Discussion

When I first created www.thinkingmusic.ca, I had no idea how people would respond. For one thing, the site is obviously addressed to a very small audience — experienced musicians with an interest in how music works, and at least some ability (and patience!) to navigate the jargon of music theory.

To my surprise and delight, I’ve since been hearing from www.thinkingmusic.ca visitors from all over the world, who have conveyed their own passion for the inner workings of music, with an enthusiasm that easily matches my own. While writing the site’s articles has been a creative pleasure for me, seeing its ideas resonate among kindred spirits is a joy that I hadn’t anticipated. It’s a sign — more, an affirmation — of a very special kind of community. It’s in acknowledgement of that community that I’ve begun this discussion page.

I invite you to express your opinions about the site and its contents, to initiate or join discussions that may develop, or to just say hello. To do so, just click the little Comments link (above), and Leave a Reply : – )

All the best,

Michael Leibson
www.thinkingmusic.ca

  1. Note: This comment originally came to me via private email. I am posting it here – with its author’s kind permission – because I think it asks an important question: what purpose does music theory serve? I follow this excellent question with my own, rather subjective, answer. – Michael Leibson

    Hi Michael,

    I´m not a pro-musician and I am in my forties now. I don´t have any musical education. But since „ever“ I was very interested in music and music always has been my hobby. I play guitar and piano. . . I began to learn Guitar at the age of 16 as an autodidact. I learned by trying to transcribe/imitate the harmony-play of Joe Pass, who fascinated me a lot in these days. . .

    Later I transcribed arrangements of TAKE6 for my own hobby-vocal-sextet (for which now I write my own arrangements). Doing this was rather tricky, and I learned a lot. For my choir I transcribed arrangements of Mervyn Warren. I love all the music of Quincy Jones, I admire the skills of Dave Grusin, … but also love the music of Mozart and especially Händel. So from my beginning I am a great Jazz-Fan and was always interested expecially in this type of music.

    From the beginning I learned by „active listening“ and by trying to imitate. I used to sing along to my Jazz-LPs and CDs, but not the solos but always the harmonies and the respective chord-tones. Whenever I heared a new chord or a new chordprogressions, I stopped the LP-Player or (later) the CD-Player, went to the piano and tried to find out how this „new thing“, which I was listening to a few moments ago, was working. My first encounter with a 7-#9-chord was almost traumatic … Over the years the chords and chord progressions which I became familiar to became more and more. The unknown ones became less and less. But still there are SO MANY unknown and new harmonic things out there which are yet to discover …

    But now to get to the core of the matter:

    With major intrested I studied your website and honestly think that this is great. Really great. I think that everyone who is interested in this matter and is studying it can have a major profit from it. But my personal problem (!) is the following question:

    What is this whole analysis-thing good for ?

    I don´t ask this question in an „arrogant“ way. I mean it truly full of interest, because I can´t understand it … !!

    As said before, I´m the last one who would NOT be interested in harmonic questions and in learning everything which can be learned in this field. And of course you need a theoretic analysis to understand, what happens in GIANT STEPS (movement of the „harmonic root“ in triads …). OK so far. But let me quote one sentence of your website (Just friends):

    “Personally, I would identify F#m7 and B7 as being simply “ii of vi” and “V of vi”, rather than “ii of V of ii” and “V of V of ii”. ”

    If I try very very hard, I can follow you in this example („follow“ means for me: Having a sound-immagination of the written words). For me this passage is just a II-V-I progression having Em7 as „target-root“. But is it important, that this „new root“ (for a short time) is the VI of the original tonality ?

    Of course, a good jazz-musician should always keep in mind the big context. But … not only in MIND … expecially in his EARS !! If you are able to play (and hear) such a tune flowingly, then you will also be able to hear that the target of this short progressions itself remains in the original tonality, as the VI. But to me it seems rather daunting than helpful to make these things that complicated with numbers and relations.

    In the end almost every harmonic jazz-chorprogressions is any kind of II-V-I movement, having major or minor thirds, having this or that tensions, …

    If you cannot figure out a fitting scale by yourself, then jazz-music possibly is not the right hobby for you. Or … am I unfair in this point? Is this theoretic approach really one way to get familiar with these things … ???

    I´m far away from being a jazz-musician. But if I play on the piano and try to improvise, than my problem is not to find fitting tones to the given chords, but my problem is to find the „REAL“ tones on the piano (without loss of time !!), which I´v heard in my ears before, and which I always try to find and play. Of course … the more scales and licks you have in your „library“ (and in your fingers), the more manifold will become also your inner ear and your sound-immaginations … but playing scales and licks WITHOUT hearing them in your inner ear … ???!!!

    Would be great if you could give me a short answer in order to understand better, if these things are really „neccessary“ or if they are just one possible way to learn. But don´t stress yourself in any way. I don´t expect anything but would be thankful for everything. I just wrote to you because of your website … and because you seem to be the “right man” for my question

    Best regards from Vienna,
    Thomas

  2. Hi, Thomas;

    Thank-you so much for your wonderful email — your questions are really important, and deeply thought out! You have wonderful musical taste (Take Six has always been one of my favourite groups — they make the more mainstream a capella groups sound like school kids!), and you speak from truthful experience, so it was a real pleasure to read your email.

    First, as a musician, I completely agree that theory without the ear is pointless. I also agree that the best approach is quite often found by the ear, regardless of any preconceived notions.

    Quote:
    “If you are able to play (and hear) such a tune flowingly, then you will also be able to hear that the target of this short progressions itself remains in the original tonality, as the VI.”

    That, in a nutshell, is what it’s all about! However, there are times when we aren’t able to perceive these (and other) things, and that’s when music theory can sometimes be a great help — not so much as a way of learning what should be in the music, but as something that directs our attention to the music in precise ways, so that we can then perceive what is naturally there. Just like you, I’ve spent my life listening, figuring out, playing, and exploring this wonderful musical universe. Along the way, I’ve found that some of the theory I’ve encountered and studied has acted precisely as a guide to my ear and my musical perception, helping me perceive — hear — what had so far remained hidden. However, one of the difficult aspects of music theory – especially advanced music theory — is that it involves so much jargon, which takes a long time to learn, and can really turn one off. I began my own formal study of harmony in my late teens, and absolutely hated it — this isn’t music, I thought, it’s physics! It took me another ten years, as an active, professional musician, to really assimilate what I’d learned, and – almost three decades later – I’m still deepening my understanding of that subject. But I can honestly say that without the study of harmony (and melody, counterpoint, rhythm, analysis, etc) I wouldn’t have anywhere near the depth of musical understanding — and, more important, the degree of joy — in listening and composing, than would have otherwise been the case. But that isn’t to say that everyone should study theory, nor that any particular type of music theory is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. I’m sure, without a doubt, that a good deal of what took me ages to understand was already present — hard-wired, as we say — in the young Mozart’s mind and heart!

    But there’s another side to theory, that’s quite important in its own right, and that is the attempt to figure out how music works. Every musical genre is the result of a long, long evolution, created both by brilliant discovery and dumb accident, and one can — to some degree — trace the steps of that evolution, in the process gaining an even deeper understanding and appreciation for its unique gifts. I think that, as sensitive musicians, we all do this, whether we’re aware of it or not.

    Quote:
    “In the end almost every harmonic jazz-chord progression is a kind of II-V-I movement, having major or minor thirds, having this or that tensions, … ”

    This is — to me — sadly too true, and is perhaps the result of too much of the wrong kind of music theory — a theory that gives formulae rather than real insight. There are myriad ways of moving within a key, and from key to key, yet the almost universal adherence to the ii – V – I formula has too often hidden this truth.

    Quote:
    “If you cannot figure out a fitting scale by yourself, then jazz-music possibly is not the right hobby for you. Or … am I unfair in this point? Is this theoretic approach really one way to get familiar with these things … ???”

    I really believe that the best approach combines both paths: one’s own musical perception and creativity (and it seems that you have a good amount of both!) will offer many possibilities; theory — which is, in one way, the codified perceptions of other musicians — can supply those one hasn’t yet perceived on one’s own.

    Quote:
    “but playing scales and licks WITHOUT hearing them in your inner ear … ???!!! ”

    I completely agree! Any decent music theory should lead to the inner ear.

    Quote:
    “Would be great if you could give me a short answer in order to understand better, if these things are really „neccessary“ or if they are just one possible way to learn.”

    This is only my own opinion, but I think it all comes down to how much you already ‘understand’ through your own efforts and experience. I have had some students who I think were more gifted than me, and I realized, through them, that theory is simply a reflection of musical intelligence — musical intelligence that some have in more abundance than others. Actually, my memory of those more gifted students also provides me with a fuller answer for you: it turned out that those students were, in the end, quite glad to have studied theory with me, because, even though they already ‘understood’ a great deal intuitively, they ended up learning things, and taking in larger perspectives that were completely new to them, that helped them develop even more. So, perhaps it simply comes down to where you’re at, and how satisfied you are with it. You already understand far more deeply than someone who studies music theory purely intellectually. In my own case, I know that there are many musical areas that I’d love to study more deeply, but I already have my mind, heart and hands full with those subjects I’ve been studying for years — another two or three hundred years would do the trick, though. . .

    Thanks for reading my website’s content with such interest, Thomas, and for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and articulate email! Indeed, it’s for people like you that I created my website!

    All the best,

    Michael
    http://www.thinkingmusic.ca

  3. John says:

    Maybe it’s just true for me personally, but having a mental grasp on what I’m playing has always facilitated execution on my instrument.

    Nice stuff! Looking foward to more.

    Best regards,

    john

  4. Hi, John;

    Glad you like the site!

    Maybe it’s just true for me personally, but having a mental grasp on what I’m playing has always facilitated execution on my instrument.

    I’d be surprised if there are any accomplished players who don’t conceptualize what they hear and do, musically — even if the process is entirely subconscious.

    Nice stuff! Looking foward to more.

    Thanks, John. There will be more coming — the analysis of Stravinsky’s L’Histoire is almost done, Brubeck’s Rising Sun is still in progress, and I’ve got what I hope are some interesting perspectives on the rhythmic, metric, scalar and harmonic techniques used by a wonderful, relatively young, jazz pianist (who shall remain nameless, for now).

    All the best,

    Michael

  5. Saverio Lentini says:

    Hi Michael

    I’m an amateur saxophone player as well as a Coltrane fan and I read your interesting analysis about Coltrane’s Central Park West (http://www.thinkingmusic.ca/analyses/coltrane/index.html ) only few days ago.

    Several years ago I think I discovered a “butterfly” in the harmonic structure of Coltrane’s Central Park West:

    I don’t know if Coltrane used a diagram like the one in the figure, but I like to think he did. I think there was some butterfly in Central Park that day!

    Please, take a look at the figure and listen to Coltrane’s melody and McCoy Tyner’s comping… you do see the butterfly, don’t you? I’d like to ask McCoy Tyner about that!

    Best regards from Rome,

    Saverio.

  6. Hi, Saverio;

    What a beautiful and witty perspective on the tune, Saverio! It would be great to have it published in a good jazz magazine — so that others might see it — but, in the meantime, I’m happy that visitors to the thinkingMusic Discussion page get to enjoy it!

    Thanks for sharing your discovery with us!

    All the best,

    Michael

  7. Free Music says:

    Hello there, You have performed an excellent job. I’ll certainly digg it and in my view suggest to my friends. I’m confident they’ll be benefited from this site.

  8. Thank-you, Free Music! I’m glad you like ThinkingMusic.ca, and I appreciate that you are spreading the word!

    All the best,

    Michael
    http://www.thinkingmusic.ca

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