What is really a "music theory"?

[jancivil]

It is that, and I don't care about that, but the argument there is sound OR I WOULDN'T BE FVCKING RECOMMENDING IT

SERIOUSLY. Simply dismissing it because you see "432hz" is_not_critical_thought.

The last bit regarding the pure sine in electronic music is partly right, however it's ignorant about for instance Chowing FM which makes more of sines.

You happened to mention Helmholtz as the rules, and it doesn't really work like that so there's a 'lite' version of why. Musical sound, in instruments, in the voice is, our ears are nonlinear.

[Musicologo]

Wow, so many replies in so little time! Well, it seems Jancivil already replied to most of the issues addressed and exemplified WHY are some things important.

I might add the following points, from where I'm coming from:
1) While for some music might be *art*/Craft, for many it isn't. Music can be just expression of feelings or induction of emotions (Mind, one cannot know what specific emotions will elicit), music can be a natural practice emerging from daily context (nursery rhymes, labour songs, religious rituals); Music can be political (making songs to spread a message and lead to action); Music can be business (producing artifacts for profit), etc, etc... So, it is crucial to understand CONTEXT.

2) As a musicologist/scientist I believe a theory is meant to EXPLAIN things. We might not be able to have a theory for ALL music, but if we need to create a set of theories to explain things we have to have methods and they need to answer questions.

Jancivil gave some examples that for, instance, to understand some classical composers one must understand why they did what they did. Bach never did an opera and did tons of oratories, because he was making music for profit, for a living, and had to do the kind of music he was asked to.

Jancivil gave also some example why Zappa did guitar and not piano.

I'm interested in those things. Most of the times we have to go to the individual level to understand the muical practice of someone. That is why etnography is the preferencial method. Because it seems impossible to make "universal laws for music". We need to study individuals, lots of them, understand what is it that they call music, how they behave regarding to that and what sounds they make. Then, when we have a sample we can extrapolate to the next level (a community, a village, like "the musical practices of people from Viena c. 1750-1780; or the musical practices of amateurs in London 1950-1970, or the musical practices of a community of raga players in Delhi 1930-1950, because they all will be very different).

Only when we have reasonable samples for all of those we can then compare them and see if there are patterns and rules... but again, what's the point of those? to then establish "norms"? To "prescribe"? That makes no sense.

3) We pretty much know what joins us. We share 99% of DNA, we know what we have in common. Now, what we have so different? Why, since we are all human beings we have so many different musical practices? So what is relevant to me is to understand the differences and the whys...

4) So a musicologist is *NOT* someone interested in replicating 16th century informed practice (well at least not me). A musicologist is a scientist interested in understanding and explaining the values that shape the different musical practices of the world, ALL of them, the same way a biologists cares about all species, from apes to fruit flies. And they go into detail into each one of them, to understand the vast diversity.

5) A lot of Musicians in this forum might be *artists*, *creators*, *performers* who care to develop their own musical practice by imitating others. Then they become *objects/subjects of study*. A musicologist studies musical practices. And that is what A scientific THEORY is. A way devised to EXPLAIN something.

6) As such, it doesn't seem to me that *counterpoint* for instance is a theory at all. It is a description of what some people did. A theory, on the other hand, would be an explanation for that. A theory would be explaining WHY BACH composed the way he did, and eventually in point (8) we would reach "counterpoint", but to understand WHY bach used counterpoint and how he arrived at that we would need to understand 1-7: that he lived in germany in 1685-1750, that he was literate, that he composed mainly in sacred environments, that his music was functional, that he had to produce a vast amount of it, that he had specific ensembles and not others, etc, etc... the text explaining all these things, the "Thick description" as Geertz put it, would then be a THEORY explaining bach music and eventually why he used counterpoint and not something else.

7) If, as musicians, some people of this forum only need some melodic and harmonic aspects to perform, then this is a musical practice by itself. each one of you has a "musical practiced" informed by your social context, your motivations (art? profit? politics?...), your memories, background... each one of you could have a THEORY explaining your musical practice. The theory explaining the musical practice of an american country guitarist in 1970, is different from the one explaining the musical practice of Beethoven, and it is very different from the one explaining the musical practice of Norah Jones 2010, a Suya indian 1980, or the Sardinian Villager 1950. They might not even call music to the same events. What is music for the country guitarist might be just noise to the Sardinian Villager and vice versa.

Some cultures don't even have different concepts for dance or music! how does one make a universal music theory out of this? Impossible. For a native of a certain nigerian tribe in 1950 (quoted by blacking, how musical is man?) the idea that someone "can't sing" for instance is absurd. The notion of "Talent" does not exist. If one has a mouth and can eat or speak, then one can sing. Because singing is something everyone does and it is not attached to any artistic value.

Conclusion: I think a theory is something that explains something. Most "music theories" I've seen in western conservatories don't do that. They describe and prescribe things for musicians in certain (very limited) musical practices and within very narrow ranges. On the other hand, most ethnomusicologist papers I've read, actually explain things. They tell me WHY Suya or Venda sing, they tell me why Sargent pepper's exist and how it was made and why it was an inovation and it was important and moreover, they tell me WHY it made sense for the beatles to do that, and why anyone replicating that in 2017 it would be crap and would make no sense at all. Is there any purpose or value for someone in USA in 2017 to emulate/imitate what some english dudes did in 1960? Context changed, so text changes.

On the other hand I see value in someone explaining WHY someone else in 2017 do what they do and what innovative processes or changes they bring to the table, and how does that connect to the context and how it emerges from it. Those might be theories.

[Musicologo]

This, for instance, seems much more like a theory, than say counterpoint. Why? Because this explains why and how the musician does what he does.

«The purpose of this article is to examine the creative and collaborative agency of a young, professional home-based studio producer of popular music, who iden- tifies as a tracker/producer. The study seeks to illuminate how music production technologies and practices shape our understanding of the agency of the contem- porary aspiring music producer and to provide insight into the music production studio as a socially constructed cultural space. In this article the music producer is seen to do more than just work with an artist on an existing work. Producing here means having a creative input on a song from the very beginning of the compositional process up until the point where the song is sent to the master- ing engineer. By combining cultural study of music technology (Théberge 1997; Taylor 2001; Greene & Porcello 2005), which understands music technologies as cultural practices that produce and mediate musical meanings and experiences, and ethnographical methods, I approach the home-based music production stu- dio as a cultural space (Bates 2012) where social and musical performances and interactions take place and meanings of music and its authorship are constantly in negotiation. My aim is to answer the following research questions:

1. What kind of a creative agent is the independent home-based studio pop music tracker/producer?
2. How is the creative agency of the producer constructed within a collective with respect to other creative parties working in the production of a song?
3. What kind of a cultural space is the digital home music production studio and how does it contribute to the construction of the tracker/producer’s creative agency in a production process?»

https://etnomusikologia.journal.fi/article/view/60227

[jancivil]

So a musicologist is *NOT* someone interested in replicating 16th century informed practice (well at least not me). A musicologist is a scientist interested in understanding and explaining the values that shape the different musical practices of the world,

That's not what I meant, I meant that is an application of it in the context 'I am a 20th, maybe even a 21st century musician' and first of all no academic so I take what I need and leave the rest. And even went a little into how that would help me specifically or why I don't worry about it.

Musicology is a discipline apart from Music Theory, which at the school I ended up in had an academic thrust, hence an 'Honors' distinction, because many of the students will need to become professors and maybe need to know all these things. My friend is a big Beethoven guy, and he knows a lot more about it. I don't listen to [western] classical music in the stricter sense.

Now, I am interested in how certain raags developed over time and I've even delved into WAY back in time out of fascination. The Old World as we call it from the US perspective is a little alien to me.

[jancivil]

as you note, 'music theory' doesn't theorize. It can be studied in the way they did it at CCM along with a History Course and we had to write essays on why this composer did things the other one didn't, but you're interested in detail that in a course study is properly understood as a Musicology thrust. The History teacher probably was a shite musician, you know? I woodshedded at least 8 hours a day. Once I finished Honors Theory I asked 'where do I go from here' and the answer was to allow me a graduate school type of thing; which wasn't even a class, it was pick some substantial piece of music and write a paper on it. Form and Analysis, and there isn't time for much else here either, it's kind of just facts about the form. What develops, out of what material, how does it relate. What is the rhythmic contour in the suite.

So I knew a little about the dance forms, Louree, Gavotte and Bouree here, but while this is an excellent thing to do when you're actually performing that thing for jury, it was practical, and not as contemplative as all that.

But do carry on, I'm just sayin'.

[VicDiesel]

the argument there is sound

Hm?

For example, sound is not a vibration of the air. A sound wave, we know today, is an electromagnetic process involving the rapid assembly and disassembly of 48 geometrical configurations of molecules. In modern physics, this kind of self-organizing process is known as a “soliton.” Although much more detailed experimental work needs to be done, we know in principle that different frequencies of coherent solitons correspond to distinct geometries on the microscopic or quantum level of organization of the process.

Got it. Sound is a quantum process, not vibration of the air.

Moreover, he insisted that the musical tonalities are all essentially identical, and that it makes no difference what fundamental pitch is chosen, except as an arbitrary convention or habit.

So you think there is an absolute difference between 432 and 440, and one is not just a transposition of the other?

Musical sound, in instruments, in the voice is, our ears are nonlinear.

I'll see if I can find an actual reference that explains what that means.

Victor.

[jancivil]

Here's a really legit-looking article which suggests the same thing, Helmholtz' linear argument is problematic. This is a scientific look at the mechanism of perception, hearing. I said hearing is nonlinear which is a dumbed-down statement. But it appears that the neural firing is complex, and perception of consonance not as simple as degrees of 'roughness' as it looks like when you begin.

"It should be noted that there may be more than one neural source that contributes to our perception of consonance and dissonance. Neural processing of auditory stimuli is complex, and it is possible that some combination of physical properties at the ear, primary auditory processing and secondary or associative processing play a role in this perception. Synchrony effects underlying these layers of complexity nevertheless may hold important clues in any attempt to explain consonance. Indeed, Cartwright et al. (2001) have explored a similar dynamical systems approach whereby the synchrony characteristics of three coupled oscillators (three frequency resonances), may resolve the puzzling perception of the ‘missing fundamental’. Their theory accounts for the manner in which a fundamental is mysteriously perceived in a set of tones played simultaneously, even though it is absent."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... _sec3title

Helmholtz's (1877) theory is scientifically appealing, but yet it remains controversial and fails to explain a number of non-trivial aspects central to musical psychoacoustics.

Plomp & Levelt (1965) have demonstrated that once the frequency difference δ between two pure-tone intervals exceeds 3 semitones (i.e. beyond the critical bandwidth), no roughness can be experienced by the ear. However, beyond this critical bandwidth the evaluation of consonance can vary considerably and change direction (with peaks and valleys) as δ increases. Yet, these changes of consonance occur despite the absence of harmonics, and thus in a regime where beats should be entirely absent. Clearly, Helmholtz's theory of beats is unable to explain these consonance sensations.

The EEG responses of subjects to pairs of pure tones show that neural processing of consonance depends on higher associative processing of pitch relationships in the cerebral cortex (Itoh et al. 2003). That is, consonance is not just the absence of roughness but determined by neural processing in the auditory cortex. Itoh et al. (2003) reached this conclusion by studying the auditory evoked potentials indicative of cortical activity response. Of the intervals studied (1, 4, 6, 7, 9 semitones), they found that in all cases the evoked potentials were at their highest (in terms of voltage) for two pure tones separated by a perfect fifth (7 semitones) when compared with other intervals. These results provide electrophysiological evidence that matches behavioural preference for simple frequency ratios. Given that pure tones only were made use of in the experiments, this preference has nothing to do with the beating of harmonics which forms the basis of Helmholtz's theory (1877).

We are thus led to ask, over and above Helmholtz's beating phenomena, why do some combinations of tones sound more pleasant than others? The answer to this question may well have to do with the nonlinear dynamics of auditory perception, in contrast to Helmholtz's solely linear framework.

then there is a whole lot of math.

Although Helmholtz's theory of beating harmonics is a delightful explanation for consonance and dissonance perception, as shown above, it nevertheless fails to account for many phenomena well known in the literature. In such cases, other explanations are needed. Partly owing to this, neural synchrony has in the past been postulated as an important mechanism in auditory perception

[woggle]

Psychology of music is where you will find most work relating to "why music" David Huron is still my favourite there. You could also look to the adaptive function of music literature as well, although I still think nothing there is particularly strong. Other than my thoughts in that field ( which have only been presented at conferences, and I'll never bother publishing as I'm retired) but they relate to the biological basis for the attribution of leadership.
Music theory normally understood is generally as the OP mentions, descriptive and then prescriptive. Like one finds from stuffy language pedants, although music theorists are seldom that silly

[Musicologo]

I've read some years ago Patel "Music, language and the brain", as well as Huron, Temperlay and a couple of years ago Deutsch "the psychology of music" 3rd edition. All are very dense scientific books, but all of them are "wrong" in a fundamental sense: they all preconceive "music" and more often than not they are in fact analysing "sound" which is NOT the same thing.

All those biologicaly/psychologicaly led books seems to ignore "culture", and most experiments are done with western people and even educated and literate people (subjects recruted in campuses and whatnot), few studies are made with large samples and cross-culture. Furthermore most of those studies are euro-centric. They assume a notion of music which is NOT universal therefore they will always have the same flaw: they try to find universal patters and rule and generalize for the "human species". And then what? Those who are not "among the average" are sick? are abnormal? If a children doesn't coordinate to a beat what do you make of it? If a subject finds pleasant a minor second interval do you call her a lunatic? (What about those bulgarian woman who sing in dyads and find them pleasant?). NONE of those books explain those things. And most of them try to generalize and try to find "general laws". We already know general laws: we are humans, we all have a heart beat (so our sense of what is fast and slow is more or less the same), we know what brings us together, but we still can't explain the diversity!...

"Music" is not a biological trait. Sound and some reactions to sound might be, but Music is the cultural understanding of some sounds and some other embodied phenomena, and the *concept* of music varies, therefore it is NOT possible to start making "studies" departing from the view point those books start, because they will lead to wrong conclusions, or to conclusions that only apply to an "eurocentric" concept of music or a biased concept of music that only those subjects tested will agree on and the generalizations for humankind will fail.

One has to first meet the subjects and ask: so "WHAT is music? what is it that you call music?" And then see the behaviours of the subjects and what emerges from them. THEN you might ask questions and try to devise ways to test them and develop theories. For instance, how do you explain that some bulgarian woman are pleased to sing dyads and most of westerns find that dissonant or unpleasant. Now, explain that. Or, why there are people for whom it is important to throat sing even singing different notes with different vocal cords, something I could never do, nor do I find that sound pleasant, I'd call it "noise", and yet for Tuva singers it is beautiful music, now explain that... etc...

If a "hard scientist" assumes "music is sound" and then they pick up a symphony and see how 50 random people they pick around campus will react to it, they make brain scans, EEG, whatnot... That makes no sense at all. They are studying brains, they are not studying music.

Concluding: I'd say most of those books should be renamed to something more like "theories of sound perception by groups of humans" and not "music". Because music implies "whose music? what location, what timespan?", There is not "music" per se, but only the "musical practices of subjects X, in place Y, and time interval Z".

[woggle]

Huron's "sweet anticipation" is not difficult and assumes nothing much about music at all that is specific to a particular culture. Mrgulis is another who writes very well On Repeat is very good and does not, from memory, unduly restrict the scope of her thoughts to a narrow cultural perspective. Pretty hard to get away with being narrow now. The good work on development assumes nothing like you mentioneg Philips-Silver has a good review section in frontiers in human neuroscience. "Searching for roots of entrainment in joint action in early musical interactions"

[Musicologo]

Let me try an analogy: assume something like "dog meat has lots of vitamins and nutrients as well as cockroaches". This is universal. We all know that humans eating dog and cockroaches will extract valid nutrients from them, be them chinese or USA or south africans. This might be true. Then what is the problem? The problem is that if you talk to most americans "dog" and "cockroaches" are culturally not considered "food" and they will most likely never eat them, neither consider eating them. the theory will never have any useful application.
On the oposite side if you talk to an american "mac donalds" is "food". However when macdonalds opened restaurants in Bolivia it failed, because in Bolivia they did not consider "fast food" food, because food is not just something "edible", but instead a slow ritual and the act of having fresh ingredients and unique way of conceiving them is part of the thing, etc... The concepts and behaviours change. What Huron and Margulis says it's music is not universal. They can only talk about what they think and conceive it is music, but it is just a subset, and most of the time an ill defined subset. If they say, I'm going to make a theory to explain the sound perception of some americans c. 1950-2000 perhaps it is more acceptable...
And I really have to say that I'm not that much interested in "perception"/"reception" but much more in "production". Does huron theories explain why a certain album by Bon Jovi exists for instance? Is Margulis able to explain why we had country in USA, rancheras in Mexico and tarantellas in Italia?

[woggle]

Also I think you are asking too much of "theory" A theory can be very broad but also quite narrow eg one might have a theory about the use of bells in the pattern of cultural genocide undertaken by the Christian church in their invasions of the pagan lands of Northern Europe. Some do.

Re your criticisms of Huron and margulis , again you are misunderstanding the scope of their theoretical positions. They are not seeking to answer those questions, or put another way, your questions are ill posed. there is nothing wrong with a theory not predicting specifics at that level of granularity. Physics does not predict the location of the pieces of gravel in the footpath outside, although they and their positions are consistent with Physics. What is it about your examples that disproves Huron for example?

[Musicologo]

one might have a theory about the use of bells in the pattern of cultural genocide undertaken by the Christian church in their invasions of the pagan lands of Northern Europe. Some do.

Well THAT indeed might be a theory. This is exactly what I'm talking about. I believe someone can study that (because it is well-defined, has a time, scope, etc...) and then explain why and how it happens (althout I don't know how they would test it).

[woggle]

one might have a theory about the use of bells in the pattern of cultural genocide undertaken by the Christian church in their invasions of the pagan lands of Northern Europe. Some do.

Well THAT indeed might be a theory. This is exactly what I'm talking about. I believe someone can study that (because it is well-defined, has a time, scope, etc...) and then explain why and how it happens (althout I don't know how they would test it).

You test it using ray tracing of bell sound audibility over historical topographic recreations and looking at settlement patterns and belief change. At least that's how it was done back 15 or so years ago. Gotta say I loved the daring and imagination of that paper when I first read it.

[Gamma-UT]

I've read some years ago Patel "Music, language and the brain", as well as Huron, Temperlay and a couple of years ago Deutsch "the psychology of music" 3rd edition. All are very dense scientific books, but all of them are "wrong" in a fundamental sense: they all preconceive "music" and more often than not they are in fact analysing "sound" which is NOT the same thing.

Yep, all about the sound, not music. All about music being preconceived...

In the baroque context, the V-IV progression is somewhat surprising, whereas in the context of reggae, the same V-IV progression is commonplace. If the listener is to correctly anticipate the progression of acoustical events, she must somehow bracket or segregate two different sets of expectations . . . It is the ability of brains to form multiple schemas that provides the psychological foundation for distinguishing different styles and genres. Without this foundation, baroque and reggae would meld into a single general musical schema. Our experiences with baroque harmony would interfere with our ability to accurately predict harmonic progressions in reggae, and vice versa.