Components of music overview?

[shingo]

Hey guys,

     This kind of links in with my other post about approching sight reading and the various patterns and understanding which will make me more successful at it, but I would like to see if anyone knows or could break the topic of 'Music theory' down into it's basic components.

     I know this seems rather scandelous as it is a subject which should not be 'dumbed down' or degraded. But one of the problems I have, especially when discussing theory is that I am not aware of the whole spectrum, this also makes the task seem even more daunting than it already is.

     When starting anything new there will be a lack of knowledge of other areas, it can't all be done at once, but at least I could see what there is to cover and where I am in relation to this. At the moment it is like I am in a dark cave with a few basic understandings as dimly lit tunnles and suddenly new caverns are just dropped into conversation which I cannot locate. (Maybe the increbibly organised m1469 can be lured by this poorly impersonated m1469-esque simile)

     If anyone can help, that would be much appreciated.

[hyrst]

Hi,
I don't quite follow the question.

Do you mean like a list of topics?
Terminology / definitions
Intervals
Key signatures
Time signatures
Articuation marks
Chords
Cadences
Harmony and part writing
Form
History
etc?

[shingo]

Yes my post probably was a bit sporadic and convoluted, but I did mean a list of topics. Thanks for the list you have suppleid. I was just finding it hard to actually comprehend the size of the subject and thus effectively plan an approach to it in general.
     Thanks again.

[m19834]

(Maybe the increbibly organised M. can be lured by this poorly impersonated M.-esque simile)

 

Hyrst has made a good list.  I think that at some point the list can just go on and on.  In some respect, everything about the written page or the sound of the written page being played can be described in theoretical terms.  There is something more though to music than these descriptions, and I only bring it up because I believe that the actual intent of wanting to have a list like this is basically for the purpose of better comprehending music, so as to better perform/play/compose it.  With that being said, we can't play a single note without the intention to do so.  And, I think that the actual purpose of educating ourselves along the path of what you are asking, shingo, is to in fact develop a clearer intention regarding how and why we would a play a note (of course, I mean hoards of notes, but I would like to break it down to the basics).

I think our intentions are what makes the music more than what is on the page, and education regarding how to talk about the written page or the sound of one note leading into another, well that will not adequately describe our entire intention in playing it.

[keypeg]

Hi Shingo,
I just zipped through some of your old posts to try to get an idea of where you're coming from but didn't really have the time to say that I do have the picture.  However, in case I got the gist of it, then I'm reminded of where I was at a short time ago.  I'm an adult student, and I started having violin lessons a number years ago.  Piano is something I came back to a year ago which is how I've ended up here.

Ok, so I had picked up some feeling for structures of music when I was self-taught, because you hear it and you sense it when you play.  Now I was playing scales and arpeggios, I learned note names, I was told a bit about intervals and counting, but it was all sort of vague and bumbling along.  When I saw your posts they reminded me of this bumbling "things aren't clear" kind of feeling: you probably bumble much less than I did.

Well it seemed that since my lessons had followed a particular course for a number of years they would continue doing so week after week.  At some point I just stopped everything, sat down with my teacher, and started to talk through what the heck I was doing and where I was going.  It didn't happen all at once, because I didn't know what my questions really were so I couldn't articulate them all at once.

Well, it seemed at a certain point of thinking, that I can't really play any piece of music properly unless I understand it as well as having a set of skills.  My learning would have to consist of more than producing the music generally correctly with enough technique to give the general gist of it.  At that point I concluded that in order to do justice to any piece of music, I would need:
- technique, theory, history - and my playing would be an interplay of these three components plus what I brought into it from within me.  Moreover, each of these areas is vast.  In addition, I didn't want to bumble-stap at things, reaching into the bucket at random to grab a bit of theory or whatever on the fly to suit whate I needed.  I wanted to systematically build up my knowledge of skills.  It's how my own teacher was taught and probably how most good teachers have been taught, but not everyone wants to go that route.  I discovered I did.

So here I am, x years into lessons, and it amounts to a revamp even of the things I thought I already knew.  We started with theory, I researched the genre of what I was playing so I got a bit of history and musical concept.  I'm reading through the history outline in Dolmetsch to get a first broad picture.  I know just about nothing in a lot of areas. I discovered that with 17 years of academic education, I barely know anything about history.  Oh yeah, they discovered America.  There was an Ottoma Empire?  An ancient civilization called Ur?  China had a civilization and musical traditions?  Anyhow, I'm filling in a rough sketch because I hate my own ignorance (= lack of knowledge).

So theory: I went after theory in a big way.  The categories I saw listed in the beginning of this thread would have been it to a large degree.

Ok, so with theory I followed a course of studies.  It covered the same material three times, each time at a higher level and depth.  This seems important to me.  First I got a general solid understanding of note value, tempo, basic intervals.  Then the next time these same things were more complex but the basics were solid, and by the third round the things were fancier, more abstract but they still made sense.

** Reading about theory doesn't cut it for me.  Drilling things on-line is more like an extra, or a self-test.  I had to write it out, draw it out, work with exercises the way you work with math exercises and work things out in my head, and hearing them in my ear.

** It had to be understood in the real world.  Teachers have kids march around the room and slap their thighs.  It has to be that real.  I went to the extreme of wanting to hear every tone and interval in my head correctly with correct pitch.

I was pretty good with the head stuff and my teacher knew that, I suppose.  My teacher responded to or demonstrated the theory as though it were a live musical thing.  He was not calculating things in his head, he seemed to be living the music on the written page. That was a very important thing for me to experience.  Theory is a codification of the elements of real music, and these exist first.  That real music should be sitting in the page.  This written music became alive, but it does so especially if it's written by hand.  It seems as though printed music is stilted and lifeless, especialy if the spacing is wrong.

At the same time the music we play has these codes in them: these structures. When we get a sense of the structure then it's like a skeleton holding the body up, even though a gymnast will look liquid in motion. I think the fact that I worked on individual components like time, intervals, but worked with them and then had it in music and sound, I think that gave the answer of what I was looking for.  It's not just a bunch of random things, and music isn't vague bumbling in the way it was. The only thing is that now I know there are tons of things that I don't know.  That can be daunting or exhilerating because you can't get bored. 

I don't know if this brings anything to the discussion.

[shingo]

Thank you K for your response I shall try and keep your comments in mind when persuing this avenue of learning.

Keypeg I am grateful of your dedication having read through some of my other posts, thanks for taking the time to do that.

Ok, so I had picked up some feeling for structures of music when I was self-taught, because you hear it and you sense it when you play.  Now I was playing scales and arpeggios, I learned note names, I was told a bit about intervals and counting, but it was all sort of vague and bumbling along.  When I saw your posts they reminded me of this bumbling "things aren't clear" kind of feeling: you probably bumble much less than I did.

This is pretty much spot on where I am at, you managed to read me like a book, although I probably bumble more than you assume . I also have the same lesson progression and I think at my next I will try and take the same approach as you did and actually take control  more over my own learning. I will definitely have to self-teach myself, but maybe getting him to set me off on the right foot etc would be helpful and perhaps also let him know where I am at and probably dissapoint him with how little I know  . But yeah you have also hit it spot on with not knowing what my questions are really, as I have asked some things before and not really succeded in getting my point accross with regards to the overview as it is probably odd to think of it like that once you are so skilled in the area.

I wanted to systematically build up my knowledge of skills.  It's how my own teacher was taught and probably how most good teachers have been taught, but not everyone wants to go that route.  I discovered I did.

Yes that is too how I want to learn . I figured if I got a list (as Hyrst has kindly provided) then I could sit down and start somewhere with knowedge of what I had done and what is still out there at a basic and condensed level. I will also try the x3 method building on each time as I can imagine that being effective as I tend to do similar when studying other things.

Thanks again, I have a lot more to think about now.