Music theory

Ok, so I started playing piano about 10 years ago when my mom found a teacher. However, when my teacher taught me anything about theory I would just space out until she told me to play something on the piano. Now I REALLY wish i hadnt done that, but back then i didn't care at all. Right now I know all the basic stuff like time signatures and things like that. But when it comes to figuring out which notes go where and what kinds of notes go together im lost. Because of this its hard for me to write down music that ive composed. Is there anything you would suggest for me to do? Should I go out and get some basic theory books? Where should I start?

Thanks for any help!

Grab the music you like. Like Chopin? Bach? Ligeti? Then grab'em scores and look through them, play them through if you can. Look for the stuff you like and work from there. Develop a sense of what does what, such as chords or melodies, by looking at what other people did.

My recommendation is to try to stay away from "by the book" theory, and that sort of dogmatic nonsense if you're a composer. You are free to write what you feel, so start by knowing what it is that you feel and what causes it. Once you've gotten a substantial amount of analysis and knowledge about pieces (notes, effects, etc), then maybe you can complement it with "formal" views on it if it helps you. But try to work it out from a practice/directly useful way first.

As in, look for what you like, what makes you tick, and see if you can reproduce it yourself first. See what makes them effects. No book is going to ever tell you any of this. And knowing artificial rules and other junk is fine for someone who doesn't care about composition and wants to just get by with music theory, but for a composer theory is strictly practical and not something you get from a book, and also infinitely more subjective~

So that's my recommendation.

1. Grab a lot of stuff you like.

2. Figure it out, look at it, take it apart. Find what you like about it.

3. Experiment with what you're seeing.

4. ??????

5. Profit!

SSC, in other words, it is OK to write in a language which you don't understand the grammar?

As composers, we are free to write what we wish and to convey what we wish but this doesn't release us from the obligation to know where to place notes. This is something that a theory text book, or a good private teacher, can show. Also, how is one supposed to follow your number 2 instruction without knowing what it is that they are looking at? A strong background in theory can help a composer understand exactly what it is that makes something sound a specific way.

Looking at a score and seeing a D major chord doesn't explain why it sounds like it does. Only when a composer is able to see it in context and realize that it has no diatonic business in the key of F major can a composer use the D major chord with the same effect. (Which, in my opinion, is a pretty cool effect.)

Melville, I suggest finding a good composition teacher as well as a theory teacher to really get you through specific issues you are having. From what you wrote in your post, it sounds as if you could use work with harmony and notation of rhythm. Even a simple chart of note values would help with the rhythm stuff. If I misunderstood what you are looking for please ignore my suggestion.

Conventional harmony may or may not suit you but like it or not, it is the root from which modern music grows, so either way you should know and understand it. I agree with SSC on the point of experimenting. But you have to have the fundamental building blocks to work with in order to understand why you achieved a set of results.

This goes for tonal as well as atonal music. I hope this helps.

Cheers,

SSC, in other words, it is OK to write in a language which you don't understand the grammar?

Yes, because A: Music is no language, it doesn't work around a functional basis and is not in any way objective. B: Therefore there is no real "Grammar", because there is no functional basis in music, there's no ground from which one can form any sort of structure other than one's own tastes and aesthetic values.

Two ENTIRELY different things.

Oh, and my number 2 can be followed through no problem (even without previous musical knowledge, too! OK, you gotta know how to read notes. But even then maybe that's not so important...) so long as you actually work on it. And as for building blocks? Eh. There's no such thing. I don't think it's nice forcing anyone to slave through cadences and 18th century nonsense unless they are INTERESTED in this, and they won't know if they're interested unless they themselves go and look at it and find that they enjoy it. They can do this by themselves, and in fact is better, since people's ideas of what is "basic and important" can vary way too much.

And I'd have to disagree that conventional harmony is the root from which modern music grows. There's way too much going on right now, and half of it has absolutely zero to do with "conventional harmony" (what does conventional harmony mean anyway?)

In fact, a lot of people have worked entirely against this, and in an effort to just kind of kill the idea that "music is such and such." Conventional harmony or whatever you want to call past trends are as important as you want them to be in practice.

I think instead of worrying about composition techniques and tone arrangement systems, it's much better to first know what is it that you want to write and do with music. That's a much better thing to work on than some silly theory, whichever it may be. It usually happens that both go hand in hand, but only works if systems are there to SERVE the composer because they like what they provide, not the other way around, which is one of the huge dangers of trying to imply "basic building blocks."

You can teach people formulas, but you can't teach people how to compose. If you imply the formulas are "fundamental", the composer is going to end up developing a taboo against working with other stuff, like so many people I have met. If the composer, beginner or not ever ends up with a "can one do this?" question, they're victims of this failed pedagogic method. Writing something that has nothing to do with "conventional harmony" or any other such system shouldn't be thought of in any circumstance as a "unusual thing" or worse a "going against the rules." It should just be done because that's what the composer wanted.

Goes without saying that the excuse of "learning traditional stuff" in order to "break the rules" is extremely childish. As if someone is going to ask you "Hey, did you know about this traditional stuff before you wrote this piece!? No? Oh god I hated this piece, then! You are a terrible composer." And besides, it's easily "fixed" if you just, well, explore more music. Doesn't have to be with a book in hand, is what I mean. Just listening to everything musical that comes your way and looking at it as sources for inspiration is quite enough.

So, in conclusion, I stand by what I first said.

Oh...I see...communication and understanding without language. I'm going to try this for the rest of the day.

Music not a language? In written language, we have symbols...lets call them letters...and they tell us what sound to make. In music we have symbols...lets call them notes...and they tell us what sound to make. In language, we have context clues that put a spin on other words. In music, there is harmony. In spoken language, we can use voice inflection to convey our point. In music we have dynamics, and articulations. The point of language is to communicate. The inflection which we end a sentence indicates what kind of sentence it was. (Question etc.) Lets call that a cadence. We have cadences in music right? You yourself stated that we as composers should find effects that we want to create and then try to create them ourselves. If the effects mean nothing, why bother? If they have meaning, they communicated a meaning to you. Communication is only possible through a 'language'.

Beethoven demanded communication through music and even said that music had to power to convey what words couldn't. Mozart demanded communication through music. As did Bach, Chopin, Liszt et al.

I am not suggesting that all music should be written to follow rules. Clearly that would be boring. One advantage of studying theory as a composer, however, is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel each time you want to achieve a specific effect.

I can't for the life of me think of a significant composer through history that didn't have a fairly strong knowledge of theory. I could be wrong, but nobody comes to mind. Do the math on that one.

I'm gonna go ahead and agree with Leo up there. Sorry SSC.

You see, what you are proposing could be likened to taking a native English speaker and giving them a copy of the Russian alphabet and a copy of "War and Peace." You then tell this person to write a thesis paper using that language while the person doesn't know how to read it. It can't be done because the person doesn't know how to write in Russian despite seeing the alphabet in a list and seeing the letters used to create a great work. So while the person might have great thoughts in their head, it is nigh impossible to put them down onto paper.

So Melville, take some classes in theory. If your high school offers music theory, take it; it's truly enlightening and once you have learned the basics of music theory, breaking the "rules" becomes more significant because you know the why behind it and know when to do so. A good music theory class will also teach you some music history - how music has evolved since the days of Gregorian chant to John Adams - so you will understand better how to imitate the style of Mozart or Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.

Now SSC's advice isn't wholly unfounded, simply aimed at more experienced composers. It's true that one cannot hope to survive as a composer writing in the dated style of Mozart; new music has evolved beyond the classical style, but like Leo said, the composer who knows nothing of music theory is few and far between indeed.

If you want to buy some books on music theory, I can reccomend a few. To begin, I've found that "Tonal Harmony" by Stefon Kostka is my preferred theory book. I've also studied from "Harmony" by Walter Piston, but I think it's an inferior book. After that, try "Twentieth Century Harmony" by Vincent Persechetti. The first two will give you a solid grounding in traditional Western music theory while the latter will give you an idea of how music is being written today (complete with some really interesting compostitional exercises.)

Anyway, have fun and good luck learning!

1. Grab a lot of stuff you like.

2. Figure it out, look at it, take it apart. Find what you like about it.

3. Experiment with what you're seeing.

4. ??????

5. Profit!

well, as someone pointed out, for a more advanced composer, yes, this WOULD be a fine route to take.

however, for a beginner, as is the case here,

point 1. yup, ok, now what?

point 2. uh, ok, um, I don't understand it... because without SOME basis in theory, it's rahter difficult to analyze and "take apart" what you're reading/

point 3. see point 2.

point 4, well, since there are already two preceding problematic points, this one, in all its mystery, will have to remain ??????

and finally

point 5. profit... from? oh yeah, get a job with a REALLY famous rock band, THEN you can diddle around with "classical" music and people will actually think you're a genius because they KNEW you as a pop musician, and all of a sudden, well, you're doing "oooo, classical!" music.

Of course, that also means that your music will probably never really be taken seriously, and you might have to do like Paul McCartney and hire someone to "ghost compose" all of your "classical" pieces.

Cowboy, the last two parts are a reference to the Underpants Gnomes episode of "South Park."

point 5. profit... from? oh yeah, get a job with a REALLY famous rock band, THEN you can diddle around with "classical" music and people will actually think you're a genius because they KNEW you as a pop musician, and all of a sudden, well, you're doing "oooo, classical!" music.

Of course, that also means that your music will probably never really be taken seriously, and you might have to do like Paul McCartney and hire someone to "ghost compose" all of your "classical" pieces.

not quite so for everyone...you can be like Frank Zappa and pursue classical composition, after that fails delve into rock/pop, take advantage of the fame and get people listening to your classical stuff...Zappa's classical is one of its own, unique, but underrated (praised under the batons of Boulez, Nagano, etc.)...maybe there will be a day when people recognize know of his classical without having knowledge of his pop stuff (well, his wife will have to make his scores available first)...i would call some of Keith Emerson's and Jon Lord's sophisticatedly legit too, though not even near Zappa's ranks

Good Christ are you ever wrong SSC.

I know you probably think that all composers with a theory background simply sit down with their pencil and manuscript paper, plug in a few equations, and produce tonally "correct" music, but that's far from true. Theory is based on what sounds really good to the listener - cadences, for instance, exist because the end of a piece should be strong, final, and resolute, and somehow someone figured out that it if you go from a V chord to a I chord, it sounds like a grand finale (not every time, obviously, but you see what I'm getting at). The point is, experimentation should be done AFTER learning basic theory - that way, you can purposely break the rules and know in which way you are doing it. For instance, the chord progression iv, ii, vii, bVI, iii, ii is not conventional at all but hey, it might be exactly what you want your music to sound like. Only problem is, unless you know what the hell a "borrowed six chord" is, you won't have the foggiest idea of how to make your unconventional progression and will instead have to throw notes on the page at random until you finally get what you hear in your head written on paper.

That's another thing: you're right in that composers should write what they feel, but what you fail to see is that theory is incredibly helpful in that respect. Let's say you're writing something, and you decide the next chord you want to sound begins with a note you hum to yourself, and that you want it to sound sad. Well, with theory, you can determine what that note is and that what you probably want is a minor chord, to achieve that sad effect. Your problem is that you're equating theory to a complete lack of creativity, yet it's entirely possible and probably easier to break the mold if you know what you're doing.

Regarding music and language:

While there are similarities between the two, there certainly are distinct differences:

Language came into existance for communication and communication only. Its aim is the clearest and most direct exchange of thoughts with another person. It has a very clearly defined purpose, even though in literature and especially poetry this purpose has sometimes been shifted a bit. In languages there are clearly defined meanings of words. I can say the word "dog", and everybody who knows English knows exactly what I am referring to.

Music on the other hand has always been rather ambiguous. It doesn't have a purpose per se, and can take many different roles. It -can- be used to communicate ideas, but not in a very clear way, as the reception of music is largely subjective. There are no defined meanings. I doubt music was "invented" only in order to communicate. It can also simply arise from the joy about different aural sensations. Children do this when they hit objects with other objects to make noise. They are fascinated by the sound, they don't want to "tell" anybody anything by it.

Of course you could say that children smashing stuff together cannot be classified as music. But personally I find the joy of exploring sounds a perfectly valid musical "stance". I think it would be deprecative to music to say it only serves the purpose of communicating something and has no value by itself alone.

A Beethoven symphony may "convey" a meaning to people, but that is subjective. It has no defined meaning. The fact whether you know the rules of classical music change little to that: The symphony can be enjoyed and "understood" as much by someone who does not know the language, as by a music professor. A hungarese book however will have next to no value to someone who doesn't know hungarese. In music, knowing the "grammar" and "vocabulary" doesn't reveal the "meaning" of a piece, which is the fundamental difference to an acual language.

You are missing the point of the comparison between music and language. You're saying that music isn't like a language because it doesn't convey a specific message, but not only is that wrong on a lot of counts (Berlioz's "Symphony Fantastique," anyone?), you can't blindly write music just like you can't blindly write poetry. It will lack form, rhyme, and reason.

There's a quote by Mahler that goes something like "If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music." Music is inherently communivative and expressive, just with every art and just because there's some ambiguity to the meaning does not mean that it is not meant to communicate.

As far as theory's importance regarding composing, I can only reiterate that only after the basics are learned can you really hope to be able to break the rules and to do it well.

Language and music are so incredibly different that to only acknowledge the similarities and call the two the same thing is ridiculous. Language is used to say, "I have chest pain. Please take me to a doctor." Music is used to say, "Look at me, I'm pretty/sad/surreptitious." You need to know what words mean what to say the first one, but you can write a beautiful piece without knowing anything about music theory. Saying that music by somebody who knows no theory is inferior because it will lack form and reason is just a confused way of saying that music that lacks form and reason is inferior, no matter who writes it.

I don't deny that some composers may have a specific message -in mind- when composing. But the way the composer translates this message into music is subjective. If we really must use the language comparison: It is the language of the composer, not the language of "classical music rules". Nobody but the composer will get the same out of it. The meaning of the "Symphonie Fantastique" wouldn't be clear at all if there was no title or any other verbal hints to the "content". Lots of people would have lots of different ideas of what that piece "means".

Music can certainly be full of associations and symbolism. It can certainly communicate (I didn't deny that), but it's not a direct communication between composer and listener, but two seperate communications: One between composer and the music, another between the listener and the music. At some points they match, at some points they don't, depending on personalities and cultural background.

There is a number of "cultural standards" of what specific musical expressions mean, to which many people would agree, such as "Major-happy, minor-sad", but they tend to be -very- rudimentary, in comparison to languages.

Without doubt can interpretation be very personal in literature too, but in music this point is reached a lot faster.

Anyways, I'd be careful with saying that music is inherently this or that. There are as many reasons to create music as there are musicians, and it would be a pity to simply dismiss all music that wasn't written to convey some non-musical idea to listeners.

As we are quoting composers, let me finish with something by Var

OKAY...before this gets irrecoverably off topic....

We all MUST be able to agree (although some musicologists have tried to argue it), there is no system of semiotics in music. It's not possible...

The wiki article says it all: Musicology, Semiotics of Music

...

It depends on the person. There is no person in the world where music "theory" couldn't help somewhat. Unless that person has a huge amount of musical creativity and has no need to have others perform his music.

Music theory is really just a language(98% of it). It's much easier to learn things when you have some name for them and also to learn from others when you can communicate with them. But language is all about communication(not really just with others but also yourself) and music is also about communication. One uses sounds and the other uses ideas.

Most people that feel theory will make them less creative are just using that as an excuse not to learn it. It's true that focusing to much on theory can reduce your creativity but thats an easy fix by just taking a break from it.

At the very least every musician/composer needs to know the basics of music theory... unless they live in a box.

(The only reason I spent like one hour writing all of this was to try to explain my point of view better (and perhaps bring a little insight in this matter, if I may be so ambitious), and as such I don't expect anyone to understand it EVEN after the hour of work I spent on it. Despite it all, if any of it makes you angry you should as well go practice piano or guitar or whatever it is you play rather than be angry at me. Thanks.)

I knew I got a little heavy handed on my opinion, sure. But well, here we go!

well, as someone pointed out, for a more advanced composer, yes, this WOULD be a fine route to take.

however, for a beginner, as is the case here,

point 1. yup, ok, now what?

point 2. uh, ok, um, I don't understand it... because without SOME basis in theory, it's rahter difficult to analyze and "take apart" what you're reading/

point 3. see point 2.

point 4, well, since there are already two preceding problematic points, this one, in all its mystery, will have to remain ??????

and finally

point 5. profit...

Let me provide insight into the method! Point 2 isn't about looking at music and saying "OH, A CADENCE, OH!", or any of this. Point 2 is using ANY method of analysis that the person finds fitting.

For example? Say I know nothing about counterpoint, yet I like Bach. So what do I do? I have no formal training except reading (as in this case) and that's about it, yet I really want to grasp this thing. The first idea would be to "Learn by doing", as in, copy scores from Bach by hand (all fugues, preludes, ETC ETC ETC) until the style starts getting caught in the "hand" so to speak.

This was, after all, a very common way to learn back in his day, and if I remember correctly, that's what HE did.

Likewise, another method would be mixing this with step 3 a little, isolating passages in the music that you like, and then copying them. See what happens when you leave certain notes out. What happens when you alter the rhythm? This is all very intuitive and you could be a perfect beginner and still learn quite a lot from this.

Point 3 is just a natural conclusion from all the above. With so much copying/experimenting/messing with, you can as well start writing stuff on your own and trying out the ideas.

4 is a mystery! (HAHAHAHA.)

And 5 means that after all this, one can "profit" from one's work by writing what one wants to write, how one wants to write it. It doesn't mean money, or such. I mean just being able to write what you hear in your head on paper as best as it's possible.

PS: Another important thing, labels like "chords", tonalities, ETC are convenient, but you can do without them since the phenomenon they describe STILL EXISTS without the labels. You can get quite good at working with these things without the slightest idea of how they're "academically" called. In fact, maybe even after you learn the names if you've gotten enough practice you might as well ignore them altogether.

Next!

Good Christ are you ever wrong SSC.

I know you probably think that all composers with a theory background simply sit down with their pencil and manuscript paper, plug in a few equations, and produce tonally "correct" music, but that's far from true. Theory is based on what sounds really good to the listener - cadences, for instance, exist because the end of a piece should be strong, final, and resolute, and somehow someone figured out that it if you go from a V chord to a I chord, it sounds like a grand finale (not every time, obviously, but you see what I'm getting at). The point is, experimentation should be done AFTER learning basic theory - that way, you can purposely break the rules and know in which way you are doing it. For instance, the chord progression iv, ii, vii, bVI, iii, ii is not conventional at all but hey, it might be exactly what you want your music to sound like. Only problem is, unless you know what the hell a "borrowed six chord" is, you won't have the foggiest idea of how to make your unconventional progression and will instead have to throw notes on the page at random until you finally get what you hear in your head written on paper.

That's another thing: you're right in that composers should write what they feel, but what you fail to see is that theory is incredibly helpful in that respect. Let's say you're writing something, and you decide the next chord you want to sound begins with a note you hum to yourself, and that you want it to sound sad. Well, with theory, you can determine what that note is and that what you probably want is a minor chord, to achieve that sad effect. Your problem is that you're equating theory to a complete lack of creativity, yet it's entirely possible and probably easier to break the mold if you know what you're doing.

(Emphasis added)

Oh boy, alright. Let's see...

First off, I'm going to say the tired ol' discourse about how subjective things are, you know, subjective? Go tell someone from Turkey or Iran about cadences, and about "What sounds good to the listener." Hell, I think logic pretty much dictates that in a subjective matter like this there is no point at which one can say "OH, this is the SAME for everyone!" Surely, you can CREATE such context with, for example, culture! Someone born in western culture is probably more familiar with the way western culture teaches you to react to some things musical.

What happens when you're not interested or aren't even FROM anyplace that has western culture (or westernized, such as South America, Japan, etc.) Don't tell me that western harmony is "perfect" in a way that someone from Jupiter is going to understand what a cadence is and go "Oh my, was that not a strong, final, and resolute grand finale??"

It's more likely they'll hear this noise and go "That's some noise alright, I wish I had the cultural context to understand where it came from and what aesthetic values they represent with this!" Because people from Jupiter speak english, of course~

On the second point about creativity. Say, what was that I said about "Breaking the rules"? Let me illustrate my point~

Bob goes to the supermarket and decides that he must just, you know, say "GAFFFPPAAKK&" to the cashier, instead of paying. This is breaking the rules imposed by cultural behavior and, well, the monetary system. Is it creative? Well, I guess. But the bigger aspect is that he's working against a "system" he must still obey otherwise he don't eat and may end up in jail too (if he got any more "creative~")

It would've been better for Bob to make a piece of... well, music where he stood on stage and said "GAFFFPPAAKK&" Is this breaking the rules? What rules? "Harmony rules"? He's just making sounds to express something. When you boil it down to it, Beethoven was also making sounds to express what he wanted, or thought he had to.

Bach too. Just makin' sounds.

Chopin? Just sounds, there.

Wagner? Ok he wrote like ten books, AND made some of them sounds.

I guess the only RULE you could break in music is.. Oh wait no. Damn you John Cage. You can do NOTHING and still declare it music, because you're doing nothing to express something. You're using the result to express something, and since sound is ever-present, you can as well rely on an orchestra or the audience laughing or coughing or whatever to "play your song/piece/?." Depending on what you wanted, of course.

So really, this both means that A: It's just sounds, people. B: How you go about making your sounds is your own business, dependent entirely on what you like, preferences, culture, and mood.

And all of that can just be overridden if you got this idea in your head and you just HAVE to write it, because that urge is stronger than any culture, preference, taste OR mood. So I like it when people follow those urges, musically speaking. Doesn't mean it always works against everything, but it's a creative license on life's circumstances, literally. Many of which are unchangeable.

Going back to Bob, say Bob is forced to comply to systems his entire life, and he's just fed up with it. So he takes up music and plays electric guitar, but he really likes Bach, for example. It's in his play-list as much as Rammstein or NiN is. So he takes up composing, because he ends up improvising a lot.

Then he goes to place because he believes he for some reason lacks the ability to "learn" how to compose or such. If he ends up involved in this "SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO MUSIC!" he's going to probably run as quickly as possible in the opposite direction. Wasn't he trying to get the hell away from systems that run his life in the first place?

Well, to him, it's a lot better if he just stays the hell away from "academic" studies, and he can as well end up composing stuff that would make any academic blush, so to speak. The only factor that decides between one thing or the other is his own curiosity, and will to learn from ANYTHING he comes across.

"I'm not particularly fond of 50 cent's music, but hell if I'm going to pass up this opportunity to learn something from this!"

As I've said before, there is no real method to teach anyone composition, music, etc. Even what I posted before as a "method" is really nothing but. It's just the steps that I think are logical if you stumble onto something you don't understand but want to understand.

In fact, that same "Method" I posted could be applied to just about any learning endeavor and work just as well (IN THEORY!) Since it only relies on seeking out what it is that you want to learn, and then working with it until you, well, learn it. It's very simple, and because of the simplicity it's very flexible and fail-proof, just that it's not easy and requires patience, time, etc to work with it. You gots to get your hands dirty.

As one of my teachers once said; "So you want to learn counterpoint, eh? Then go write some."

Next!

You are missing the point of the comparison between music and language. You're saying that music isn't like a language because it doesn't convey a specific message, but not only is that wrong on a lot of counts (Berlioz's "Symphony Fantastique," anyone?), you can't blindly write music just like you can't blindly write poetry. It will lack form, rhyme, and reason.

There's a quote by Mahler that goes something like "If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music." Music is inherently communivative and expressive, just with every art and just because there's some ambiguity to the meaning does not mean that it is not meant to communicate.

As far as theory's importance regarding composing, I can only reiterate that only after the basics are learned can you really hope to be able to break the rules and to do it well.

(Emphasis added, again.)

It must be me, but when I listened to Berlioz's Fantastique I was bored to death, and when I studied it for the orchestration, I was still rather bored. Did he write it to intentionally bore me? Was that the message? If it was then, wow, excellent delivery there.

(Note: If anyone's gotten this far in reading, the other points I will tackle may seem sort of "repeat the same thing," but because the same problems and misconceptions keep popping up I guess it NEEDS repeating.)

"Music is inherently communivative and expressive, just with every art and just because there's some ambiguity to the meaning does not mean that it is not meant to communicate."

How much ambiguity is there? I'd say a whole lot. In fact, I'd say a ridiculous amount of ambiguity. Unless the composer writes "OK, I meant to represent TREES with this chord, and then I--" through the entire score, then someone READS THIS during the performance, the sound the instruments produce themselves aren't what we consider something "not ambiguous."

My girlfriend is a singer, and when she's vocalizing, I'm not going to tell her to stop insulting my mom, or that she's wrong, or any such reactions commonly associated with a statement in a language (assuming, of course, we can "understand the language.") Likewise, if I play a note on a cello it's unlikely the entire audience will be offended, or try to hit me. The reactions are infinitely different depending on the listener.

For example, a car horn in a modern piece of music on the stage isn't going to get an angry driver that just spent four hours on a traffic jam to GET to the concert to stand up, walk up to the composer and punch them in the jaw. No. There's a context which changes the meaning of the horn's sound from "AAGGGHH TRAFFIC JAM, COMPLAIN, ANGER" to "Oh, noise with no inherent meaning!" and that context is the abstraction of these sounds from meaning by virtue of the connection between the objective consequence of these sounds. This is in essence what music ends up being, no matter what type of music it is.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be music, it'd be literature and poetry, which is indeed made of actual language. (WAIT! What about operas and such? Well keep reading.) But again, BECAUSE of the context the language is presented in, it's entirely acceptable to write poetry that uses abstractions of language itself as pieces fundamental to the poem's structure.

Such as a poem that can go:

Cat

C

FFFO

Cat

Fpo.

(protip: If you say this on a stage it can as well be music, AND a poem. Indeed, like a Lied or an Opera that has both things!) Then lots of other questions start showing up if you we go deeper. Was "cat" in my silly 5 second example the word for the animal, or is that just a coincidence? Considering the rest of the thing has no other words "English language words", the context is blurry at best.

For further reference (or curiosity!), check out Luciano Berio's Sequenza III for Female Voice. Perfect example of how complicated this whole thing is.

Next!

Language and music are so incredibly different that to only acknowledge the similarities and call the two the same thing is ridiculous. Language is used to say, "I have chest pain. Please take me to a doctor." Music is used to say, "Look at me, I'm pretty/sad/surreptitious." You need to know what words mean what to say the first one, but you can write a beautiful piece without knowing anything about music theory. Saying that music by somebody who knows no theory is inferior because it will lack form and reason is just a confused way of saying that music that lacks form and reason is inferior, no matter who writes it.

Amen.

Oh, Gardener was, as usual, spot on. No more comments on that are necessary.

Edit: I'm realizing I should a well write an article or something on this once and for all and cover every single point I've seen here so far. Just a thought.

OKAY...before this gets irrecoverably off topic....

We all MUST be able to agree (although some musicologists have tried to argue it), there is no system of semiotics in music. It's not possible...

The wiki article says it all: Musicology, Semiotics of Music

...

Oh, btw: Music semiology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Don't look at me, I have no idea.

You are missing the point. I don't think anyone is saying that music is language(although it is sort of a language and there are parallels) but that using language to describe musical things is helpful. "Mathematics" is not a language as is physics nor any science... but we use language to communicate ideas that exist in those areas(which mathematics a "language" in some sense but actually its natural languages that we use to communicate them).

Can you image where humanity would be without language? Did you ever hear about the two cave men who walked into a bar? (think long and hard about it and maybe you'll get it)

Let's get our semantics straight, symbolic interaction? Sure.

But we all have to agree on what the symbols mean or there's no real exchange of information. That's all.

... And I was under the impression a lot of people were comparing language and music because they thought they had stuff in common, or thought they were the same. Certainly I've met many who think music is for some reason a sort of "universal language" or some such nonsense.

So, uh... Maybe I just read everything wrong? Hahaha~ Though I was shooting to also dismantle the other stuff that wasn't working, with or without the language/music argument.

Well, doesn't music kind of have to be a language? Because, for example, we speak and write in english and I am writing down words right now. To be able to read the words I wrote, I have to know how to read and write in english, right? And we read and write down music, so doesn't that make it a language??

And if this is true, I can totally see why people would call it a universal language. Because we mostly speak english in the US and...japanese in Japan. But if anyone in the world wanted to read music, wouldn't they would be able to??

I am not under the impression that music is a universal language. I seem to remember a case when a famous explorer (whose name eludes me right now...) brought a record player to a group of aborigines deep in the jungle. There he played Beethoven 5, arguably one of the greatest Western musical achievements. The aborigines, however, did not feel any connection to the piece at all. Their system of tonality and how music is created was so far different than that of German Romanticism that they found the piece funny, awkward, and random.

Of course music is not a universal language, but you cannot say that it is not a language. All art is inherently communicative; that is the point. Art conveys emotion. Period. One of the truly magical aspects of art, however, is the ambiguity. While Picasso definitely had a reason for painting his masterpiece Guernica, I might get a completely different meaning than he intended. e.e. cummings's poetry is often incredibly ambiguous, but people still study it because if there is no intent to communicate with the audience, people will not care. Art - in all media - is a vessel for the artist to convey his or her emotion or statement to the world, but the beauty of it all is that truly great art will not just convey the intended meaning, but layers of meaning, each as different as the viewers themselves.

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As for our discussion on the subject of music theory, I'd like to address a few points:

1. No, the music of someone with no prior knowledge of music theory is not inherently inferior to that of someone with an abundance of knowledge. However, music theory definitely helps a composer put the thoughts in his head down on paper. Music theory gives you insight into things like form, harmonic function, and even simple notation and while common practice period theory isn't the only way one should write music, a base knowledge cannot hurt.

2.Berlioz very specifically wrote "Symphony Fantastique" as a tone poem. It does have an inherent literal meaning whether you'd like to admit it or not. In fact, there are a host of tone poems as well as symphonies which seek to create a mood or convey the idea of some object (Haydn's "Sunrise" symphony, Beethoven's "Pastoral" symphony, etc.) And while we're on the subject Wanger actually has had pieces in which certain chords do represent literal things. That's why the notes F, B, D#, and G# are commonly called “the Tristan chord.” Just as one cannot say that all music has a clear cut completely unambiguous meaning, you cannot say that some music does not.

3.Composers like Bach, Chopin, and Wagner who actually studied music were not simply “making sounds.” Each had a working knowledge of music theory and history (of course Bach did not have a working knowledge of common practice period theory because he himself had to help cement it, but he did have an extensive knowledge of contrapuntal techniques.) To say that they were just “making sounds” is shows a vast lack of knowledge of music history.

4. Composers like John Cage who use abstract media as music are still trying to convey a message or emotion with his work. No one ever said that music was limited to do re mi fa sol la si, but it's foolhardy to think that his works are without meaning or a form of communication.

In short, I'm not angry. I just sincerely disagree with the ideas that a working knowledge of music theory can be anything but helpful to a prospective composer and that music does not share at least a few similarities with language.

3.Composers like Bach, Chopin, and Wagner who actually studied music were not simply “making sounds.” Each had a working knowledge of music theory and history (of course Bach did not have a working knowledge of common practice period theory because he himself had to help cement it, but he did have an extensive knowledge of contrapuntal techniques.) To say that they were just “making sounds” is shows a vast lack of knowledge of music history.

I guess they were making cakes then. Seriously. I thought music was made of sound, guess I also show a "vast lack" of musical knowledge altogether, then!

Also, I assume you mean Beethoven's 5th symphony. Another thing I find excruciatingly boring, and I certainly can't connect with it at all. But well, that's just my taste. Though his 7th is much worse. . .

And, oh, on Wagner? The only reason the famous Tristan chord has it's name was due to the fantastic advertising on behalf of Schoenberg to illustrate a point for his whole atonality as a progression from German Tradition thing. Obviously, the chord itself has interesting qualities which also help give it its name. It has nothing to do WHAT SO EVER with the piece it belongs to, nor it has in any way, shape or form anything to do with any concept presented in the piece.

It's just a chord that is a theoretical double dominant (with altered 5th in bass, which is typical for this type of chord) which also doubles (and triples!) as a sixte ajout

Of course music is not a universal language, but you cannot say that it is not a language. All art is inherently communicative; that is the point.

Firstly, a thing that communicates isn't the same as a language. A language doesn't communicate by itself, it is -used- to communicate. The origin and medium of communication are different things.

It could be said that art is always communicative. But in a metaphorical sense: Art does provoke ideas and emotions in listeners, however not in a structured, generalised form (like through a language), but through subjective experience and connotation.

A composer -can- try to express something through music, using music as a medium. But it's equally valid to -create- music as a thing itself, an "organism" out of which a listener can draw her/his own, personal conclusions. One cannot only create abstract meaning and -then- "translate" it into music, one can also create music. Often, if not most of the time, a composer will do both to some degree.

(I certainly agree that this doesn't only apply to music, but to all art.)

As has been stated multiple times: Language is a system of symbols with defined meanings. Music isn't.

SSC:

1. Stop taking things out of context. It's obvious that when I said that Bach, Wagner, and Chopin weren't "just making sounds" that I meant that, unlike your implication that they just wrote what sounded good without rhyme or reason, they knew what they were doing. Their music is methodical, built on decades of evolving music theory. They were innovators, but all their music was based on prior tradition. So yes, failing to acknowledge this fact shows a lack of familiarity with music history.

2. How can you say that the Tristan chord has nothing to do with the piece? It comletely represents the character Tristan. It's something akin to a leit motif or an idee fixee.

3. Art communicates both the emotion of the composer, but the thing that makes art so interesting and worth studying is the analysis of its message. That is why we study all forms of art. Music, painting, novels, that is why music is worth studying. So to answer your question, it conveys the emotions of both the artist and audience.

4. Art does not exist in a vacuum. If it did, your argument would hold some water. However, we are (or should be) experienced in the language of Western music which means that we as composers and listeners have to bring something to the table when listening. That is the only way to truly communicate with the music and composer.