A comment of mine at Musical Perceptions has apparently thrown Scott Spiegelberg off balance. (That certainly wasn’t my intention, of course.) One could perhaps detect as much from the fact that, in the discussion in question, Spiegelberg very bizarrely accused me of violating civility. This led me to wonder whether there is some sort of etiquette in the field of music theory, or in the music blogosphere, that I am unaware of, according to which it is impolite to challenge one’s interlocutors and raise points of controversy. (I certainly never got this impression during all the time I spent reading the scholarly literature in the field, but that was a few years ago, so maybe times have changed.)
If so, I would respectfully ask readers to get over it. If you think I’m a raging fanatic with an axe to grind, if you think my attacks on harmonic theory are too harsh, if you think my tone is too polemical, then you need to put things into perspective. Start by having a look at the writings of Schenker — to take only one particularly relevant example. By comparison, I think I have been remarkably restrained — especially when you consider that, at times anyway, I am hardly less frustrated than Schenker was. And for many of the same reasons, too!
I don’t mean to rub anybody the wrong way; but the fact is, there is an intellectual debate here to be had. Theories of music are no less subject to criticism than theories of anything else; and the specific criticisms that I have raised about harmonic theory (I don’t claim they’re original with me) are serious and warrant discussion. To leave them undiscussed, indeed, is to concede the issue to my side.
September 23, 2007 at 2:41 pm |
James:
This is becoming a HS game…if not some nerd fest. We’re getting no where in this back and forth of definitions. You know, it just becomes old…seeing theorists back and forth with depates about…well, theoretics…and post mortems.
You know, I like reading about these systems people propose mainly for insights and for ways of creating since I am a composer. But to make a stand on any of these is totally counter to musical creativity and really dangerous.
With Steve, especially. Sorry, I find what I know about him – a typical academic tyring to make tenure. The good side about him is that he has a task in life and a focus. Let him believe what he wants. To try and fight every point will only make you into a myopic dogmatic academic nerd yourself. We both have our own jobs to do.
I left a post on his site in that thread similarly….
September 23, 2007 at 5:06 pm |
CB:
I don’t happen to agree that we’re getting nowhere in these discussions. If nothing else, they help to raise awareness of the fact that harmony is not the only game in town: several people who were previously unfamiliar with Westergaardian theory have since become interested, and have said so in comments.
Actually, it isn’t just one discussion. The Chopin debate is distinct from the more recent discussion, although there is certainly a common theme. You might think of it as a set of variations, each exposing a different angle of the theme.
As for “nerd fest” — well, this is the internet! It’s kind of in the nature of the medium. The great thing is, if you don’t care about a partcular discussion, you’re under no obligation to read it, let alone participate. It’s not as if you’re being held captive in a room full of people.
I agree that it’s probably not worthwhile to “try and fight every point”. Ultimately, if people want to stick to a bad theory, they are entitled to do so. Nevertheless, it’s important to raise the issue on a regular basis, in order to point out just how contaminated musical discourse is with this particular set of outdated ideas. Harmonic theory is so endemic that people fail to realize that it’s merely one candidate theory of the musical phenomena it purports to address.
It seems to be peculiarity of Anglo-American culture that passion is considered impolite. You’re not supposed to feel too strongly about anything. Well, to hell with that! Think of the young Boulez hissing and booing at performances of Stravinksy’s neoclassical works; think of Schenker’s acerbic ridicule of his predecessors and contemporaries; think of Beethoven’s foot-stomping, fist-pounding temper tantrums! I haven’t come anywhere near such levels, and don’t intend to, and yet people are squirming with discomfort.
I’m not even particularly dogmatic: anyone paying close attention to my analyses would notice how far I am from sticking to the letter of ITT . For instance, one of the most important details of my Chopin analysis — something that, to my surprise, no one has commented on — involves a procedure that is not part of Westergaard’s system as presented in ITT (though it can be found in Schenker). (See if you can find what I am talking about.) This is only to be expected: ITT is a starting point, not a book of holy scripture. The point, however, is that it is the correct starting point. By which I mean: of all the possible starting points available, it is the one that sucks the least. The contest isn’t even close: it sucks far, far less than any competitor.
What is “counter to musical creativity and really dangerous” is not passionate enthusisasm for a particular way of thinking. On the contrary, such enthusiasm is often the very source of creativity. The real danger is indifference, ambivalence, not giving a damn. The fact is, I am profoundly interested in the details of notes — or at least the details of musical thought processes. It is this — and almost this alone — which explains my enthusiasm for Westergaardian theory and my contempt for harmonic theory (which I view as an obscurantist evasion).
If my musical specialization were not composition, if I were not the sort of person drawn to creative intellectual pursuits like mathematics, full of subtle distinctions, then maybe I wouldn’t care about which theory to adopt. But it is, and I am, so I do.
September 23, 2007 at 11:41 pm |
Yes but Dude James. The tone has become a sort of evangelicalizing of ITT and Scott I guess, got a bit tired of having to respond to every nuance of thought, He has a DMA from ESM theory and is trying to make tenure (and Im not impressed because I find it all following that same academic “survival artist” path with little regard to art). However, if you think you can get somewhere in this argument with THAT kind of background – well…good luck. He aint gonna budge. Too much at stake. You won’t be heard.
What’s the end state? What do you hope to achieve – im tring to imagine the final blog entry between you to would be? I’m not saying dont contribute, but just remember there are careers and egos here…
ok…time for a music knap
September 24, 2007 at 1:54 am |
Yes but Dude James. The tone has become a sort of evangelicalizing of ITT
See? That’s what I’m talking about. You’re not supposed to be too enthusiastic about anything, lest you be thought a zealot. Well, sometimes a zealot is right!
and Scott I guess, got a bit tired of having to respond to every nuance of thought, He has a DMA from ESM theory
So you would think he would be used to dealing with subtle nuances, wouldn’t you? You would think he would be comfortable with technical discussions about the merits of competing theories. You would think he would know the difference between intellectual disagreement and uncivility. You would think…
and is trying to make tenure (and Im not impressed because I find it all following that same academic “survival artist” path with little regard to art). However, if you think you can get somewhere in this argument with THAT kind of background – well…good luck. He aint gonna budge. Too much at stake. You won’t be heard.
Maybe not — at least not by Scott. But the confrontation will be a matter of record. Somebody will hear it. The arguments need to be made. It doesn’t matter whether Scott Spiegelberg (or anyone else) personally realizes the error of his ways or not.
(Confession: I have continued to hold out a slight hope that I might have actually something to learn from the harmonicists; that maybe I’m missing something important; that maybe they understand everything I understand and more. So far this hope has been disappointed, to put it mildly.)
What’s the end state? What do you hope to achieve – im tring to imagine the final blog entry between you to would be?
Why should there be such a “final” entry at all?
What I am trying to achieve is education — increased understanding.
I’m not saying dont contribute, but just remember there are careers and egos here…
Spiegelberg entered this realm and opened himself up to public give-and-take long before I did. If he is not able or willing to defend his ideas, then he should come out and say so, rather than casually tossing around charges of uncivility as a means of dodging the issue.
ok…time for a music knap
Agreed.
September 25, 2007 at 4:03 am |
CB says: “…We’re getting no where in this back and forth of definitions. You know, it just becomes old…seeing theorists back and forth with depates about…well, theoretics…and post mortems…”
I disagree, this kind of thing is what the internet is all about. Truly meaningful debate about the essence of things. I’d like to see it go on and on, but sounds like Scott S. has been KO’ed in the third round…
And I think what the original study he cited showed was conditioned response, which should not be a basis for music theory…
September 25, 2007 at 12:08 pm |
So what about doing a few posts as a sort of explanation of the basic principles of ITT? I think that some of the problem in this debate (though I think the debate is interesting and worthwhile) is that while you offer some excellent criticisms of harmonic theory, your alternative methods seem to be either extremely vague or directions to a chapter of a book that’s been out of print for some time. I like the idea of an alternative theory, but, while the few analyses you’ve posted are intriguing, I still don’t really understand the theory you’re putting forward outside of the notion that it’s governed by voice leading and elaboration of the tonic pitch.
Of course, that is a lot of work, and I’m just asking so I can get free theory lessons, but it may also have the benefit of clarifying the sides in this debate.
September 25, 2007 at 4:22 pm |
I agree with Eric–I think part of the problem is that most of us are unfamiliar with ITT. When you presented your Schoenberg analysis, you encouraged us to “read it and weep,” and I read it and couldn’t really make heads or tails of it, beyond noticing a passing resemblance to a Schenker graph. I have it (ITT) in arm’s reach now, and I’ve read the first three chapters. It’s quite interesting. Is it going to radically alter the way I teach music? I suspect not. Will it influence how I think about music? Undoubtedly. I certainly don’t disagree that there are many ways of understanding music. I like to tell students that we’re in the business of equipping them with an analytical toolkit. It seems to me that there are musics that are less well-suited to Westergaardian theory (popular music, jazz, perhaps) and more well suited to harmonic theory. To paraphrase your remark above, ITT is not the only game in town either. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on more “humanistic” (for lack of a better word at the moment) theories of music–things like gender studies, performance studies, etc. Do they give us better or worse information about music, or just different?
September 25, 2007 at 5:36 pm |
I’m don’t really think the humanistic approaches are in conflict with either the Westergaardian or harmonic theories. The latter two are concerned with the way music is contructed – it’s the grammar of music. The former are about music’s impact on listeners and society. The grammar is related to that, of course, but the argument here is about the way it’s notated and understood. It doesn’t really matter from the standpoint of gender studies whether one uses terms like V-I or 3-2-1 over 5-1 (or whatever the westergaardian way is). It’s a good point, though, and worth remembering that it’s probably an overstatement to say either of those approaches is the “theory of music,” since both are going to ignore extremely important aspects of the art.
I’d also be interested to hear how westergaardian theory translates to something like jazz, or to non western music. Does it purport to be a theory that describes all music, or only what we consider “classical” music?
September 27, 2007 at 1:09 am |
Eric:
So what about doing a few posts as a sort of explanation of the basic principles of ITT?
Not to worry; I’m working on it! It may take some time, however. (Maybe Scott will get to it first in his series of posts on various tonal theories…)
TTU:
I agree with Eric–I think part of the problem is that most of us are unfamiliar with ITT. When you presented your Schoenberg analysis, you encouraged us to “read it and weep,” and I read it and couldn’t really make heads or tails of it, beyond noticing a passing resemblance to a Schenker graph.
I’m surprised to hear this; I thought the fact that it was written in ordinary music notation would make its meaning plain.
Maybe the problem is that you’re trying to read it as a Schenkerian graph, which it is not. Instead, think of it as a simplified score of the piece. Try following along while listening to a recording.
I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on more “humanistic” (for lack of a better word at the moment) theories of music–things like gender studies, performance studies, etc. Do they give us better or worse information about music, or just different?
At their best, they offer valuable information over and above purely musical analysis; at their worst, they provide a way for people to “study music” without having to get into the details of the notes.
I’d also be interested to hear how westergaardian theory translates to something like jazz, or to non western music. Does it purport to be a theory that describes all music, or only what we consider “classical” music?
ITT most certainly does not purport to apply to all music. However, I take the position that, using ITT as a model, one can fairly easily construct a much more general metalanguage (such as I have already used implicitly in the Schoenberg analysis).
In fact, there is no formal obstruction to analyzing “nontonal” music as “tonal” in terms of the system of ITT itself. Presumably, the only reason Westergaard does not carry out such a program is that the resulting analyses would be too complex for the type of listener he imagines (see for instance the discussion of the Tristan Prelude on p. 284). His mistake, if you want to call it that, is failing to recognize that such complexity would accurately reflect the nature of the music: 20th-century repertory really does require particularly skilled listeners.
As for non-Western music: any metalanguage capable of handling the Western art music of the twentieth century can probably handle just about anything.
October 5, 2007 at 2:25 pm |
Maybe some more food for thought here. I’m guessing the study is highly flawed, but interesting nonetheless:
http://www.therestisnoise.com/2007/10/sparrow-playlis.html
October 6, 2007 at 7:48 pm |
Bill,
Is it really that interesting that birds can distinguish between Bach and Schoenberg? That doesn’t seem like a particularly difficult task, and though I’m no ornithologist, I was under the impression that at least some species of birds were skilled listeners (using “songs” to signal to each other).
I would be more interested in knowing whether the sparrows would make distinctions among different pieces by Bach, or among different pieces by Schoenberg.
October 7, 2007 at 6:43 am |
I think the interesting part is that they’re saying that birds don’t just distinguish but actually prefer Bach over Schoenberg. Bach’s music is naturally more appealing!
October 7, 2007 at 7:21 pm |
Perhaps I was being too charitable to the authors, but I was assuming that the study was about the birds, and not about the music. If you’re going to make a point about (human) music, there’s absolutely no use in running tests on Java sparrows.
The most that bird preferences can tell us about the music itself is that Bach’s music is easier to comprehend (and thus in a sense “more obviously music”) than Schoenberg’s. But we already knew that.
March 23, 2009 at 4:15 am |
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