About this course
"A Feeling for Harmony" is the overall title of a three-semester course on the theory and practice of Western music. It covers Western music theory from the earliest beginnings in ancient Indo-European philosophy through the study of common practice tonality and into the major trends of the 20th and 21st centuries. While rooted in the “Classical” tradition of Europe and America, it also embraces the world of jazz, blues, folk and rock whenever possible. And at any rate, part of the theme of the course is to understand the continuing interconnection between Classical music and the popular vernacular.
The first semester has the official title "Western Music Theory: Introduction and Foundations." The on-line aspect of this course was first created in the summer of 2008, based on materials written and experimented with over the course of my first four years at Earlham. It is being significantly expanded in the fall of 2009. It will continue to be developed as the semester progresses. I am enjoying this new approach, as it allows me to continually update and adjust the materials as ideas come to me, and it also makes the material interactive, in that most musical examples will be accompanied with a flash player that will allow you to hear what you are looking at -- an essential element in your training.
This course elucidates the essential grammar of western musical theory, beginning with foundational concepts of tone, ratio and resonance and continuing through to encompass introductory modal counterpoint and basic functional harmony, including the concept of the secondary dominant. The course also touches upon the philosophical and aesthetic/emotional underpinnings of this musical grammar. Its goal is to impart to you, the student, a feeling for harmony and to provide a knowledge base for not only how western music functions, but why it functions, based on a long history of cultural assumptions.
The Study of Western Music Theory
Music is a universal language in the sense that, often when we hear a music from another culture, we feel a communicative power associated with that music—it “moves” or intrigues us in some way—even if we know little or nothing about the culture from which the music originated. However, from the standpoint of music theory, music is not a universal language. The concepts that motivates Western music, the impression for example that somehow music in a minor key is “sadder” than music in a major key, is not universal. There is plenty of minor mode music from other cultures that express celebration, joy, or spiritual uplift.
Thus in this course we study the logic and expressiveness of a music theory that has a very broad cultural roots —as we will see, roots that extend east to India, at very least. But this theory remains culturally contained. This is Western music theory, not the theory of all musics.
The primary purpose of any study of Western music theory—this one included—is to develop the inner ear through musical literacy. Such study is, to a large degree, a training in the reading and writing of music and an investigation into the relationship between what appears on the page and what one hears inside one’s musical imagination. Music literacy is a form of ear training, connecting ear to page. This is not an easy task, but it is an essential one for all who want to understand and practice Western music.
Music students today are exposed to a wide variety of musics and often arrive at a study of music theory with more background in the popular music of their day than in the traditional music of the Western classical tradition—the tradition of Bach and Beethoven and Debussy and Stravinsky. They are also often less conversant with the more advanced forms of jazz, which typically lie outside the mainstream of popular music. I will emphasize from the outset that the study of music theory is traditionally a study of the music of the European classical tradition, and that music forms the basis of this study as well.
Nevertheless, efforts will be made to link this study to forms of popular music, especially music from folk traditions and blues, both of which have informed rock and jazz. It is hoped that the student will gain an appreciation for the continuity of musical thought, from the earliest times up to the present day.
The term “classical music,” is so broad as to almost defy meaning these days. Robert Greene, a well-known lecturer on music from the San Francisco Conservatory, uses the term “concert music,” meaning the type of music one typically hears in a concert hall or opera house, contrasting this with the music one would hear in a club or arena. This is a pretty good definition as far as it goes. We also might just think of this as the tradition of notated music, since that allows us to embrace the notated aspects of especially the jazz tradition while leaving out those aspects of modern music that are more improvisational, such as the improvisational aspect of jazz or much of the genre of folk, rock and hip-hop—music that tends to be composed away from the notated page.
Another aspect of this course which is quite unusual in an introductory book on music theory is that we focus at the beginning on intonation and musical temperament. Most theory books assume that since Western music today is based on equal temperament, they do not need to go into the history of how this approach developed. I take my lead from a brilliant work by W.A. Mathieu, Harmonic Experience, in which he carefully revisits our suppositions regarding intonation and takes the reader through a thorough understanding of three intonation systems: Pythagorean, just intonation and equal temperament, and explains how a full understanding of tuning systems helps our appreciation of the music written in equal temperament. I follow his example, because this approach has been of enormous benefit to my own understanding of music at the deepest level. I am confident it will help yours, also.
This class presumes a basic background in music fundamentals, such as knowledge
of rhythmic notation, the names of the notes on the grand staff and the
execution of various musical directions related to dynamics and tempo.
If you are not strong in fundamentals, you will be asked to take a co-requisite
class in musical rudiments.
Welcome to the formal study of Western music theory. I hope that by December
you will have gained a deeper appreciation for the power of music to
express everything that makes up our humanity, and a better understanding
of the methods whereby composers and improvisers accomplish that task.
Next: Let's go to Chapter 1 and get started