tradition, but it has nothing to do with modern science.

What makes the 7th of the V chord want to resolve to the 3rd of the one chord and 3rd of the V chord want to resolve up to the root of the one chord?

tradition? Conditioning? Theory? I don’t think so, nor do I think it’s more or less significant than anything else in nature.

[James W]

What makes the 7th of the V chord want to resolve to the 3rd of the one chord and 3rd of the V chord want to resolve up to the root of the one chord?

tradition? Conditioning? Theory? I don’t think so, nor do I think it’s more or less significant than anything else in nature.

Conditioning, definitely.

[Chris236]

Conditioning, definitely.

wholeheartedly disagree with this.

[RLetson]

One of my profs (a medievalist, as it happened) used to say that everyone is born either a baby Platonist or a baby Aristotelian. There was also something about clean-desk/messy-desk that was supposed to be a diagnostic sign, but I can't recall which was which. (And as a now-grown-up Aristoltelian with a big dollop of Sophist, I could probably construct arguments in either direction.) Pythagoras fits in there somewhere, too, but I've already injected enough esoterica into the discussion.

[Bobby Timmons]

it makes musicians happy to feel music is of some cosmic significance, and this belief has deep cultural roots. It’s a colourful, interesting and (mostly) benign tradition, but it has nothing to do with modern science.

That's one thing I don't have an opinion on because I don't know, if theoretical rules are man made or naturally occurring.

[pamosmusic]

Conditioning, definitely.

Half-heartedly agree with this.

[James W]

That's one thing I don't have an opinion on because I don't know, if theoretical rules are man made or naturally occurring.

Anthony Storr criticises cogently (IMO) in his book Music And The Mind Leonard Bernstein's attempts to show how tonal music 'comes from nature' owing to the similarity between the overtone series and a triad - by pointing out that they're not quite the same. If anyone is interested in music that actually is based on the overtone series and other acoustic phenomena, I suggest they try music by the likes of Tristan Murail and Gerard Grisey.

[Christian Miller]

Interesting - how come only mostly benign?

Short answer - Read the Baragwanath paper

Longer answer - the theory of music had been used historically as a way to exalt the aesthetic of specific nations music through ‘science’. I have to say I do tend to think of this as a German and Austrian project with regards to music. German speaking theorists in the late c19/early c20 - Hindemith, Reimann, Schoenberg and Schenker were all into this in their own way. Some conservative/traditionalist, some seeking to continue a post-Wagnerian vector of nationalist progressivism in music (Schoenberg in the early c20)

WWII killed the of the nationalist rhetoric, but these theorists ideas are still taught, some very fundamental to the syllabus, and there’s a lot that’s latent in this approach to theory.

(It amuses me that Kant identified this absolutist and essentialist tendency German approach to aesthetics as early as c18… before the modern German state…)

This is something that’s present in much music theory, and present in the mainstream teaching of the classical canon. Much has been said about the absence of women and people of colour in the canon, but while these exceptional people were sadly rare before c20 - there’s only so much Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint Georges, Barbara Strozzi, Hildegard and Clara Schumann wrote - Italians certainly were not rare and in fact dominant until well into the c19, and that we overlook Durante, Pasiellio, Salieri and other Italian greats of the classical era and focus almost solely on Mozart and Haydn is pretty telling. Salieri, one of the most successful, skilled and celebrated musicians of his era is even vilified and demeaned in Pushkin and later Schaffer! The fact he taught Schubert and Beethoven, the most German of composers couldn’t save him. He’s even a villain in a Japanese video game haha.

but also it’s very possible to see the fingerprints of this in the progressivist narrative of music, borrowed by the postwar modernists in a different guise. It sometimes surfaces in jazz…

[James W]

Ah, OK, I didn't realise when you said about music having a cosmic significance you were actually just referring to the history of music theory.

[Christian Miller]

Ah, OK, I didn't realise when you said about music having a cosmic significance you were actually just referring to the history of music theory.

it’s not always possible to disambiguate.

Music theory has always made an appeal to the cosmic, or the natural, but it is often done for a ideological purpose. This was true of the ancient Greeks …

But it’s mostly benign. I don’t think the average muso nerd who gets excited about Fibonacci sequences or something is engaged in some malign political project haha.

For me it’s all on a par with astrology, which is no coincidence. I don’t think music has a cosmic significance beyond the human experience. But many FEEL it, including me.

[Christian Miller]

What makes the 7th of the V chord want to resolve to the 3rd of the one chord and 3rd of the V chord want to resolve up to the root of the one chord?

tradition? Conditioning? Theory? I don’t FEEL so, nor do I FEEL it’s more or less significant than anything else in nature.

Afaik is no evidence to suggest that it is anything other than cultural conditioning. Perception of intervals is highly cultural according to research.

Even intonation… How good are you at hearing the difference between Egyptian and Turkish quarter tones in Maqamat for instance? I have friends who hear all of that stuff..( not me!)

[jameslovestal]

wholeheartedly disagree with this.

I agree with James W. that it is mostly conditioning.

I see you disagree. So what do you believe?

[Christian Miller]

That's one thing I don't have an opinion on because I don't know, if theoretical rules are man made or naturally occurring.

I think the most accurate way I can try and put it is the laws of acoustics and sound are real.

The way these are employed by different cultures are radically different.

Rather than reflecting the natural order of things, music represents the diverse human responses to and harnessing of the natural properties of sound.

Imagine how boring the world would be if one form of music was actually universal.

[Chris236]

I agree with James W. that it is mostly conditioning.

I see you disagree. So what do you believe?

if I don’t believe it’s conditioning, what are we left with?

[Chris236]

Afaik is no evidence to suggest that it is anything other than cultural conditioning. Perception of intervals is highly cultural according to research.

Even intonation… How good are you at hearing the difference between Egyptian and Turkish quarter tones in Maqamat for instance? I have friends who hear all of that stuff..( not me!)

had to look ‘afaik’ up. Hah.

My experience proves otherwise. I make a habit out of testing peoples ability to hear scales like say, Lydian b7 on the Ab7 in the 8th bar of Stella -Usually folks with very little exposure to these sounds beforehand. When someone is struggling with a spot like that, who hasn’t had a chance to find the “ right” sounds, I like to set a tune up and freeze frame those measures to see what the person can come up with solely using their ears and intuition. I’m always impressed with the results which just afirm and reaffirm what I personally have found to be true for most of my life.

As for micro-tonality I haven’t played with it much, and after a lifetime of playing with loud drummers I wonder about the condition of my ringing ears sometimes. Lol . That said, I bet those microtones have their own gravity as well that can probably be divided and subdivided up infinitely.

I wrote this using dictate on my phone so hopefully there’s nothing too weird in there. I need to start including this in all my posts.

[pamosmusic]

had to look ‘afaik’ up. Hah.

My experience proves otherwise. I make a habit out of testing peoples ability to hear scales like say, Lydian b7 on the Ab7 in the 8th bar of Stella -Usually folks with very little exposure to these sounds beforehand. When someone is struggling with a spot like that, who hasn’t had a chance to find the “ right” sounds, I like to set a tune up and freeze frame those measures to see what the person can come up with solely using their ears and intuition. I’m always impressed with the results which just afirm and reaffirm what I personally have found to be true for most of my life.

As for micro-tonality I haven’t played with it much, and after a lifetime of playing with loud drummers I wonder about the condition of my ringing ears sometimes. Lol . That said, I bet those microtones have their own gravity as well that can probably be divided and subdivided up infinitely.

I wrote this using dictate on my phone so hopefully there’s nothing too weird in there. I need to start including this in all my posts.

You have a large sample size, but I’m going to guess it’s self-selecting for people inclined to hear those sounds.

People who seek out lessons with you are probably highly motivated, probably English speaking (whether or not the first language), and probably interested in jazz, which means they’ve probably listened to it a lot of it.

And that’s putting aside all the less-conscious stuff they would’ve absorbed from their incidental exposure to patterns and sounds common to western popular music.

Not saying your experience is invalid, but just that—even assuming it’s exactly as you say it is (which I don’t doubt)—it doesn’t confirm what you say it confirms.

My experience with the food people eat tells me that human beings have a natural tendency toward Dominoes and bagged salad. There is certainly wide variation, but it’s clear from my experience that that is the natural tendency of the human palate.

[pamosmusic]

For what it’s worth, I love that you let people find those sounds. They’re probably much more valuable to them that way.

[Chris236]

You have a large sample size, but I’m going to guess it’s self-selecting for people inclined to hear those sounds.

People who seek out lessons with you are probably highly motivated, probably English speaking (whether or not the first language), and probably interested in jazz, which means they’ve probably listened to it a lot of it.

And that’s putting aside all the less-conscious stuff they would’ve absorbed from their incidental exposure to patterns and sounds common to western popular music.

Not saying your experience is invalid, but just that—even assuming it’s exactly as you say it is (which I don’t doubt)—it doesn’t confirm what you say it confirms.

My experience with the food people eat tells me that human beings have a natural tendency toward Dominoes and bagged salad. There is certainly wide variation, but it’s clear from my experience that that is the natural tendency of the human palate.

Peter - some yes, some no. Over the years I’ve had some very young kids who could consistently play nice guide-tone lines through changes after a few listens through the form! Without a ton of instrumental proficiency either! Great ears, some have them right out of the box.

[jameslovestal]

if I don’t believe it’s conditioning, what are we left with?

That's for you to figure out.

[pamosmusic]

Peter - some yes, some no. Over the years I’ve had some very young kids who could consistently play nice guide-tone lines through changes after a few listens through the form! Without a ton of instrumental proficiency either! Great ears, some have them right out of the box.

Well it would be a little weird if you had them right ?out of the box, y’know?

[Chris236]

Well it would be a little weird if you had them right ?out of the box, y’know?

I teach a few REALLY young students!