Learning sequence of theory of music

[faa2010]

Greetings,

Could you give me a sequence of how theory of music ought to be learned?

If it is according to history of music, how can the subjects be learned orderly?

[cjp_piano]

I think no one is answering because it's a HUGE question!!!

[m1469]

Actually, it's not quite as huge as it seems - at least not any huger than any other musical subject.  And, as with any other musical subject, there are already some very thoughtful, interesting, and varied approaches to sequence of learning, though with some carryover from one to another, most of them starting with what are seemingly the very fundamentals of music.  So, I don't think the question is exactly right - I think it's more personal than that.

The funny thing about theory, for the most part, is that the expectation is that each student will learn it and know exactly how to personally apply it to their everyday musical experiences and endeavors, while at the same time it's treated like an absolute subject and as though there is one, methodical application which everybody should learn about in the same way, in a classroom setting.  Well, there are pluses to that and there can be benefit, but there are also negatives and most of those centered, I think, on the fact that it's not an absolute subject which can be learned about (nor "should" it actually be) in a single, methodical way.  What is lacking, as far as I can see, is the kind of private and personal instruction and guidance that an individual receives in instrument study, in knowing how to really grasp musical(/theoretical) ideas in a personally meaningful and practical way (as in, not as a separate subject but one which directly applies to instrument/musical study).  

And, why shouldn't it be treated that way?  We certainly don't expect to learn everything we need to know about instrument study through classes taught from books and methodologies, and if there is anything under the sun that is truly applicable about theory to our personal study of music, then in fact our understanding of it will necessarily grow and develop in very personal ways!  But I digress (actually, I just wanted to try out saying something like that ... "but I digress" ... it sounds pretty great for certain situations, doesn't it?  ).

Anyhoo, basically, I think there is already a very nice backbone, but it needs individual attention and supplementing in order to create a true atmosphere, environment, and pathway for personal understanding.  I think it's expected that each individual will just kind of do this after they've taken classes ... if they want to or feel inclined, and I don't argue that this is needed, just as it's needed within any musical study and endeavor.  

However, I think that based on what seems to be the trends, it's clear that there can be some adjustments.  What I mean is, there are some people who 'get' theory as a subject in and of itself, and they can apply it to notes on the page and even to technique, but the meaning behind the music while performing can be lacking.  And then there are people who don't get theory at all and who find it pointless and/or meaningless, or are just struggling, while these people's abilities to be musical and even technically proficient, can be very high.  In other words, there's often still a gap between "the subject of music theory" and then the actual act of music making.  As far as I can tell, ideally, all would be one, whole, working musical expression.  

[mcdiddy1]

Thats a pretty large question. Most theory books I have read have sequenced in a certain order though.

Most theory books start with a definition of sound, pitch, timbre, frequency etc. Then the discuss the naming of pitches, usually on a piano and a discussion about the purpose of clefs, staff, and the eventually the grand staff. Then rhythmic notation, quarter/ half, whole , etc and the meaning of the time signature. THen the idea of sharps, flats, key signature, chords, harmonies . Eventually they go into cadences and phrases which are basically larger and larger structures of notes and rhythm. At this point they like to start elaborating  on more advance harmonies such as 9 13 chords, composer techniques such as secondary dominants, chord names, suspensions etc.  Eventually they start talking about larger forms such as binary, ternary form and different larger structures such as sonatas, Baroque dances, fugues, etc. THen style traits of musical time periods from Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic etc.

 Basically they sequence it from the basic elements to larger more broad aspects of how pieces fit in the big pictures of history.  I think when you are teaching yourself it is better to start with online resources that include some sort of ear training element and start by learning notes, knowing solfege, to hear relationship of notes in a scale, and then learn about rhythm notation, and then harmonies ( how the chords fit together and key signatures).

I agree with  the post that you need to discover what you need in a more personal way. Knowing the theory does not mean anything unless you actually apply it.  It similar to learning the quadratic equation in math. You learn the concept and how to do it but it is something done arbitrarily and describe things that happen in math but it is not necessarily what professionals do . The parallel is in music you may know the theory and be able to analyze it but it does not mean you are  going through chord progressions in your head. It is just a way of confirming what was already hear in the past. Most people do not need to do algebra everyday but they concepts they learn from doing and the benefits of having the background should not be underestimated. The same with music. You can get by with know note names, rhythms, but you will not be severely limited by not knowing how to read figured bass unless you are working at a musical professional level. So take what you feel you need to know and try and learn the most out of that. 

[m1469]

What is lacking, as far as I can see, is the kind of private and personal instruction and guidance that an individual receives in instrument study, in knowing how to really grasp musical(/theoretical) ideas in a personally meaningful and practical way (as in, not as a separate subject but one which directly applies to instrument/musical study).

Well, I've been contemplating it throughout the day ... is this dumb or not?  I can't tell.  I mean, maybe it's something that only ever happens inside a person and can't just be put in there or touched, exactly, by somebody else.  But, what subject is not like that?  Or, maybe there are some things like that, so maybe theory is/can be, too?  And, are there really practical ways to do this?  Or, am I just missing something?  I don't know  :-.

*contemplates life*

[cjp_piano]

Actually, it's not quite as huge as it seems - at least not any huger than any other musical subject.  

Yet your answer is huge! ha ha

[keypeg]

There may be a "how" to the question, in addition to the "what".  I didn't get any formal music instruction until well into adulthood, and our schools also taught nothing.  But when I did finally start taking theory, a lot of it seemed to be describing things that I had used for years.  It's like when a child learns spelling and grammar - he's already familiar with the structure of language from speaking and hearing it.  I'm thinking that theory should be directly linked to what we hear and play, rather than an abstract subject on paper.  Actually a couple of teachers I know believe this, and they bring out theory in the played music they teach.   It can be as simple as toggling the middle note in a chord to make it major and minor, or playing triads planted on where your fifth finger just was so that you go up the circle of fifths.  Or pointing out things in the music that is being learned: here's a cadence - hear how it makes this section come to completion.  The main thought here is that theory should connect to music that we hear and play, and maybe start there.  It should not be the stuff of workbooks and books, without anything "real".

The theory I learned formally started with the RCM program which starts with Rudiments.  It began with what Mcdiddy described: intervals, note names, note values, chord types, scales.  The book goes over these three times, each time at a higher level.  So for example at the first level you work with major, minor and perfect chords, and identify the tonic and dominant.  At the third level you work with all chord types in any inversion and start using that knowledge to figure out things.  Starting with rudiments felt to me like learning the alphabet, basic phonics like long and short vowels, and that there are nouns and verbs.

We should truly understand what these rudiments are in "reality" and not just be able to fill out work sheets, because they are the basic things we work with.  For example, we can learn to "name" intervals by counting note names and lines & spaces, and then later learn rules about enharmonics.  But I think it's important to first understand what an interval is.  What we learn is the ** name ** of an interval when we start: major third, minor third, etc.  But if we don't pick up that the interval itself is a distance between two tones that create a particular quality to the ear, and "major third" is one way of naming it, then later "augmented 2nd = major 3rd" type of a deal might be much harder to grasp.  Or how about the difference between a beat and a note value (which can get confusing when most beginner music has quarter notes being the beat.)  After I passed my rudiments exams I went back and restudied it all by playing what I had written, drumming it out, or whatever.  And then I taught it once so far, and tried to start with exploring it in a concrete way before doing the paperwork, and finding it in music afterward.

The RCM moves from rudiments to harmony theory.  This theory bases itself on common practice music from the time of Bach, and is a tad restrictive, so that you can find admonishments not to break the rules that Bach broke.  (That's where I am in part of my studies.)  You get into music form starting with binary and ternary form, and then rondos and sonata form at the next level.  After harmony theory comes counterpoint in their program, and also history.

The whole premise of what we have in RCM is that it begins with small units and then builds up to the big picture.  The small units are rather abstract (interval, note value etc.)  It's later when you get into harmony theory that knowing whether you have a tritone or augmented second actually has some use.  Though in playing music you're probably encountering it all the time.

One of my harmony theory books try to get beyond  only writing out  notes to follow rules.  It also has examples from music: for each chapter with its concept, you are analyzing maybe 20 samples from real music where you see how composers used these things.  Another gem that I found as a used book goes in a totally different direction: here you play, listen, and look inside yourself for what it makes you feel - and then use that knowledge to write music that will evoke various kinds of feeling.  It still has all the traditional elements but they tried to get theory out of the academic box.

The teacher I'm studying with presently stands a lot of this on its head.  To begin with, much of the music we play and hear these days is not Common Practice, and we only hear four part harmony in choirs.  Here the starting point is music, and deriving from the music what the composers did with it.  It's the opposite of the RCM approach since we're looking a lot of music, and so we are moving from the whole to the specific.  In some ways it is similar to playing a lot of pieces so that you can get an overall feel for the variety of existing music, common patterns in all music, and so forth.

[dcstudio]

theory?  most never get beyond the circle of fifths.  I know a concert pianist with her doctorate who claims theory is not her "strong suit."   How far do you want to go?   12-tone matrix?  Schoenberg is about as far as the undergrad gets.  most of the time anyway.

[keypeg]

Is it possible to play, compose, or improvise without theory?  I'm talking about the real thing, not stuff featured in exams with the stuffing knocked out of it.  The exam stuff is actually reaching toward the real stuff.  It's like somebody describing a tree in a convoluted manner.  The trick is to find the tree.  That tree matters.  You can do wonderful things with trees if you know they exist and what their nature is.

[cjp_piano]

Is it possible to play, compose, or improvise without theory?

Of course you can play, compose and improvise without knowing anything about theory. You don't have to be able to analyze what you're doing in order to do it.

[keypeg]

Of course you can play, compose and improvise without knowing anything about theory. You don't have to be able to analyze what you're doing in order to do it.

We are missing each other.  I had written:
"Is it possible to play, compose, or improvise without theory?  I'm talking about the real thing, not stuff featured in exams with the stuffing knocked out of it. "

"Theory to me does not necessarily mean things we write on a piece of paper, or numbers and names that we can spout off about a piece.  It means understanding what is behind and in the music, which is what those names and numbers are supposed to represent in the first place.  Without that kind of understanding the stuff on the pieces of paper and the grades we might receive are useless.   Analysis when it is done should be a way of looking closer at something or maybe starting seeing something - in and of itself it's nothing but more statistics.  You could get at this "something" without the analysis.  Theory does not mean analysis to me.

By theory in its most basic sense I mean the understanding of music.  If you know that 3/4 time goes 1-2-3 with the 1 probably stronger, that's theory.  If you get the feel of a V7 wanting to resolve to a I or a vi, that's theory.   If you hear a piece doing something and seeming to end there, then doing that same something 5 notes up and seeming to end again, and you expect it to do it again the first way but end very strongly, then you have picked up A B A form and cadences.  If you don't get any senses of patterns, how can your music sound like more than a random set of notes?  That is what I mean.

[cjp_piano]

We are missing each other.  I had written:
"Is it possible to play, compose, or improvise without theory?  I'm talking about the real thing, not stuff featured in exams with the stuffing knocked out of it. "

I didn't miss it. I understood what you meant. But my answer is still yes, you can compose, improvise without theory. Granted, it's better if you understand how it works, but I know people who write music (not write down on paper, but "write" as in "compose") who don't even know what the letters names are or that they're using dominants and tonics, etc.

[keypeg]

I didn't miss it. I understood what you meant. But my answer is still yes, you can compose, improvise without theory. Granted, it's better if you understand how it works, but I know people who write music (not write down on paper, but "write" as in "compose") who don't even know what the letters names are or that they're using dominants and tonics, etc.

Since you mention letter names and such, I know that we are still missing each other.     We may need a different word than "theory" for what I have in mind.  Music has patterns, structures, "stuff".    Without it we would just have a random bunch of pitches that sound together and apart over a period of time.    If a person writes music, and somebody else can see that this person  has used a dominant meandering over to a tonic .... or if the person writes music and it makes sense to the ear ... then this person "knows" theory.  He is using it.  It is inside him somewhere.  That is: the patterns and whatever works together to make music.

Take the other side of this.   Take a basic harmony theory book.  You learn some elementary rules about I IV V I and stick in more rules about inversions and secondary chords, and some more rules about good and bad motion.  So you apply those rules and do a "harmony exercise".  If somebody plays what you wrote, it will sound acceptably like Baby Bach Simpleton wrote it.  I would say that if this is as far as you go, you do not "know theory" and you have not used theory to write music.  You have followed rules that give results.

I have deliberately taken two extreme opposites.  The first one, where you absorb what music is about and use it, is the most necessary part.   The second one might lead you to the first, or might help you understand the first better so you can use it more effectively.  But I think what happens is that a weak flawed mathematical model takes over and actually destroys that understanding and connection with music.  People end up thinking that this is what theory is, and this is what music is.  I suspect that there is something quite wrong happening in this area and that it has distorted some important things.

[cjp_piano]

Since you mention letter names and such, I know that we are still missing each other.    We may need a different word than "theory" for what I have in mind.  Music has patterns, structures, "stuff".  

I get you, trust me. Many people think of music "theory" as something separate from actually playing or composing. You're saying anyone who plays, improvises, or composes, knows what's going on, even though they might not explain it or analyze it using textbook terms and such, right? For example, a song writer might choose a certain melodic line because it's beautiful to them, not thinking "this is a descending broken chord in the relative minor."

So even though some people may say they compose without knowing any music theory, you're saying, they DO know music theory because they're doing it.

So what is music theory? If it's "the study of how music works", then that composer doesn't know music theory because they don't know HOW it works, they just know that it DOES work.

Since the OP is asking what sequence one should learn music theory, are you saying one does not have to learn music theory, just learn music because that includes all the things of how it works?

[keypeg]

Hm, let me think about that.  Well, our first dialogue started with me saying "Can we do music at all without theory?" or something like that.  At that point I was thinking of the essential (essence) idea of theory which I have tried to outline just now.  I was no longer thinking of the OP's question about a sequence of formal studies.

I think I'll just try a ramble.

I think that the first premise I would make is that the patterns in music exist of our descriptions of them, but that the danger exists that in formal teachings the descriptions become what we think music is.  If there is a tree, and a description of a tree, then the tree will always be much more than any description of the tree.  The danger is that we can end up with only descriptions.  If there is only one thing, then it should be the tree.

Much of what we understand we do on a level that is not formally taught or measurable.  School systems need to measure things - that's their problem.  Young children can speak and use language without learning any rules.  On some level they are manipulating structures, organize thoughts and sounds, using timing, symbols - an awesome number of things.  It's got to be the same in music.

When we learn to spell, phonics, grammar, syntax, organizing paragraphs - these are tools we can use.  The stuff is out front so we can manipulate language and get control over what we are doing.  We know that language studies of our primary language also gets ruined by formal teaching.  I think it's what we do with it.

I've been studying these formal things, and in the order that I outlined.  I'm seeing what I can see with it, and I assume that I will have a collection of knowledge where I can see what is useful to me and what is not useful.  I don't know yet what I will do with it or if I will do anything with it, but if it's there, then if I need it I can use it.  But I never want to lose my own connection to music.  And when I learn something, it has to make sense.  It has to connect somehow.

Meanwhile I know that jazz musicians become very familiar with chords, right?  And maybe there are certain progressions and modes.  Somehow they are learned and then they are used or maybe at the same time.  Does it have to be consciously and deliberately?  Or does it have to somehow be there?

I know that in writing music, there are things I am able to do now which I couldn't before because manipulating these various voices and keeping them all in my head and still getting the harmonies to work was just too complex.  That is probably why music went ahead where it did once writing was perfected.  And then maybe some of those things became toys for the musicians to play with.

end of an obvious aimless ramble.

[cjp_piano]

keypeg -

Great ramble, I loved it! I totally agree and like your analogy with describing a tree versus actually seeing a tree.

When I teach my students, I don't really do "theory" separate. I want my students to experience music, play it, listen to it, create it, etc. In that process, they discover what works or doesn't.

Sounds like you are (or will be) a great teacher!

[keypeg]

When I teach my students, I don't really do "theory" separate. I want my students to experience music, play it, listen to it, create it, etc. In that process, they discover what works or doesn't.

I like that.  This is what I'm understanding from different people is the best first thing - experiencing music in playing it, hearing it, creating it.  Then if we do get  at "theory" for some reason afterward - written, orally, whatever - it relates to something we have experienced.  We don't get a picture of a mushroom and think that's all a tree can be.

[dcstudio]

I like that.  This is what I'm understanding from different people is the best first thing - experiencing music in playing it, hearing it, creating it.  Then if we do get  at "theory" for some reason afterward - written, orally, whatever - it relates to something we have experienced.  We don't get a picture of a mushroom and think that's all a tree can be.

...I really believe that if you play with any kind of regularity and diligence that it is really impossible to not have an understanding of theory.  Terms and visual representations, not withstanding, at some point you still realize the concepts.
 I have had no training in visual arts--but I have no trouble sketching a mushroom or a tree in proper perspective.  I am also happy to let others view my artwork without worrying about my lack of formal training. hmmm could I be a Rembrandt if i went to art school ?  Will I never realize my full potential without art school? or if I go to art school will my natural ability to create art be in some way hindered?  who knows.   

[Derek]

What I think is missing from a lot of theory learning is understanding the "premise" behind any given subset of music theory. For a long time none of it made sense to me until I searched for such premises.

For common practice era theory, the premises or root causes of it are, I feel:

-thirds and their inversions are considered the most pleasant interval. All voice leading rules center around emphasizing or treating these with care so that chords always sound as full as possible. Dissonances are used to create anticipation for again hearing thirds. *edit* An example of treating the third with care is that doubling the third is much more noticeable than doubling other intervals, so you find it doubled less often than the octave or fifth.

-The sound of "finality" is desirable, formed primarily via the pillars of tonic and dominant. This progression plays into the above premise, as the ear wants to hear intervals coalesce around the tonic third of the key.

-Intervals which move in parallel sound best when the quality changes frequently. So, thirds and their inversions are used liberally, and you'll occasionally find a fifth progressing into a diminished fifth and vice versa (as examples). *edit* This is why parallel octaves and fifths are for the most part avoided except when explicitly used to emphasize a single voice. And, parallel fourths inside of 6/3 chords are the only parallel voicing of full triads you'll find,k where fourths are treated as a "necessary evil." The ear tends to focus on the 6th and the 3rd of the chord, because they stand out more than the fourth. In the other two inversions, root and second inversion, the fifth and the fourth are much more noticeable, so the desireable and melodic effect of frequently changing quality of thirds or sixths is diminished.

When we get to the Romantic era and beyond, a lot of the above premises are still there to a degree, but increasingly composers become more interested in pure sound. Debussy is a great example. I can't see the value in analyzing the "theory" in music when we get to this point, because I haven't yet found any objective premises for it. At this point, all is color, all is subjective. Anything that portends to be a "theory" beyond this point is better described as a tool for creating music with certain subjectively desirable goals. Most music that revolves around theories like these usually fails to interest me, because manufactured or artificial theories not based in "do I like the sound or not" never seem to create interesting music. I don't believe that to be a coincidence. People who do support such theories are content, however, to recycle their vanity and pride infinitum. Whatever floats your boat I guess!

[dcstudio]

interesting Derek...

I wondered what Schoenberg was thinking too.    "Do I like the sound or not" -- has always worked best for me--theory just helps me to tell others what exactly it is I like...or what exactly I am hearing.  (well, as exactly as is possible, anyway. )

[m1469]

What I think is missing from a lot of theory learning is understanding the "premise" behind any given subset of music theory.

This is a good way of putting some of what's been challenging for me.  Recently my view has "shifted" (perhaps more clearly back towards something I saw as a child), and now I'm going back through standard theory ideas with a different context in mind.