simple question about a term: when the same notes on different octave positions sound together

[juno987654321]

one thing, op, why?
is this for some course? own desire to learn?
do you play alone or do you need to communicate this to others?

Oh, I just care about language a bit and so I like to know how things are called, why they are called so and what's the idea behind it. Yeeees, I'm a bit reflective at times.
Luckily, I'm not a student any more and music is something for my free time. I studied something else some time ago, but it's not important.

Theory and language can make you become more conscious of what you do (or have been doing all the time) so why not talk about it a bit? I know that you can do many things by intuition and implicitly without being able to put them into words but why not also do things more consciously and be able to name them. It's a good thing, e. g. for communication, research... (Then you know what to google for...) In my humble opinion there is much prejudice against theory, conventions, and all that's related to that. But why? I personally love conventions! If it wasn't for those you'd have nothing to build upon or, if you want to be so different, go new ways and distinguish yourself from all those conventions. But if you want to be pink then you need some grey or some light green as your contrast or people won't even notice you in your new and shiny outfit. I know, we all want to be sooooo very individual and unique and so we are - just by virtue of being born individuals. It's all good! So there's no need to see Bach or the old and dead guys as your enemies. They're all your friends! I'm sure at their own time they also wanted to be very unique and so they broke with so many traditions, invented their own style (if their profession allowed for it) and that's what they would reply now if they weren't dead already. I'm very fascinated by all the work they had done at their time and I appreciate the passion they put into their music very much...

Besides, your bank manager example: horrible!
I'm not sure if I'll be able to sleep tonight! Why did you have to come up with such a drastic example of failed existence?

[jancivil]

"So there's no need to see Bach or the old and dead guys as your enemies."
No one has said anything remotely resembling that

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

"let all the cheap composer trick flow from my a...."that's a kind of getting out of your own way.

Yes, but it had the side-effect that I realised I could come up with something fast if e.g. I was a film-composer (which I dreamt about in a distant past) and was given the task. Conventions are not just political, many are practical and music is craftmanship to me, not that much of a political or academical battlefield that it is to some. Meta-discussions about musical conventions as conventions can be interesting as well as relevant, but first I need to do my musical deeds and without musical conventions, I would surely be lost and unable to compose the music I want to make or teach about the basics of chords. Some people have for good reasons other than musical a negative and sceptical bias towards conventions as such, and yes, of course there are politics and ideals embedded or mirrored in musical conventions too. No discipline excapes that dimension, but we should be careful not to take it out on the music itself, only those who abuse it, e.g. gender chauvinistic rap culture or the hate-rock of white supremacists, or on a smaller scale, the degeneration of musical art by some mainstream trends (imo).

[jancivil]

Well, I have not really encountered extramusical lingo or any of that, other than a band I was associated with was the American entry in something called Rock in Opposition, a European thing, but it was a general sort of resistance (to fascistic elements) opposition vibe rather than people with polemics or manifestoes. Or literally none of it traveled to the west coast of the US, if there was anything. Henry Cow, Univers Zero, Aksak Maboul. Cartoon in the US.

I don't think of myself as an intellectual, I would have had to write and I have almost not done; but I did think to obtain as much heft as I could as far as technique at least at the time. (Actually I have spent enough hours in the library to amount to an education, but it would take years of work to get to where I could write a defensible dissertation I think.)
So I don't think of this hifalutin stuff way up above the practice of music... 'meta-', or as though a musical choice is about anything else.
Below I think my mention of Donald Grout speaks to the political aspect of convention.

I was primed for modern music by the way I grew up, my father had some pretty progressive records out of his Stan Kenton fanaticism. When I took history at CCM, I had a real stick-in-the-mud professor and by the time I kind of got kicked out, we were still in like the 14th century (mid year, and it's a one year course). It was Honors Curriculum where you're made to do in-depth writing... on all of this old church music on shitty records or cassettes that to me all sounded the same; and it was the Grout text which is pure Western Europe hegemonic bullshit afaic. No discussion of anywhere else on earth, nothing happened between Ancient Greece and the church polyphony apparently. And it radicalized me a bit. That looks political but I don't think of it in that way, it's just lameness and intellectual sloth IME. So it isn't reactionary rebellion, I just realized in an epiphanic way how narrow that worldview is, aesthetically, as far as what is available to the mind and the ear yet to refuse so much; it's, well, conservative, and oppressive. Yet, I don't think wanting to be free is political, I think it's about having genuine human agency.

I'm not scholastic-minded really. I thought of it as trade school essentially. I matriculated as 'Applied Music', which means perform on an instrument and be judged.

[jancivil]

I really think attaching things outside of music to music degrades it (unless it's entertaining), music is better than all of that

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

It is not like I have not felt the restrictions of musical conventions. When I learned the stuff, I almost thought of musical rules as mandatory universals that would lead to social sanctions if I broke them. It almost killed my signature on my own music, but it was an illusion in my own head. I just had to realise this as a fact and get over this childhood disease in composition and see that the history of music had added to my tastes, scope of understanding music and, most importantly, filled my toolbox with a lot of new choices. I do not know if other have been there as well, but at that time, I took it for granted that many schooled musicians always would have to balance between their conventionality and uniqueness. After all, if you would go for an A+ in composition, you better had to come up with something unexpected. If someone gives you a cantus firmus and a set of principles that opens the melody to many solutions, you should not go for the same solutions you use when there is only one correct voicing given. So this balance act seems kind of contant to me.

[jancivil]

I consider myself fortunate in this way: neither parent was interested in guiding the way I think much. I'm practically feral.

Another thing I don't regret is I did not study composition in school, not really. I switched to electronic music emphasis because the guitar prof at SFCM was rather a failed player and classical performing for me hit a brick wall behind more than one reason, physically. But this was about being left alone to come up with whatever crazy shit occurred to you. The Left Coast. But the most significant thing ever said to me happened there: I had this mess on tape and Alden Jenks comes in to check on it, and he does "Lot of energy there. Subtract from it.".


I'm claustrophobic.

[jancivil]

"many schooled musicians always would have to balance between their conventionality and uniqueness"
I was mostly just a player. I knew one genius (acknowledged later in life/a career) composer and from those little lunchroom discussions I learned that in that emphasis at that location it was all about originality and exploration; they do not appear to have been training hacks for film work or anything like that. Art > Profession.
If your matriculation was geared to a teaching career, your focus would be theory and/or history, hence an Honors Curriculae. But it was anything but restrictive.

My musical partner-in-crime I met at SFCM was a comp major so he studied with John Adams and David Sheinfeld during his time there. So he took the counterpoint and all of that, but as far as the work you present, you present modern composition and you go big or go home. We were so radical. I was an outsider now, actually.
He was into the classical music, as a pianist so I didn't sense any conflict or dialectical dissonance, straddling two worlds. I didn't grow up with classical music. It's not home base for me.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

To each, their own, @Jan. You won't see any objections from me about dropping composition. I have seen students to whom it was but a painful exam or just completely out of their musical interests. In accordance with their interests, I would never have tried to convince them otherwise. Actually we were just a few nerds in our classes and we were basically all better thinkers than players, so home sweet home, but it was far from a popular topic.

My own mission within music is mainly about the music, and my worries is the gradual and historical loss of melodies, harmonizations and polyphony, as well the gradual loss of polyrhythms too. Very powerful elements of pre-Fux as well as pre-church music. Classical music evolved as an art form of melodies but as it went on, one melody became the ruler, while the rest became support. "Music consists of rhythms, harmonies and melodies" became "music consists of a rhythm, a harmony and a melody". From plural to singular. Today, I understand if people were exhausted from melodies after the 80s, but I haven't seem them much around in non-pop electronic music ever since, though there are still pearls out there. I love the sound of electronic music, but cannot live with rhythm, effects, some chords maybe and noise only and will not go to pop or Eurovision to get my melodies. What to do? Make them myself and upload them. That is the only thing within my power. Not much, but not nothing either.

[vurt]

one thing, op, why?
is this for some course? own desire to learn?
do you play alone or do you need to communicate this to others?

Oh, I just care about language a bit and so I like to know how things are called, why they are called so and what's the idea behind it. Yeeees, I'm a bit reflective at times.
Luckily, I'm not a student any more and music is something for my free time. I studied something else some time ago, but it's not important.

Theory and language can make you become more conscious of what you do (or have been doing all the time) so why not talk about it a bit? I know that you can do many things by intuition and implicitly without being able to put them into words but why not also do things more consciously and be able to name them. It's a good thing, e. g. for communication, research... (Then you know what to google for...) In my humble opinion there is much prejudice against theory, conventions, and all that's related to that. But why? I personally love conventions! If it wasn't for those you'd have nothing to build upon or, if you want to be so different, go new ways and distinguish yourself from all those conventions. But if you want to be pink then you need some grey or some light green as your contrast or people won't even notice you in your new and shiny outfit. I know, we all want to be sooooo very individual and unique and so we are - just by virtue of being born individuals. It's all good! So there's no need to see Bach or the old and dead guys as your enemies. They're all your friends! I'm sure at their own time they also wanted to be very unique and so they broke with so many traditions, invented their own style (if their profession allowed for it) and that's what they would reply now if they weren't dead already. I'm very fascinated by all the work they had done at their time and I appreciate the passion they put into their music very much...

it's not a prejudice against theory conventions as such, as an understanding that conventions have changed
or at least there are now new conventions a student may wish to explore first.

and, not all of us have the same conventions now anyway, music isn't a single language, it's many, and then each language has grown several dialects.
so as i said earlier, it's finding the right conventions.

you're question in the old single convention "no that's not a chord"
when using more modern context "yup it's a chord".
neither is wrong, but there's very little point telling you it's not a chord, if you like it! better to find a convention that fits.

my initial comment regarding fux may have sounded like i hated him, but it was more a play on his name to illustrate my point, knowing tribe knows me

hope this explains my view a little, im not anti that, i just also like to support this

[jancivil]

How old is Fux?

So old he was named before f**ks was a word.

Anyway, the people who'll say 'that's not a chord' are a very tiny minority and that can be ignored

[jancivil]

for me, the western concert music (I don't like 'classical music' as the broader term really) gets interesting with Debussy. Between JS Bach and that strong move away from the strictures of that culture is a pretty dry area for me. Late Beethoven quartets gets interesting, the so-called deaf stuff. Lot of great moments but 20 or 30 minutes of dominant/tonic paradigm is difficult. one_more_time
I don't judge it on any but its own terms, but I just get weary of V7 and the demand to resolve (I come from Foxy Lady and a 7 #9 chord that isn't_dominant), and these little cadential formulae and the elaborate scaffolding in form that's all about that V-I. It sounds like an ancient past and a hell. While Le Sacre du Printemps is never going to come across like it's stuck in some time or carry that aroma... or Debussy Arabesques and all of those gems.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Anyway, the people who'll say 'that's not a chord' are a very tiny minority and that can be ignored

I would not know who they are. As said: It is a chord in Fux' view though he would not call it that but just an incomplete harmony. Generally he says nothing that is not compatible with all other notions of chords you will meet in Rock, Jazz or beyond. Thus, his system is usable for modern musicians as well and is still in use. If it ain't broken....That he does not recommend parallel fifths/octaves for choirs can hardly be said to have any influence on the value of the educational system as such. You can still use it to understand parallel movements as well whether he liked them or not. I think that to composers, the system is trivial as well as harmless. Like an alphabet.

[jancivil]

"would not know who they are"
I can name one. first name begins with F. Not a strawman, and it can be construed as what you are saying, with special qualifications. "Incomplete" is not an objective statement, it is forever bound to its context.

it's harmless unless your time is limited

oh wait. agree on trivial
I don't care, if one finds it useful it is useful. I don't look to archaic definitions, tho. I got two intensive years of 'no parallel fifths in four-part-writing', seems enough

I recognize the historical import and the influence and all of that but as a necessity, I'm good with ignoring it. You're good with ignoring dodecaphony as necessary, I'd bet. Over a century now, a convention, a discipline, a tradition practically.
So I grew up hearing it in TV music. It's part of my time on the planet.
I chose to drop the elective rather than be graded on rules of manipulating 12 tone rows, though. I internalized it well, trying so hard before I thought that was a corrupt thing to agree to.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

"Incomplete" is not an objective statement, it is forever bound to its context.

It is just a word reflecting a musical convention, not about particular people or anything else. It is not a discriminative or value-laden term in my eyes. He may have called harmonies with thirds A-harmonies and the substitutes B-harmonies for all I and many fellows would care. We just need to understand what is meant and no ghost of Fux is going to haunt us if we chose our own terms for the distinction, but the communication with fellow composers may be harder in that case.