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Topic: more than one musical language |
Bo Legg
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Posted 22 Sep 2018 12:03 am |
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It always seemed illogical to me that one theory would cover everything in every Genre.
Pop, Jazz and Latin Genres alone seem to confirm my suspicions.
It seems to me someone needs to rethink music theory so it speaks more than one musical language. |
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Al Evans
From:
Austin, Texas, USA
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Posted 22 Sep 2018 5:37 am Re: more than one musical language
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| Bo Legg wrote: |
It always seemed illogical to me that one theory would cover everything in every Genre.
Pop, Jazz and Latin Genres alone seem to confirm my suspicions.
It seems to me someone needs to rethink music theory so it speaks more than one musical language. |
Leonard Bernstein did a good job of analyzing music ab initio in "The Unanswered Question" series of lectures:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unanswered_Question_(lecture_series)
Of course, it ends up all Germanic and classical, but it is a beautiful examination of the deep issues.
It's available in several ways; I have it all on DVD.
--Al Evans
_________________
2018 MSA Legend, 2018 ZumSteel Encore, 2015 Mullen G2, G&L S-500, G&L ASAT, G&L LB-100, Godin A4 Fretless, Kinscherff High Noon |
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Bo Legg
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Posted 22 Sep 2018 7:54 am
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Thanks Al I'll have to check into that!
For months now I’ve been listening intently to a lot of different music Genre in an effort to expand my ear training in a wider range of tonal harmony.
Wow what a shock! Chords of tension used to be the new norm but it seems to have morphed into an acceptance of chords of irritation and excessive time and rhythm changes, layers and layers of overdubbing, unrestrained FX and somethings that you would be hard pressed to call music added to the mix. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 22 Sep 2018 8:11 am
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If you accept that music is organised sound (as opposed to noise, which is random) then how to organise it is up to you. Some people speak several languages, some barely one. I can speak classical, rock and jazz but nothing oriental.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 22 Sep 2018 10:47 am
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unanswered_Question_(lecture_series)
Thanks, Allan. Articles like this help to fill the nearly empty vessel of my musical understanding 
The 12-semitones-per-octave system does seem to provide the underlying structure for a great deal of harmonic and melodic diversity. When rhythmic variety is added to the mix, the musical options are endless. From Giant Steps to Your Cheatin Heart, 12 bar blues to Native American chant to DeBussy - the same concepts are applied effectively at various levels of complexity.. |
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Bo Legg
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Posted 22 Sep 2018 11:40 am
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Stuart always tells me that backward thinking (inversion)is the best approach in the use of Music Theory.
I'm inclined to agree. |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 22 Sep 2018 12:15 pm
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| What does Stuart mean by that, Bo? Inversion is a word with a pretty specific meaning regarding chord structure. |
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Bobby Nelson
From:
North Carolina, USA
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Posted 23 Sep 2018 1:47 am
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| Quote: |
Stuart always tells me that backward thinking (inversion)is the best approach in the use of Music Theory.
I'm inclined to agree. |
I completely understand this Bo, as I have a great ear but am somewhat challenged when it comes to highly technical abstract thinking (see there, I'm not really even sure that that is the correct way to say what I'm thinking haha!) ala, music theory or computer programming etc.. The more I learned through playing and practicing what I heard in my head, the more I mentally understood music theory. I have a pretty good grasp of theory now but, without my ear, I couldn't have gotten it in a thousand years - I'm too ADD. |
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Charlie McDonald
From:
out of the blue
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Posted 23 Sep 2018 4:58 am
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The 'languages' I could think of would be twelve-tone and diatonic, and middle-Eastern scales, but I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about.
What I think of may be dialects, the modes. The other night I watched Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, where he introduces them to an audience of kids
in a way that made them more accessible to me than when discussed by guitarists. He demonstrated them with examples of Doric, singing 'Along Came Mary',
The Kinks(!) 'You Really Got Me' (Fregian), and 'Norwegian Wood' (Myxolidian). The kids loved it, as he was 'speaking their language.'
He fleshes it out with Debussy's Nocturnes-Fete, which uses all three modes.
Leonard Bernstein Young People's Concerts 'What Is A Mode?'
What a music educator he was! (And what a repertoire he had at the piano.)
He deconstructs music theory in the Norton lectures, giving a further understanding of it. Bobby's post brings this to mind.
I don't know if this answers your 'Unanswered Question,' but Bernstein uses more language in his analysis than I had conceived possible. |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 23 Sep 2018 8:55 am
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| Bobby Nelson wrote: |
| Quote: |
Stuart always tells me that backward thinking (inversion)is the best approach in the use of Music Theory.
I'm inclined to agree. |
The more I learned through playing and practicing what I heard in my head, the more I mentally understood music theory. |
Thanks for answering my question, Bobby. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what “backwards thinking†meant. Maybe I should have been trying to make tails or heads of it instead....  |
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Bo Legg
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Posted 23 Sep 2018 11:35 am
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Backward thinking in general conversation could mean a lot of things and Bobby's practice is one way to look at it.
Backward thinking is a little different than by the book Inversion Thinking,which would be thinking in terms of the negative things that can happen so as to prepare to avoid them as apposed to thinking positively and get blindsided by the negative.
In simple terms, what we are saying is when you are applying Music Theory to your Steel Guitar learning, think and learn in terms of the clams (clunkers, bad notes) that could come with it so as to avoid them.
Of course you won't know till you practice!! |
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Stuart Legg
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Posted 23 Sep 2018 11:46 am
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Wow I've never seen this before! Bo you hijacked your own topic  |
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Bill McCloskey
From:
Nanuet, NY
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Posted 23 Sep 2018 12:02 pm
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There is microtonal music with it's own theories to be explored. Look at Harry Partch for in-depth thought and theory.
There is 12 tone: with a theory developed around tone rows (Schoenberg)
There is atonal music (but beware Peter Falk's warning from the In Laws "What do you think will happen when they run off this dough... and there's trillions of extra dollars, francs, and marks floating around? You've got a collapse of confidence in the currency. People are gonna panic. There's gonna be gold riots, atonal music... political chaos, mass suicide. Right? It's Germany before Hitler. You can see that. Jesus, I don't know what people are gonna do... when a six-pack of Budweisers costs $1,200. That'll be awful."
There is no tonal music: organized sound ala John Cage.
There are other scales than the western system. India's classic musical theory is complex and relies on direct one on one transmission with no written language.
There were even certain scales which were banned by some countries. Imagine that.
Theory is an algorithm, and each type of music has it's own algorithm. All of music is subjected to an algorithm and the end result is bluegrass, or jazz, or tango music. Want to learn how to play jazz?, jazz theory is the algorithm which will help you learn.
Some algorithms are more more difficult than others. 
_________________
Check out the Steel Guitar Union Hall Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@steelguitarunionhall |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 24 Sep 2018 9:31 am
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| When we “tune out the beats†between intervals on our steel guitars, we are using a microtonal concept. It’s also why our steel guitars will sound out of tune with other instruments, and why microtonal music sounds so bad. Atonal and twelve tone music is for people who can’t stand resolving to the I chord. No tonal “music� Not. Indian Raag is beautiful, rhythmically and melodically complex. To my ear, regular theory covers all of it. I like the “algorithm†idea. |
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Bill McCloskey
From:
Nanuet, NY
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Posted 24 Sep 2018 10:21 am
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I think Harry Partch's microtonal music is absolutely gorgeous. Have you heard Partch?
_________________
Check out the Steel Guitar Union Hall Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@steelguitarunionhall |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 24 Sep 2018 12:10 pm
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| I remember being exposed to his music in high school music appreciation class. I went home that day and played Allman Bros / Live At Fillmore East until I couldn’t remember Harry Partch anymore. Maybe I should give it another shot. |
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Bill McCloskey
From:
Nanuet, NY
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 25 Sep 2018 8:44 am
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Thank you Bo, Bill, and others who have contributed here. Threads like this force me to express my appreciation for the Forum. What a gift! My daily life is not exactly packed full of people who can intelligently discuss music theory to this degree. I can honestly say I have never met a musician who knows who Harry Partch is, and damn few who ever mention the late great Mr. Bernstein.
Bill: Microtonal music may never be my thing, but the world would probably be a less interesting place without it. When you think about it, the steel guitar is the perfect microtonal instrument. You could have a 100-note octave if you wanted. I believe Susan Alcorn explores those kinds of possibilities in her music. |
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Bill McCloskey
From:
Nanuet, NY
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Posted 25 Sep 2018 9:28 am
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Fred,
Not only do I know about Harry Partch, at one point I could actually visit his instruments (they all had to be made by hand). My next door neighbor played in Partch's orchestra and became the trustee of the instruments after Partch died . He went on to write original music for the instruments and found them a permanent home at a local university.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_instruments_by_Harry_Partch
_________________
Check out the Steel Guitar Union Hall Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@steelguitarunionhall |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 25 Sep 2018 9:45 am
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| Awesome, Bill. I do like weird instruments It’s cool that he built them for the sounds they made, and not for the purpose of acquiring patents and cashing in. You might turn me into a fan yet! |
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Bill McCloskey
From:
Nanuet, NY
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Charlie McDonald
From:
out of the blue
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Posted 25 Sep 2018 11:15 am
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Cool, Bill. The orchestral piece reminds me of improvisational gamelan.
'Letters...' brings to mind Woody Gutherie, another rider of the rails.
Is anyone getting close to other languages, Bo? |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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