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Date:         Thu, 28 Jan 1993 09:03:29 +0000
From:         "Out,
              out - you'll not feel the fall-out..." <OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Music Theory Thread

>Date: 28 Jan 1993 01:50:25 -0500
>From: mjferzig@MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU
>Subject: Music Theory Thread

>I had a discussion with a musical compatriot last night about parallel
>fifths. He wanted to know what's so bad about them. I explained the whole
>thing about how there really are no musical "rules"  - that what we're
>taught in music theory class is extrapolated from the works of J.S. Bach
>and others. Since what Bach wrote sounded / sounds so good ItheirHO, the
>music theorists adopted the usages of those compositions as rules. Since
>Bach was not a user of parallel fifths, they became the evil method.

        Typical attitude of classical music. I have nothing against it, but
I don't subscribe. What's worst is that not only the purists' theory banned
parallel fifths (and octaves), but invented *hidden* fifths (and octaves)
and banned them too. I've never found anyone who could really explain in
plain words what the hell these hidden things are, though.
        Breaking the rules is a vital tool of creativity. There's no creati-
vity inside a set of fixed rules. And we're only talking about fifths! The
problem is even worse when you get to 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th...
        Modulation was another taboo. It could be used, but not too much.
And yet popular music used scales that were out of any classical framework,
and were absorbed by classical music after long time. That was cheating...
think of the Napoletan Scale, for example: its weird semitone interval
between 1st and 2nd step (i.e. C-Db, for example) would often call for a
very weird modulation, but alas, that was *forbidden*. Then somebody used
it, it sounded good, and the set of rules was broadened.
        Jazz was the real revolution in this sense, and it's for this reason
that the classical (classical?) composer I love the most is Gershwin. He real-
ly did not care about perfect 5ths, that's for sure...

>So how do y'all feel about this? I've always felt that we are doing a grave
>injustice to our music students by teaching them that there is a "right"
>and "wrong" to composition and arrangement. In my college, you didn't learn
>about 20th century techniques and "breaking the rules" until our 4th
>semester of music theory - too late to salvage an innovate idea from many
>of those minds....

        It is a grave injustice, as long as someone tries to push the idea
that there is a right and a wrong. The best thing one can do, in my opinion,
is to say -- well, you have two different frameworks: one is comparatively
stiff and fixed, the other is coded somehow, but you're much freer.
        In the end, the ear and the heart of everyone must choose, since I
can't think of any other way. I couldn't even listen to jazz until five
years ago; now it's growing on me, and I can't really listen to a plain,
simple sequence of chords without some tension inside them without thinking
the whole thing is dull. This is probably because one always tries to "get
more" than what he has.

>Tell me your opinion of modern music education....

        I'd say it sucks, but it's not true in itself. So -- it sucks if
all we're supposed to do is explain the rules. It won't work, simply.

        Ciao, Marco -- incredibly awake in spite of the early hour

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 Like a shot, like a paparazzo picture gone to pot...
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Marco Olivotto, C.I.S.C.A. - Univ. degli Studi di Trento, POVO (TN) - ITALY
olivotto@itnvax.cineca.it                                 OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA
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