How to approach voice leading for non-classical music?

[Musicologo]

How about listening and learning from REAL life composers that make REAL music that sounds good and one can identify with? I confess I miss reading more about compositional processes, not "music theory books" in abstract (whose theory anyway?), but personal theories. Composers who also understand theory and critical thinking and, therefore, devoted some time explaining WHY and HOW they do it.
Ethnomusicological approaches are perhaps better suited than erudit music theorists to do so, regarding explaining the musical practices of others (the values, concepts and behaviours that shape the musical sounds).

So, I guess if I want to add anything useful to this topic, perhaps some references that helped me:
Technique of my Musical Language by Messiaen.
Tunesmith by Jimmy Webb. (https://www.amazon.com/Tunesmith-Inside ... 0786884886)
Cancionista by Luiz Tatit.
How Jacob Collier harmonizes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnBr070vcNE)

These are real people explaining how they compose with real examples. The Jimmy Webb book is one of the first I've seen in which the relation between the musical materials and lyrics/prosody is better explained in a systematic way with concrete examples of a real song anyone can play and feel. Tatit book also presents lots of examples.

If anyone has more references to add to this list would be a treat. I don't really think it's possible to have a "theory" or a "system" for music, ALL music. Because we will always end up asking "Whose music? From whom? In what context, place, year?". If you want to follow the systematic practices of a man in USA in 1950 that may make sense to you, for some reason (but that would need explanation in the first place... why would you want to emulate those practices?), however many will not find that suitable for their creation. After all doesn't a musical practice emerge from a certain cultural context?

Old, but one of the best articles I've read on REAL music theorization is Lomax 1959. I think Lomax was onto something fascinating there. Read it, and that by itself might broaden horizons on WHY one would need such "music theories" to compose their music anyway. Mind that formal elements like "scales, pitches, rhythms" and whatnot are just step 8 of what a music theory should be, with much more relevant traits coming before that need explanation. As such, all these "music theories" from "erudite western conservatories" generally seem even more outdated and feeble compared with the ethnomusicological thought of the 50's. Perhaps we need to back some steps in order to move forward.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 00030/epdf

[Gamma-UT]

This factoid as a supposed justification for 'the flat 9' being really a naughty aug. 8ve and this theoretical outlaw of the dissonant kind or whatever that's supposed to mean in your statement, that's really kind of laughable, it just shows us more of the failure of your critical apparatus and bears out my problem with that whole thrust. It's bullshit, for one thing it's circular argument.

Just as well. It was a reduction ad absurdum.

[Gamma-UT]

Believe it it not, your voiceleading rules are more complicated than the EIS method and it's not as flexible. Your dated rules are covered on pages 20-21 of the course in detail. They are immediately discarded and replaced with a singular theory based on the overtone series that produces the same result and it works with every possible root movement/root cycle without regard to tonal centers, though you can easily do that as well.

That sounds pretty much like George Russell's idea from Lydian Chromatic - though his idea was around a moving window of harmonically related tones rather than discarding tonal centres entirely. That makes some intuitive sense, though Russell's book meanders from insight to lunacy from page to page.

However, I find it hard to see how a set of rules expressed in a paragraph (that is aimed at music derived from common practice tonal techniques) is "more complicated" than 1200 pages. That, as I've said before, sounds like a pile of exceptions to a "singular rule".

Parallel voiceleading is allowed and covered as is diatonic parallelism, but the point is that people who are married to those techniques really don't know how to actually voicelead those sets of intervals. It quickly becomes one-dimensional.

Yeah, yeah. Sacred flame. Carrier of. "If only you knew the things I've seen". Got it.

If you're doing parallel voiceleading, voice independence is not your goal. So the criticism of "one dimensional" seems a little misplaced here. Perhaps you can provide examples of 1D and non-1D parallel voicing so us rubes can gain an idea of what pearls of wisdom we are missing.

You keep saying that my initial progression is "standard jazz practice" and I asked you to demonstrate better voiceleading of the same progression. I'm waiting.

I don't recall referring to your initial progression at all. Maybe you can point out where I did that. I've been talking about your example rules and descriptions of them, which wouldn't look out of place on a typical Berklee course.

If your material is better I want to hear it, but so far it's been nothing.

This thinking is the root of your problem. You're looking at voiceleading training as some kind of puzzle that has a "best" solution rather than providing a set of skills that provides composers with help on how to realise their ideas and intentions. Frankly, what you've described makes the whole EIS system sound like a massive waste of time in getting to the desired end result.

[jsaras]

My EIS teacher was David Blumberg. He worked with Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, Wayne Shorter and Michael Jackson. Jimmy Haskell, Dell Hake also had similarly impressive careers. They all had other traditional training and they all found EIS to be invaluable.

Intervals are a puzzle and there is a finite way to manipulate a given structure. If one knows how to manipulate the "Rubik's cube" in every combination in the most efficient manner possible I'd say a composer is ahead of the game

Enough of your hot air. Let's hear some of YOUR music. If your material sounds as good as theirs, or mine for that matter, then we'll talk.

[Gamma-UT]

Enough of your hot air. Let's hear some of YOUR music. If your material sounds as good as theirs, or mine for that matter, then we'll talk.

Your sales patter needs work.

[jancivil]

Enough of your hot air. Let's hear some of YOUR music. If your material sounds as good as theirs, or mine for that matter, then we'll talk.

Your sales patter needs work.

Unsure of who you're talking to and no energy really to investigate that. You have no room to talk of heated air, though. Really.

I have been sorely tempted to show some music. All one has to do to hear every release of mine since 2009 is click on my sig links, though.

But congrats on the successful hijacking of a thread, I'm a jerk for assisting that. But, rather than a little exercise in this connecting of a series of ^7 b13, which doesn't sound that good to me in the first place nor is it I think very apt as a lesson, here's some fully realized music.

Cued for the last section. I wound up with an area I usually don't, a rather conventional sonority that smacked of a dominant 7th of all things. Then note how far I take it in that little bit of time.

https://youtu.be/9sOD3iO0iWw?t=1m36s

[jancivil]

Believe it it not, your voiceleading rules are more complicated than the EIS method and it's not as flexible. Your dated rules are covered on pages 20-21 of the course in detail. They are immediately discarded and replaced with a singular theory based on the overtone series that produces the same result and it works with every possible root movement/root cycle without regard to tonal centers, though you can easily do that as well.

You really don't get it. We study the 'dated rules' as a discipline. We obtain chops in it, and the chops proved useful per se. The very same chops that allow me to part-write as JS Bach allow me to write the other things. Rules, you need them? I guess you imagine we all are like you. I'm certainly not. So sell yourself on it, this campaign doesn't appear to be going so well.

Nobody serious obeys the principles as rules. It's fvcking 2017. Charles Ives had written radical things before the 20th century. Satie did planed mixed quartal stacks in the 1890s. The literal fight about Le Sacre du Printemps, its premiere was in 1913.

If your material is better I want to hear it, but so far it's been nothing.

This thinking is the root of your problem. You're looking at voiceleading training as some kind of puzzle that has a "best" solution rather than providing a set of skills that provides composers with help on how to realise their ideas and intentions. Frankly, what you've described makes the whole EIS system sound like a massive waste of time in getting to the desired end result.

I've implied this, but 'a singular rule' (which takes 12 volumes, and I tend to trust Gamma-UT's assessment in the context here, which is there'll be many exceptions) is suspect.

[jsaras]

The singular rule (and the noted exxeptions) applies to building CONSONANT harmonic structures. Why that perplexes you I have no idea. By observing it, I can create 12-note structures (or smaller) that are not dissonant. If you want to create dissonant vertical structures that's exceedingnly easy to do. My 5-year old does it every day without trying.

[Gamma-UT]

The singular rule (and the noted exxeptions) applies to building CONSONANT harmonic structures. Why that perplexes you I have no idea. By observing it, I can create 12-note structures (or smaller) that are not dissonant. If you want to create dissonant vertical structures that's exceedingnly easy to do. My 5-year old does it every day without trying.

It's interesting that the highly subjective idea of consonance is fixed and universal within the EIS framework. Most other places, relative consonance and dissonance shifts over time and by genre. You don't pop fourths into Palestrina-style motets. The blues would feel odd without loads of minor sevenths.

I'm sure the likes of Ligeti and Penderecki would be grateful for a theory that would rid them of all that pesky dissonance. What were they thinking, getting a five-year-old in to knock up the harmonies?

[woggle]

Cued for the last section. I wound up with an area I usually don't, a rather conventional sonority that smacked of a dominant 7th of all things. Then note how far I take it in that little bit of time.

https://youtu.be/9sOD3iO0iWw?t=1m36s

[Bojmir Raj Raj]

Believe it it not, your voiceleading rules are more complicated than the EIS method and it's not as flexible. Your dated rules are covered on pages 20-21 of the course in detail. They are immediately discarded and replaced with a singular theory based on the overtone series that produces the same result and it works with every possible root movement/root cycle without regard to tonal centers, though you can easily do that as well.

You really don't get it. We study the 'dated rules' as a discipline. We obtain chops in it, and the chops proved useful per se. The very same chops that allow me to part-write as JS Bach allow me to write the other things. Rules, you need them? I guess you imagine we all are like you. I'm certainly not. So sell yourself on it, this campaign doesn't appear to be going so well.

Nobody serious obeys the principles as rules. It's fvcking 2017. Charles Ives had written radical things before the 20th century. Satie did planed mixed quartal stacks in the 1890s. The literal fight about Le Sacre du Printemps, its premiere was in 1913.

If your material is better I want to hear it, but so far it's been nothing.

This thinking is the root of your problem. You're looking at voiceleading training as some kind of puzzle that has a "best" solution rather than providing a set of skills that provides composers with help on how to realise their ideas and intentions. Frankly, what you've described makes the whole EIS system sound like a massive waste of time in getting to the desired end result.

I've implied this, but 'a singular rule' (which takes 12 volumes, and I tend to trust Gamma-UT's assessment in the context here, which is there'll be many exceptions) is suspect.

I very much argree with this- voice leading and part writing are guided by principles; it's not some kind of algorithm with specific "rules" to be followed. The principle of singability of voices is not just about writing choral music, it's about being able to distinguish and grok a melodic line- you must be able do that in order to sing it.


It's really about "control over what you're doing". The olde-schoole approach even lets you write using bizarre xenharmonic tunings, if you follow the guiding principles, not specific "rules". The principles might even lead you to directly violate the usual "rules". For example, it's bad part writing in standard western tuning to bunch bass notes together, but if your tuning is based on subharmonic rather than harmonic relationships, bunched bass notes might be exactly what you need for a more stable consonant sound on a strong beat.

[jancivil]

The singular rule (and the noted exxeptions) applies to building CONSONANT harmonic structures. Why that perplexes you I have no idea. By observing it, I can create 12-note structures (or smaller) that are not dissonant. If you want to create dissonant vertical structures that's exceedingnly easy to do. My 5-year old does it every day without trying.

So in favor of promoting some rule, which you have actually stated is good for *any* music because it's just so true, now we are looking at 'consonant' vs random banging?

This makes no sense of any kind, now. The goalpost wildly shifted. Not to mention, you have a 12 tone sonority that's consonant, some people probably will not agree, so as pointed out, 'consonant' is not an objective term or even defined here.

I'll show what to me is a very attractive 12-note sonority by a fairly simple device:

C G D Eb Bb F Gb Db Ab A E B
2 fifths and a semitone, and again, and again. So what? I can do many things with music by my own devices.
So, what's the goal, you found a method you fell in love with and through that it's a very superior modi operandi and it's time to proselytize? Weird.


edit fail, edit button instead of 'quote' again

[Bojmir Raj Raj]

Well, if the ticket to ride in this conversation is presenting your music that shows you know what you're talking about when it comes to voice leading, here's mine.

https://soundcloud.com/cameron-bobro/su ... and-zhivan

The tuning is "Just Intonation" very close to 17 equal tones per octave. As far as "modern", there is no pre-existing theory of harmony for 17 tones to the octave, except for some very goofy and naive attempts to force it into a semblance of 12-tone tertian harmony, which sounds like ass and I don't do here- instead I approached it purely from part writing and counterpoint. Obviously you can't go by "the rules" when working with a different tuning altogether, but the principles work in any tuning.

[jancivil]

jsaras was probably calling out Gamma-UT there, I kind of think he's blocked little me.
I posted it just in case. My main modi operandi are linear ways. I work freely, there is no extraneous shit to track back to.

i have to correct a statement of mine, he did say 'a singular theory' not a singular rule. Doesn't make a lot of difference to me, I'm allergic to that.

Can't listen to yours until tonight, jarjar.

Thanks, Greg.