I started taking a very different type of piano lessons recently (the teacher refers to his technique as "by ear") and on the advice of my teacher I'm working on a new exercise to play the chord progressions from songs that I know in all 12 keys. As a result, I'm having what I'd think of as a real music theory/ear training combined breakthrough. For the first time I'm consistently hearing and seeing chords as functional within a key rather than just locked in forms on the keyboard--this is a huge step towards learning how to memorize lots of pieces since so many share the same functional relationships in their harmonies. This in turn, will unlock a lot of compositional ideas as well. I originally thought it would be nearly impossible to do this exercise since I've mostly played jazz tunes with really sophisticated harmony in the past, but after working out some really simple pieces (e.g., Act Naturally that's just a I-IV-V type country song), I'm able to stretch out to try mildly more complicated tunes on the fly (e.g., rhythm changes) and it's working pretty well. If anyone is trying to get their heads around harmony, I cannot recommend trying out this exercise of transposing tunes strongly enough, it's a real ear opener!
This got me thinking about other breakthrough moments that other people have had that they might like to share.
music theory breakthroughs--your stories
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- KVRAF
- 1585 posts since 13 Nov, 2005 from St. Paul
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- KVRAF
- 26033 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
for me the big one has been to learn to bypass the area of naming, of making decisions based in 'you can do this scale because of x'.
I first crossed that border ca 1987; I had done a LOT of improvising with a friend and I had gotten a feel for his harmonic concepts and at a point I was simply making melody to it directly with no guessing, just the ear and the hands knowing the layout of the land. Kind of like you know what to do in a blues, but in a more advanced area. Most harmony is going to be kind of pedestrian compared to that so I had gotten to a new level overall I think.
It's a pretty strange thing, my creative process. Often I don't think of key; there are times where I do have a preconception... If I know something has to modulate quickly, I have the framework so there isn't any trouble. But thinking of 'ok, this'll be the eleventh over that', I don't require it, if I hear it I'll go for it.
But I have another thing I do where I have no thoughts about it, it's pure ear. It's all relative to me. I have a great relative ear but too often I don't know what key things are in to start with.
The biggest thing for me as a composer has been working direct to the sound [piano roll to connected vis] rather than notating things. I use a keyboard controller for pitches. I don't have the keyboard to the extent I rely on fingerings. I do however have a lot of experience experimenting with it so I know where everything is. So I am hearing something first. The most boring things I ever did I think I was letting my fingers do the walking. Since I got so involved with coming up with things via an instrument layout I don't have good facility with, my guitar playing expanded dramatically. One fantastic device has been to set Absynth tuning to 'overtone'. there is no way to have a clue 'what note this gone be' on a twelve note keyboard. It is a lot of hunt and peck but it gets rid of that middleman of naming things the most. the note works or not, why bother wondering about the theory.
there are many variations on learn as much 'theory' (a lot of it is *vocabulary*) as you can and then forget it. Like that.
as far as "12 keys", I'm a great believer in solfege. Do is Do, doesn't matter where you find it. Harmony chops - by extension what to do after harmony as a lead player - for a guitarist is different than for a keyboard, there isn't any wonder beyond repositioning, so I had that vantage point, and the luxury of not being too concerned with keyboard facility.
Another thing was to realize some simple and you might think done-to-death devices are not something to dismiss because you're too cool for school; everything is relative and in context of the other stuff. I've done a lot of things that worked gangbusters I NEVER would have written out, some which I would have had an ideological problem with.
I first crossed that border ca 1987; I had done a LOT of improvising with a friend and I had gotten a feel for his harmonic concepts and at a point I was simply making melody to it directly with no guessing, just the ear and the hands knowing the layout of the land. Kind of like you know what to do in a blues, but in a more advanced area. Most harmony is going to be kind of pedestrian compared to that so I had gotten to a new level overall I think.
It's a pretty strange thing, my creative process. Often I don't think of key; there are times where I do have a preconception... If I know something has to modulate quickly, I have the framework so there isn't any trouble. But thinking of 'ok, this'll be the eleventh over that', I don't require it, if I hear it I'll go for it.
But I have another thing I do where I have no thoughts about it, it's pure ear. It's all relative to me. I have a great relative ear but too often I don't know what key things are in to start with.
The biggest thing for me as a composer has been working direct to the sound [piano roll to connected vis] rather than notating things. I use a keyboard controller for pitches. I don't have the keyboard to the extent I rely on fingerings. I do however have a lot of experience experimenting with it so I know where everything is. So I am hearing something first. The most boring things I ever did I think I was letting my fingers do the walking. Since I got so involved with coming up with things via an instrument layout I don't have good facility with, my guitar playing expanded dramatically. One fantastic device has been to set Absynth tuning to 'overtone'. there is no way to have a clue 'what note this gone be' on a twelve note keyboard. It is a lot of hunt and peck but it gets rid of that middleman of naming things the most. the note works or not, why bother wondering about the theory.
there are many variations on learn as much 'theory' (a lot of it is *vocabulary*) as you can and then forget it. Like that.
as far as "12 keys", I'm a great believer in solfege. Do is Do, doesn't matter where you find it. Harmony chops - by extension what to do after harmony as a lead player - for a guitarist is different than for a keyboard, there isn't any wonder beyond repositioning, so I had that vantage point, and the luxury of not being too concerned with keyboard facility.
Another thing was to realize some simple and you might think done-to-death devices are not something to dismiss because you're too cool for school; everything is relative and in context of the other stuff. I've done a lot of things that worked gangbusters I NEVER would have written out, some which I would have had an ideological problem with.
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- KVRAF
- 7853 posts since 20 Jan, 2008
I'm a big fan of learning scales in all keys. I also am a seasoned musician who has worked with singers that don't have a "moveable do" They like to sing in a key that flatters their voice. As a result I was used to transposing arrangements on the fly.
Both Quincy Jones and Miles Davis speak of courses that "opened their ears" where by they did have to transpose to all 12 keys. Personally I find the process laborious.
Honestly the most "awakening" type of lessons I've ever had were in regards to improvisation. Learning how to connect the dots on the fly regardless of the key or progression.
The big thing for me right now is maintaining a walking bass line with my left hand (or right) and supplying the melody with the opposite hand on a ztar. The second thing I'm really into now is applying "shearing" type block chords to the ztar It's both really challenging and really satisfying.
Both Quincy Jones and Miles Davis speak of courses that "opened their ears" where by they did have to transpose to all 12 keys. Personally I find the process laborious.
Honestly the most "awakening" type of lessons I've ever had were in regards to improvisation. Learning how to connect the dots on the fly regardless of the key or progression.
The big thing for me right now is maintaining a walking bass line with my left hand (or right) and supplying the melody with the opposite hand on a ztar. The second thing I'm really into now is applying "shearing" type block chords to the ztar It's both really challenging and really satisfying.
Dell Vostro i9 64GB Ram Windows 11 Pro, Cubase, Bitwig, Mixcraft Guitar Pod Go, Linntrument Nektar P1, Novation Launchpad
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- KVRAF
- 2217 posts since 15 Jul, 2003
Marc Sabetella 'The Harmonic Language of Jazz Standards'
http://www.amazon.com/The-Harmonic-Lang ... B002ACZZWE
wrote a whole book on how he managed to learn songs across keys and work in improvisational groups by listening and learning how chords sound and relate to one another. It's the similar story of recognizing relationships and applying that recognition across keys, acrosss songs. It's also a very good theory book.
It changed the way I thought about song structure.
even more intensive
Ed Fuqua on www.talkbass.com brings up an exercise his teacher uses.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f73/reall ... ne-304843/
It's basically deconstructing and reconstructing, but as Ed says the amount of musical sense a song can convey (and a player can use) builds up through this sort of exercise.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Harmonic-Lang ... B002ACZZWE
wrote a whole book on how he managed to learn songs across keys and work in improvisational groups by listening and learning how chords sound and relate to one another. It's the similar story of recognizing relationships and applying that recognition across keys, acrosss songs. It's also a very good theory book.
It changed the way I thought about song structure.
even more intensive
Ed Fuqua on www.talkbass.com brings up an exercise his teacher uses.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f73/reall ... ne-304843/
It's basically deconstructing and reconstructing, but as Ed says the amount of musical sense a song can convey (and a player can use) builds up through this sort of exercise.
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- KVRAF
- 26033 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
another thing for me follows studying raga: the rules for such a composition involve a kind of 'never do this', or 'if you are headed here, skip this, go around like so'. the path of the scale, the zig zag or broken path is in part about avoidance of things that are going to take you out of the mood, the feel, the idea. what not to do as a path to revealing the truth of the composition.
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- KVRist
- 102 posts since 6 Jun, 2012 from USA
I think I had 2
One was more an approach where you started to see the process of harmonic chromaticism and how it was incremental use of motion out of context and just going thru as many possibilities as possible as well as recognizing those devices in the literature,
2nd
I think realizing that theory is just one particular framework and that it is merely a trend. I think having taken a schenkerian analysis course and realizing the complete and utter apriori styled analysis and how it is bullshit along with pretty much every other notion of natural law.
Basically, i just analyzed music in a historical manner and the revelation was just natural. As you start to deal with roving harmony with no centre or particular longing for another chord to early 20th century non tonal stuff like modal jazz, pan tonality, bi tonality ...
One was more an approach where you started to see the process of harmonic chromaticism and how it was incremental use of motion out of context and just going thru as many possibilities as possible as well as recognizing those devices in the literature,
2nd
I think realizing that theory is just one particular framework and that it is merely a trend. I think having taken a schenkerian analysis course and realizing the complete and utter apriori styled analysis and how it is bullshit along with pretty much every other notion of natural law.
Basically, i just analyzed music in a historical manner and the revelation was just natural. As you start to deal with roving harmony with no centre or particular longing for another chord to early 20th century non tonal stuff like modal jazz, pan tonality, bi tonality ...
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- KVRAF
- 5703 posts since 8 Dec, 2004 from The Twin Cities
The twelve tone equal tempered scale gives birth to two basic types of musical scale: those that divide it symmetrically, and those that divide it asymmetrically.
It's simple math, really: 12 divides evenly by one, two, three, four, and six. It doesn't divide evenly by 5 or 7.
When you cycle up or down through 7 octaves by 5s or 7s you go through what tonal harmony knows as the circle of fifths.
Cycle up or down through 5 notes and you will define a standard pentatonic (black keys) scale. Cycle up or down through 7 notes and you will define a diatonic (white keys) scale.
If, on the other hand you use scales that divide the octave evenly, an entirely different harmonic logic presents itself.
Messiaen approached these scales as 'modes of limited transposition', while American theorists like John Rahn and George Perle have their own, more precise ways of describing these scales. The diminished scale of heavy metal fame is one such scale, the whole tone scale that Hollywood uses to introduce dream sequences is another, there are numerous other possibilities.
When I wrapped my head around the fact that these were fundamentally different ways of looking at the same collection of notes; and that both ways of looking at the 12TET scale are quite common in modern music, it was definitely a 'eureka' moment for me.
It's simple math, really: 12 divides evenly by one, two, three, four, and six. It doesn't divide evenly by 5 or 7.
When you cycle up or down through 7 octaves by 5s or 7s you go through what tonal harmony knows as the circle of fifths.
Cycle up or down through 5 notes and you will define a standard pentatonic (black keys) scale. Cycle up or down through 7 notes and you will define a diatonic (white keys) scale.
If, on the other hand you use scales that divide the octave evenly, an entirely different harmonic logic presents itself.
Messiaen approached these scales as 'modes of limited transposition', while American theorists like John Rahn and George Perle have their own, more precise ways of describing these scales. The diminished scale of heavy metal fame is one such scale, the whole tone scale that Hollywood uses to introduce dream sequences is another, there are numerous other possibilities.
When I wrapped my head around the fact that these were fundamentally different ways of looking at the same collection of notes; and that both ways of looking at the 12TET scale are quite common in modern music, it was definitely a 'eureka' moment for me.
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- KVRian
- 1115 posts since 6 Jul, 2009
For me, serialism and chance procedures, among other things, were pretty influential and really changed the manner I think about music, particularly the experimental strains that developed from John Cage's influence. But for me, that was rather short-lived, because while I think that those ideas are intellectually interesting and reward those who think seriously about them, I find that the typical results from that line of thinking are not as potent as the ideas from which they came (that and I find certain artists use that line of thought as license/justification to be lazy and/or careless in their work).
I think the big thing for me was when I recently stopped caring about the underlying logic of my work (that is, the consistency of language--is it all 12-tone, tonal, etc). Instead, I've focused more on my overall sense of form and sensitivity to sound--any harmony of any type, tonal or otherwise, is equally acceptable at any point, so long as it works in the overall structure of the music and that it captures the required emotion of the moment. My music recently has developed a certain level of weak, non-functional tonality where there is a central pitch class, but it is ambiguous, and certainly not held sacred to any degree: the central pitch class will shift at a moments notice without ever looking back if that's what the emotional need of the music is at that point.
edit: I think another big thing to mention is that studying and listening to a wide variety of music is extremely important. One of the biggest lessons I've learned by doing so is that the texture of the music is one of the most important elements in establishing or defying a style/genre of music, and that if you spend time contemplating the texture of a work, that is where you are most likely to develop originality and an individual voice. Harmony is just words and punctuation; the overall texture is the fingerprint and heartbeat of compositional work.
I think the big thing for me was when I recently stopped caring about the underlying logic of my work (that is, the consistency of language--is it all 12-tone, tonal, etc). Instead, I've focused more on my overall sense of form and sensitivity to sound--any harmony of any type, tonal or otherwise, is equally acceptable at any point, so long as it works in the overall structure of the music and that it captures the required emotion of the moment. My music recently has developed a certain level of weak, non-functional tonality where there is a central pitch class, but it is ambiguous, and certainly not held sacred to any degree: the central pitch class will shift at a moments notice without ever looking back if that's what the emotional need of the music is at that point.
edit: I think another big thing to mention is that studying and listening to a wide variety of music is extremely important. One of the biggest lessons I've learned by doing so is that the texture of the music is one of the most important elements in establishing or defying a style/genre of music, and that if you spend time contemplating the texture of a work, that is where you are most likely to develop originality and an individual voice. Harmony is just words and punctuation; the overall texture is the fingerprint and heartbeat of compositional work.