Why you should be mad at theory

[BWV]

So I’m not making out this is simple or easy or that Bach was not a genius. But there’s a nuts and bolts aspect to this.

Hearing this my brain goes - That’s a very nice treatment of a chromatic lamento at the start. I should nick that and put it on the opening Fenaroli book 4, no2. Or maybe play it on Blue Skies lol.

Melodically it’s also something I recognise despite the chromaticism, the sort of thing I’ve used already (and in fact the basic schema is very common in the jazz standards rep).

In fact, If you have something like this as the backbone the invertability of the counterpoint more or less takes care of itself; everything else is ornamentation, you just need to remember what ornaments (such as diminutions) you are using which you need to do anyway to give your improvisations a sense of motivic unity. Because of this Fenaroli, for instance, gets into problems in invertible counterpoint very quickly.

Perhaps a more familiar example is the guide tones/shell voicing of cycle 4 progressions as jazzers would call them. These can be freely inverted, provided the melody is a diminution of the notes (1 3 7) in each chord. Needless to say Bach provides many examples of diminutions and explorations if this basic framework, as do all baroque composers.

So you have these pre baked counterpoint schemes than can be embellished and combined. It’s not like Fux…. I can actually pick out a lot of this listening to this WTC example, complex as it is. It’s also why a lot of student fugues sound weird - they haven’t learned the formulae and how to artfully use them. They’ve just plugged away and avoided consecutives.

Tbh the more I work on moti de basso and Schemata the more I find myself just hearing these elements in the music of the era. Which is nice.

None of which is to say it’s easy or even achievable, but I understand a bit better how something like that could be done. Anyway Mortensen has a book out now that breaks down improvising fugues. Weiss could do it apparently… so…. Maybe

As far as repeats go… again I think it’s tempting to see improv and composition as very a black and white distinction but if I’ve learned anything from partimento nothing is that simple. If you have a written out bass for instance, improvising in binary form becomes much more possible. And presumably advanced improvisers could do this mentally. Working on this sort of thing makes anyone a better improviser… the ability to recall and develop what you play is an important skill of course.

(I really don’t know the WTC as well as I should not being a keys player)

All this is both incredibly frustrating to apply on guitar even in its simplest forms (simple partimento for example) and also suggests to me that musicians became conversant with this kind of shenanigans very quickly. None more so than Bach.

(I’ve kind of moved away from partimento because so much of it is built around the capabilities of the keys. While I want to get better at imitative textures in general, the keyboard basses are too florid for my purposes. Anyway.)

Bach is problematic for study of historical improv through this lens. It’s not to say he couldn’t improvise this stuff - HE may well have been, obviously, but it’s hard for us to improvise this stuff haha. (Although I’m not ruling out that his written music may have been quite different to his improvised. It’s hard to tell obviously.)

The Italian composers are more immediately useful models to follow stylistically, even though as Jonah points out the effect of a Scarlatti piece is rather greater than the sum of its parts.

good points, but that prelude still defies the impression of an improvisation - even though as you note Bach likely could have improvised something like this, or in writing down the prelude he polished up some licks he had used over the years and formalized them - the line of course is blurry as improv is composition. The prelude looks as ‘composed’ as any 2 part invention or movement from a suite

[Christian Miller]

good points, but that prelude still defies the impression of an improvisation - even though as you note Bach likely could have improvised something like this, or in writing down the prelude he polished up some licks he had used over the years and formalized them - the line of course is blurry as improv is composition. The prelude looks as ‘composed’ as any 2 part invention or movement from a suite

well we have no way of knowing in Bach’s case.

tbh I have no idea what the word ‘improvisation’ means any more. I think that word is an absolute distraction.

Mortensen talks about ‘participating in the construction of music’. With a partimento I find myself making stuff up from scratch, sticking some things down that need to be stuck down, refining aspects via composition, changing things when I play sometimes inadvertently and so on, and eventually going ‘ok done with that.’ So there’s a refinement process going on which is akin to composition in this case but it may well be down to a lack of skill and experience.

The first draft whether on a score or on my instrument might improve over time with practice? the c18 composers were often forced to write first draft - which we may term ‘improvisation to paper’ due to the demands of their jobs. The WTC may have had more time and deliberation lavished on it. I don’t actually know.

The thing is that’s closer to playing jazz I think than people let on.

For sure it’s easier to come up with a reasonable prelude at the drop of a hat; apparently this remained a skill employed by some concert pianists even in the 20th century. And it’s easier to write repeats in a score haha. See also, the difference between bop solos and heads. But then - AFAIK a lot of their music was memorised and communicated orally, which to score based/centred musicians might look like a type extemporaneous music making. ‘Where’s the score? They must be improvising!’

As a silly example Bach had played you that prelude without any score in sight and told you it was an improvisation… how could you doubt it? Schrödingers improv!

(I wonder how much the custom of the time was to compose at the keyboard or from a score? I understand the Italians liked basing things at the keyboard, not sure about Bach…)

I would tend to characterise improvisation less as a process of instant ‘making stuff up’ and more as a process of developing ideas in real time, sometimes ideas that have been in a musician’s mind for decades and surface in other music.

a lot of the terminology we use has to do with score centred musicians and their hang ups.

[Jonah]

My good friend is a very good improvizer in classical styles, very creative imho, not just using patterns (he never studied any partimenti of course, his formal education was also quite formal, he already could everything anyway).

He plays organ in small Catholic church in Freiburg during the mass. To my knowledge he never used any written music for that (hough he can play anything if needed).
He improvizes (and very well) - I was there a few times.
Besides the fact that improvization is just more interesting for him, there is a practical thing about it because he can control time, character and all during the mass while the priest does some rituals and all.

But ut is interesting that mostly I can hear it is improvized.

This is about what improvization is in general... my definition is it iw when the listner can hear somehow it is improvization.
I think performer's intention is less important here.

It may be a bit paradoxal but to me it is the only convincing definition.

You see... to hear that something is improvized you should be in the context of style, practice, or (however strange it sounds) just be informed about it.

Some examples:
1) Schubert's Impromptu - the title already informs us that it has improvizational character - though it is not quite to inform, it more an excuse. Because every musical person of the period would have noticed that - and with this title what might seem a compositional imperfection becomes a deliberate choice.
Same concerns 'Fantasia' of baroque or classical period. Title says 'I take liberties, I imitate improvization' but any listner who know the context will get it anyway.
There are pieces that do not have those titles but still sound semi-improvized.
So the educated listner (as well as composer) hears of feels it - thus 'improvization itslef as an idea (not as performing process)' becomes a part of compositional vocabulary - it can bring in a specific character needed in the context of the piece.

How does one here it is improvized? Because one understands the language and how it works and one hear that in particular moment that language is not that well organized as could be in written composition. It can be specific texture, sudden key changes, dropping thematic material (as if the composer (presumed improvizer forgets it) some seemingly unobligatory developments of ideas (as if one tries something on the spot) and so on. Probably one could classify it

2) Genre - preludes, toccatas for example were expected to be improvized - they have specific texture, free harmonic moves so the listner can recognize the genre quickly and he feels it is improvization-like (even if it is not).
Genre reference is extremely powerful tool in European composition (Schumann uses those all the time references all the time without naming them to evoke different meanings).

3)Just being informed - we know that jazz is improvization, so once we know it we expect this. Then I hear how George Benson plays the same solo note for note in a few live records. That's it. It is not improvization any more. However strange it may seem but in this case our perception is influenced just by direct information.

The thing is that it is not always possible to get that - even in the context of baroque period - an improvizer like Bach could to it on such level of perfection (supposedly) that it could probably be difficult to some to recognize if it is improvized or not.
On the other hand any student could improvize quite elaborated though not very complex piece that would have sounded pre-composed (good form, correct voice-leading). Should it be considered true improvization in that case?

Here we come probably to the most impotant point of it. Improvization should be artistically true and authentic.
One should improvize not combinations of elements one has learnt before (he can use them), but one should improvize ideas, meanings, stories.

I used to tell my kids stories before they go to bed that I just invented on spot, I litterally had the feeling of blank nothingness further on and nevertheless I kept going on feeling some surprise and myself having an interest of what will happen further and how the plot and characters will develop. On the other hand sometimes I could get stuck become repetitive or trying to hook something from memory (or even things I see around in the room) to get on and make it move. Sometimes I felt like the whole story falls a part, and I just need to conclude it somehow. Sometimes it does not work for while but then suddely something shows up from nowhere and it becomes good.
Everything works for that of course - your education, your experience as a reader or a writer or a story-teller - but this is what I call authensity to the spririt of improvization - you do not use any tools conciously (except when you are probably totally lost and just need something to stay up for a while) - you jsut try to find out the stroy yourself.

Actually i improvize because I want to discover something, not to tell something I already know.

[James W]

I think, in principal it's not necessary to know whether or to what extent some kinds of music are improvised or pre-composed. It can be a red-herring to discuss whether something is improvised or not, if the music is interesting enough it doesn't matter. That's not to say these two methods of creating music don't have their particular tendencies and specific strengths. I'm just thinking of much music I heard over this weekend at Bangor Music Festival where the theme was improvisation, and free improv was utilised alongside notated music in some music, and in different ways. Much depends on the idiom.

[Jonah]

I think, in principal it's not necessary to know whether or to what extent some kinds of music are improvised or pre-composed. It can be a red-herring to discuss whether something is improvised or not, if the music is interesting enough it doesn't matter. That's not to say these two methods of creating music don't have their particular tendencies and specific strengths. I'm just thinking of much music I heard over this weekend at Bangor Music Festival where the theme was improvisation, and free improv was utilised alongside notated music in some music, and in different ways. Much depends on the idiom.

no irrespect... but you know it is like saying ok guys this quantum theory is fine but I am ok when my yogurt is here every morning and it is fine.
We either want to know something and try to figure it out or we just clap our our hands at anything that goes around...

[James W]

no irrespect... but you know it is like saying ok guys this quantum theory is fine but I am ok when my yogurt is here every morning and it is fine.
We either want to know something and try to figure it out or we just clap our our hands at anything that goes around...

Sure - clap our hands at anything if the end result is interesting enough.

[Christian Miller]

From the Bach posted by BWV above.

I understand what this is in terms of counterpoint. Good luck working out analysing that in terms of chord progressions.

]


Notice that the Bach example is an embellishment of the standard lament and its inversion with some chromatic neighbour tones in the upper two voices (lower two in the second bar) that creates some interesting chromatic contrary motion.



See also in a simpler sense 'Insensatez'

[BWV]

Although Derek Remes has the first bar as 7-6 suspensions, treating the third 16th resolving to the third 16th on the next beat

[Jonah]

From the Bach posted by BWV above.

I understand what this is in terms of counterpoint. Good luck working out analysing that in terms of chord progressions.

]


Notice that the Bach example is an embellishment of the standard lament and its inversion with some chromatic neighbour tones in the upper two voices (lower two in the second bar) that creates some interesting chromatic contrary motion.



See also in a simpler sense 'Insensatez'

the way in this particualr case hamonization is quite clear and simple and audible (I mean if one really wants to have it).
I can hear it even in first bars going through functions.
Chords are quite simple by the way - if one want to define them - simpler then you put it, but they just would not describe cromatisms in the melody. They describe harmony.

As for lamento - to me here this theme is too much personolized and it goes too fast to be really a lamento bass (or chromatic version of it). I would not argue it can be initially connected with it but this association goes way in this particular case.
Lamento bass is very fundamental, it has very strong reference as bass... in this case the bass is not quite a bass even - it is a voice.


Anyway with all this counterpointal thing - all that makes intergral and meaningful is some kind of harmonic breath - how the resolution of harmony is prepared and then escaped, how moving to other keys create a feeling of meander or derivasion - and how far it goes and and it which point it reaches a resolution and how stable (real? not fake?) this feeling of resolution is.

All this makes these motivic things, syncopations, voice interactions alive and vivid.
The paradoxality and ambivalence of music (especially Bach) is in the fact that these elements need this enviroment created by harmony - this where they can develope, interact - this where they from sympols (or even just sounds) become living images, thoughts that come through doubt, affirmation, despair and hope... and at the same time this enviromet is created by these elements.

My good friend (and to some degree a teacher) once told me: 'it is seems to be common place to think of harmony as of something vertical, and counterpoint - horizontal... though it is not so actually: harmony is form, countepoint is what creates it. They are not opposed to each other.' After all counterpoint defines harmony in its real presence. But at the same time - without harmony it can turn into a total mess.
Harmony to some degree is a spirit or soul and counterpoint is a body. The body allows the soul to be personolized and active in material world through particular and unique physical features , but on the other hand it is that soul that makes this body alive, integral and unique... without it it is just a set of features that do not make a face...
I noticed that people you knew well often become strange and unrecognizeable after they die as if after the soul had left them their features fell apart, stopped being connected, integral... sorry for this dark comparison but probably it fits the spirit of the piece we analyze.

I think this prelude and following fugue are connected with Christ sufferings (more than lamento which is associated with mourning and weeping but extreme sufferings), besides there are 'tirati' that often accompany the idea of whiplash, hits, beating, and at the same time they are typical baroque gestures associated with French overture, with nobelty, entrance (with the king?)

The fugue (without going into much analyzis) reminds me a lot Bach's choire fugues from cantatas that reprent a mass of people witnessing some scene...

[BWV]

The fugue (without going into much analyzis) reminds me a lot Bach's choire fugues from cantatas that reprent a mass of people witnessing some scene...

that is perceptive, as this is the only Chorale theme in the WTC fugues, looks to be taken from

[Christian Miller]

the way in this particualr case hamonization is quite clear and simple and audible (I mean if one really wants to have it).
I can hear it even in first bars going through functions.
Chords are quite simple by the way - if one want to define them - simpler then you put it, but they just would not describe cromatisms in the melody. They describe harmony.

I was being a bit deliberately silly on that front. But TBH I wouldn't bother writing chords out normally for this type of thing. It actually adds nothing to do that.

As for lamento - to me here this theme is too much personolized and it goes too fast to be really a lamento bass (or chromatic version of it). I would not argue it can be initially connected with it but this association goes way in this particular case.
Lamento bass is very fundamental, it has very strong reference as bass... in this case the bass is not quite a bass even - it is a voice.

I don't know - I heard it right away as a lamento. I didn't need to look at the music.

I think it's obvious enough. The associations are clear for Bach. You didn't mention the Crucifixus from the B minor mass, but that's the obvious one.

It's not JUST the bass. The (5)-b6-5-4 melody is very important too. You can see Bach places each of these notes at the top of the right hand line.

This is melody is equally associated with sorrow. Deryck Cooke traces its use back to 1420 in his book 'The Language of Music' describing it as one of the most prevalent features of 'grief music' (according to Adam Neely anyway I haven't read it lol). Inensatez is a good example, but there's loads more in the jazz and pop music repertoire. Anyway I'm not gong to talk about Adele today.

It doesn't make good counterpoint in inversion though, so Bach adds and implied lower voice in the right hand melody so it can be inverted.

Anyway with all this counterpointal thing - all that makes intergral and meaningful is some kind of harmonic breath - how the resolution of harmony is prepared and then escaped, how moving to other keys create a feeling of meander or derivasion - and how far it goes and and it which point it reaches a resolution and how stable (real? not fake?) this feeling of resolution is.

All this makes these motivic things, syncopations, voice interactions alive and vivid.
The paradoxality and ambivalence of music (especially Bach) is in the fact that these elements need this enviroment created by harmony - this where they can develope, interact - this where they from sympols (or even just sounds) become living images, thoughts that come through doubt, affirmation, despair and hope... and at the same time this enviromet is created by these elements.

My good friend (and to some degree a teacher) once told me: 'it is seems to be common place to think of harmony as of something vertical, and counterpoint - horizontal... though it is not so actually: harmony is form, countepoint is what creates it. They are not opposed to each other.' After all counterpoint defines harmony in its real presence. But at the same time - without harmony it can turn into a total mess.
Harmony to some degree is a spirit or soul and counterpoint is a body. The body allows the soul to be personolized and active in material world through particular and unique physical features , but on the other hand it is that soul that makes this body alive, integral and unique... without it it is just a set of features that do not make a face...
I noticed that people you knew well often become strange and unrecognizeable after they die as if after the soul had left them their features fell apart, stopped being connected, integral... sorry for this dark comparison but probably it fits the spirit of the piece we analyze.

I think this prelude and following fugue are connected with Christ sufferings (more than lamento which is associated with mourning and weeping but extreme sufferings), besides there are 'tirati' that often accompany the idea of whiplash, hits, beating, and at the same time they are typical baroque gestures associated with French overture, with nobelty, entrance (with the king?)

The fugue (without going into much analyzis) reminds me a lot Bach's choire fugues from cantatas that reprent a mass of people witnessing some scene...

I 100% subscribe to this. I mean that's very explicit in the St John Passion. (Singing that is how I met my wife BTW.)

And then he inverts the lamento in the B section...

[Christian Miller]

BTW I really like your combination of hearing these elements with emotion and expression Jonah. I think that's a dimension that's often missing in musical analysis. I feel we are talking about the same things from different perspectives.

[Jonah]

And then he inverts the lamento in the B section..

Because salvation is possible?)

I don't know - I heard it right away as a lamento. I didn't need to look at the music.

I understand that of course.
But for me I have it in my mind as a separate idea, it has a separate name even 'passes duriculus'.
Though I do not deny that it comes ftom the same source and idea..


By the way the fugue definitely begins with the 'cross motive'.

[Jonah]

By the way I recommend to everyone a book by me friend Boris Yoffe.
It is available only in German (there is also translation to Russian made by the author - unpublished, and I began translating it into English).
It is called 'ABCH. Ambivalent structure un Bach's music and their sematization'.
Despite a bit 'scientific' title, it is both deep and quite easy reading. As his other texts on music it is very dense - it is onlu about 70 pages but to me it is the most insightful and thorough work on Bach's vocabulary I ever read.
Boris is not a formal musicologist (he is first of al a musician and in my opinion unique composer (probably the only real composer of our days among those whose music I came across), at the same time he is extremely knowledgebale person who is able to notice most essential things and put them down in a concise and distinct style. It is a kind of book you read relatively quickly but then often return to different episodes, examples and so on.
The book is very personal and does not pretend to be a scientific work but it contains huge quantity of examples, it is very well organized in cocern of elemnts of the language involved. It seems to start with the simplest elements but it immidiately shows their profound meaning, and then with every chapter (every next chapter is longer) it involves more complex elements keeping what we already know in mind - and at the end we feel being inside a huge unverse of meanings.
it definitely expands not only one's perception of music of Bach but all the European music.
https://content.bautz.de/neuerschein...959485289.html


Another interesting book is a work by V.Nosova, Russian musicologist, 'Symbolism in music of Bach', it is based on the works of Boleslav Yavorsky, a musicologist working in Russia in first halof of 20th century, he was one of the pioneers of exploring Bach's instrumentsl music in context of its meanings and relationship with his vocal works and Christianity.
Yavorsky left no complete written works on this subject but he gave multiple extremely detailed lectures which were partially summarized by his students, and also some notes and diaries.
Nosina used this material trying to expand and recreate his sonceptions. Sometimes interpretation seems too litterate to me.
And Yavorsky is much focused on 'quoting and self-quoting' in Music of Bach and association of particular figures, turarounds, motives with particular notions, feelings, affectations in text in vocal works (which make it a very interesting reading), through his notes WTK is analyzed completely in this manner.

By the way I cheked this morning in online version of this book our prelude and fugue is described in his notes as the image of 'Suffering of Christ. Flagellation'.
More detailed notes say:
- passus duriusculus
- Cross intonation in the 16th motive
- Swaddling
- 'exclamatio' figure (jump 6th up in melody)
- Section B - inversion of material that gives a hope for salvation through death
- 4-5th bars at the end - Descending bass move reminds of the cantata 'I stehe mit einem Fuss in Grabe' (I stand in grave with one foot) and countertheme (Gegenstatz) of fis-moll fugue WTK I

- theme of fugue: strong cross motive, reminds 'Das er erkreuzigert werde...' (That he will be crucified) episode from St.Matthew passions
- countertheme, 'trirati' - flagellations
- bars 19-20 the idea of further resurrection breaks into the fierce flow of the fugue? mystic revelation of the future

I cannot say I agree with all of that (and these notes are sporadic, it is not a work published by the author), but still general idea and some details coincide with my feelings (I could be influenced by that of course as I read the book many years ago but on the other hand I read and played and listened so many things since - that it became a part of general picture for me).

It is interesting that I noticed that some my images are similar with that of Yavorsky on other Preludes and fugues - some are almost or exactly the same.
Boris Yoffe also offers his list of Christian images on WTK I, and same thing there - some coincide exactly, some are different.

It is also interesting taht it does not seem contradictory but somehow reveals more meaning.

It is obvious for all - for sure for Boris (who litterally speaks the most inner things with music himself), and I am more or less sure for Yavorsky - that no interpretation can express this music completely - with our verbal, poetic, terminological or imagery associations we only open some doors for our perception - but the real thing happens when we perfom it (or hear great performance), it corresponds directly the meanings in such complexity that no religion, philosophy or science could express.

[Jonah]

Kyrie theme by Mozart

[Christian Miller]

And we haven’t even got into the numerology yet…

[Jonah]

And we haven’t even got into the numerology yet…

Haha... but that's the last thing I would go for))) Not that it is impossible or not applicable but it is not my thing really.

I prefer musical language (hemiolas, cadences, modulations etc.) and general cultural references that are mostly in the artistic area (or reflected in it) for me too - that is 'arts and myths'.

[Christian Miller]

13 repetitions!!!

just sayin

[jzucker]

theory is analysis of music AFTER THE FACT.

Why would you be mad at that?

Theory is simple. Learn that sh!t and then just play.

[pauln]

theory is analysis of music AFTER THE FACT.

Why would you be mad at that?

Theory is simple. Learn that sh!t and then just play.

If theory is analysis of music after the fact
that clearly indicates the music came first
without need for the theory analysis, right?
Why not skip learning it and then just play?

What makes me mad is that that analysis
and theory is repurposed in front of music
as a prerequisite to producing music. But
that goes against the AFTER THE FACT, no?
Or is analysis before the fact not theory?

Theory is not simple; almost no guitarists
actually know the definition of the primary
objects (like "note") or derived objects like
"interval" (which confounds the difference
between Cardinal and Ordinal numbers).
If you doubt this, try providing a definition
of "note" and "interval" to see what I mean.

[jzucker]

all guitar college guitar teachers obsess over Larry Carlton and the student who sounds most like Larry Carlton is deemed to be the one who is best.

This is an objective fact.

I don’t know why this is.

not true at all. Ben Monder, Pat Metheny, Scofield and Kreisberg

[jzucker]

If theory is analysis of music after the fact
that clearly indicates the music came first
without need for the theory analysis, right?
Why not skip learning it and then just play?

Because it's part of the discipline of learning. Theory is dirt simple. Guitarists are lazy. 99% of guitarists can only play barre chords.

Learning theory and reading is simply part of basic musicianship. Learning to spell the chords in maj, min, 7th, dim, aug should take someone 3 months.
Basic scales another 3 months.

I learned that in 6 months when I was 14 years old.

Once you understand the basics it opens the doors to some areas of understanding what people are playing that you might not understand at first.

That's why you you really learn theory. Even guys who didn't study theory formally like benson and wes could tell you all kinds of details of jazz chord substitution.

In theory (no pun intended) that could be considered theory but it's an advanced building block. If you can't spell your basic chords, you will struggle to understand bebop. Not impossible though.

[Cunamara]

99% of guitarists can only play barre chords.

And most spell it "bar chords." I've even seen that in guitar magazines.

[pauln]

Theory is dirt simple.

I'm wondering your definitions of "note" and "interval" that make you think so...

[BWV]

If theory is analysis of music after the fact
that clearly indicates the music came first
without need for the theory analysis, right?
Why not skip learning it and then just play?

What makes me mad is that that analysis
and theory is repurposed in front of music
as a prerequisite to producing music. But
that goes against the AFTER THE FACT, no?
Or is analysis before the fact not theory?

Theory is not simple; almost no guitarists
actually know the definition of the primary
objects (like "note") or derived objects like
"interval" (which confounds the difference
between Cardinal and Ordinal numbers).
If you doubt this, try providing a definition
of "note" and "interval" to see what I mean.

Theory comes after music just as grammar and spelling come after writing