I think it depends what 'great' means and how he learned. I'm a self-taught (by ear, by eyes, barely no "theory"[1]) failed musician, therefore not great, but after years of failed intuitions on what was and how to make music, I had moments where I felt the grace of being 'on' the music.
That taught me a few things:
- Sometimes there are things that were completely invisible to you.
- These things looked complex and painful, in reality they aren't.
- The right approach was too foreign for your (my) brain.
- Years of failing aren't waste, you learn patience and faith (yes faith).
- It is often summarized as `make haste slowly`
- Learning another weird thing won't ever be the same
[1] Music theory is a notation for experiences, don't learn theory until you felt what is described carnally a little. Beside they're only restricted abstractions. I knew chord progressions, modes, counterpoint, yet it wasn't until a day where my mind and ears just clicked that all these ideas suddenly became obvious, the symbols mapped my feelings one to one and understanding/remembering them was free.
Apparently music is maths, but despite being confortable in maths and reading the music notation, I'm terrible playing the piano.
Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is that my friend has a terrible memory: somebody says something to him today, tomorrow he will not remember (unless is something that he "feels" somehow). By the other hand, if it is music, he remembers/plays it after listening just once sometimes even years later.
Music is just maths, but so far I've never ran into the correct formula. Progressions, rubato, ... I don't know a lot, but none explained to me why some movements felt good and others didn't.
Music notation is mostly wrong to me, it doesn't explain a lot. You learn more by trying to do anything offbeat. It breaks the notion of time. Same for harmony, most of the beauty in music comes from slippery progressions that aren't transcribe on the score.
From my experience, the sensation of beauty in music has more to do with physic notions like momentum, and complex rotations more than well tampered scales. That's why no amount of theory will make you a good player, because then it's about feeling the physics, the subtlety, the sensitivity, inertia, acceleration...
And you last point just resonates a lot to my previous comment. Music ain't that complicated, that's why when you see it correctly, the complexity fades away and you can remember an apparent "whole lot" easily. It's a very abstract function thus tiny, something you either get, or learn through years of deep listening.
ps: that's the programmer speaking obviously, but I cannot help but to see a strong resemblance between asm - higher level programming languages, music theory - actual music understanding. A few combinators in Haskell, or APL get you to express vast amount of logic, that would take pages to write down in assembly (or a score ;).
As a wannabe musician and beginner jazz player, I feel music is explained all wrong. Unfortunately there's a lot of baggage from older eras where music wasn't well understood and was mostly a collection of heuristics. The fact that harmony understanding is usually explained in a chronological fashion probably doesn't help.
The problem (and I guess you know this already) is that although music is analyzable with math, how we experience music isn't entirely formalizable.
Music isn't math, just like physics isn't math. Math is just the tool we use to formalize and study them.
Music notation is mostly wrong to me, it doesn't explain a lot.
Just like words don't explain a lot by themselves: their relationships with each other, the whole text, and your tacit knowledge and reasoning do explain far more.
Take this chord chart (excerpt from a jazz tune):
C6 | F7 F#º7 | C6/G F9 | Em7 A7
It doesn't explain anything itself, but with a bit of analysis (and tacit knowledge) you can see patterns. E.g., there's a voice which goes in chromatic ascension and then is held (hinted by the C6 with a G bass and the explicit 9th in F9):
But it can also be seen (and interpreted) as a purely ascending voice (though not chromatic):
E | F F# | G A# | B C (though I'm not convinced with that G to A# gap)
That line is found in the chord chart too (check it yourself). Which one is correct? None. And both. And there are many more hidden.
It isn't obvious, but those relationships are there, and they're important, and you're supposed to be able to see them with your tacit knowledge (and highlight any of them in your playing if you want to!).
Of course it could be explicitly remarked and it sometimes is, specially in classical music or when the composer wants to highlight it himself. But then you lose a lot of what's jazz, like how different people view the same standard and express the subtleties as their music.
Also, there are so many hidden subtleties that the small chord chart would explode into a huge collection of remarks and explanations (imagine explaining what each word in a story means!) and those would probably differ depending on who did the analysis (like what exactly metaphors and allegories mean in text).
And that's why you've never found the correct formula: there isn't. If Einstein would've sworn by classical mechanics formulas, we would've never had relativity. Knowing those formulas is good though: each of them strengthen your understanding little by little. Einstein wouldn't have come up with relativity without classical mechanics.
The beauty here is that those relationships work because notes are just multiples of each other. Why do C and C# sound "awful" (unless you intend them to sound like that) played together while C and E (a major 3rd) sound beautiful? Because of their interference pattern:
Is this math? Yes. Is your brain doing the math? Nope. But the math explains why your brain likes C+E more: their interference pattern is less chaotic (i.e. more harmonic) in the short term. Also, C+C# generates a weird long-term beat frequency[1]. Of course this doesn't explain the cognitive part (why does my brain like harmonic interferences?) but you get my point.
Do players/composers think about these interference patterns? Nope, because they use music notation, which highlights their properties without the burden of interpreting the sound wave frequencies. I can instantly recognize a major 3rd in C+E, not so much in sin(261.63 * t) + sin(329.63 * t).
The musical staff seems weird but it is comfortable too: chords formed with stacked thirds (the classic way of making chords) will always have their notes either on lines or spaces but not both, regardless of whether the thirds are major or minor. The oddball (like a chord with a 9th) really stands out. It also makes it easy to see if a chord is major or minor: three consecutive stacked thirds with a D bass and a # on the second third will be D major (D is minor in the key of C, thus why its second third has to be raised).
Sorry for the rambling :P This is what happens to my brain on music.
Did you study jazz theory? Something tells me you'd love it, and breaking with pre-jazz analysis definitely expanded my horizons. I'm slowly learning it (self-teaching jazz isn't easy, 2 years already and I still feel like a beginner) but it's definitely rewarding.
Here's some theory to get started if you're interested, both classical and jazz:
IMO breaking chords into moving lines (~counterpoint) is already a better start (and I've seen other guys saying that's how they digested harmony) than learning names, modes and such. It's a constructivist way to teach. Start with a line, then ask the person to harmonize over it. Name don't matter until this is fixed in your head.
Yes there's probably a strong relationship between frequencies ratios. Simple ones (3rd, 5th) are good to anybody, but you love jazz, don't tell me you don't get high on 13th and dissonant bits too. With time I started to enjoy following subtle and non trivial melody lines in harmonies (gospel tunes are full of it, fusion also, jazz obviously).
And that's just harmony. What about rhythm ? and grooves ? How do you write funk or swing on a score ? AFAIK it's not except by a little side comment; even though this tells you more about rhythm than anything else.
People measured relationship between notes, but I've never seen it done to 'beats'. I have a feeling that there's also ratios hidden in sequences of strokes that make or break a groove. Placing an almost unheard dead notes at an odd time before a strong beat will change the feeling so much. Counterpoint, for rhythm.
IMO breaking chords into moving lines (~counterpoint) is already a better start
Jazz kinda breaks the deal, I found counterpoint a mooter-point (hehe) in jazz. There is so much freedom you'd have to analyze each performance individually. Even in the same recording of a song, two identical sections' counterpoint can vary wildly (or not have counterpoint at all!) Parallel fifths/octaves are a no-no in classical music (they break the counterpoint) while they're liberally used in jazz.
You can't even canonically analyze a chord chart. Is that C6 a C6 or an Amin7? (exactly the same notes: C E G A) It's both and it depends on the composer/performer and which one they want to emphasize.
What I mean is, chord charts are mostly a way to print standards in books :P Just like the word tree isn't a tree, a C6 isn't a C6.
What about rhythm ? and grooves ? How do you write funk or swing on a score ?
Definitely a great point.
That's traditionally been left to the performer, even in classical music. Jazz brought that freedom to melody and harmony too.
People measured relationship between notes, but I've never seen it done to 'beats'.
It's been done and is pervasive in traditional music theory (not so much in pop music). E.g. syncopation is a formal relationship between beats, or ornaments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_%28music%29), or even pulses, beats and bars (which are just a take on rhythm formalization).
There have been efforts to accurately transcribe rhythm and feel, but it mostly gets in the way (e.g. the comments here about swing transcription http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_(jazz_performance_style)#...). Rhythm seems to be more innate, while note relationships are easier to hear than to produce. If you got rhythm, you can tap swing feel so a side note should be enough (and allows for personal feel, just like tempo wasn't transcribed as BPMs and they used allegro, grave, moderato...) Improvising/transcribing melody/harmony isn't that easy though (I attribute it mostly due to the available variety compared to rhythm.) I guess that's why pop/rock songs transcribe notes/chords but rhythm is usually left as an exercise.
I personally like it the artsy-jazz way: do whatever you feel sounds good and express yourself through music. Theory is cool, but ear is king.
Comments
I think it depends what 'great' means and how he learned. I'm a self-taught (by ear, by eyes, barely no "theory"[1]) failed musician, therefore not great, but after years of failed intuitions on what was and how to make music, I had moments where I felt the grace of being 'on' the music.
That taught me a few things:
[1] Music theory is a notation for experiences, don't learn theory until you felt what is described carnally a little. Beside they're only restricted abstractions. I knew chord progressions, modes, counterpoint, yet it wasn't until a day where my mind and ears just clicked that all these ideas suddenly became obvious, the symbols mapped my feelings one to one and understanding/remembering them was free.Apparently music is maths, but despite being confortable in maths and reading the music notation, I'm terrible playing the piano.
Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is that my friend has a terrible memory: somebody says something to him today, tomorrow he will not remember (unless is something that he "feels" somehow). By the other hand, if it is music, he remembers/plays it after listening just once sometimes even years later.
Music is just maths, but so far I've never ran into the correct formula. Progressions, rubato, ... I don't know a lot, but none explained to me why some movements felt good and others didn't.
Music notation is mostly wrong to me, it doesn't explain a lot. You learn more by trying to do anything offbeat. It breaks the notion of time. Same for harmony, most of the beauty in music comes from slippery progressions that aren't transcribe on the score.
From my experience, the sensation of beauty in music has more to do with physic notions like momentum, and complex rotations more than well tampered scales. That's why no amount of theory will make you a good player, because then it's about feeling the physics, the subtlety, the sensitivity, inertia, acceleration...
And you last point just resonates a lot to my previous comment. Music ain't that complicated, that's why when you see it correctly, the complexity fades away and you can remember an apparent "whole lot" easily. It's a very abstract function thus tiny, something you either get, or learn through years of deep listening.
ps: that's the programmer speaking obviously, but I cannot help but to see a strong resemblance between asm - higher level programming languages, music theory - actual music understanding. A few combinators in Haskell, or APL get you to express vast amount of logic, that would take pages to write down in assembly (or a score ;).
As a wannabe musician and beginner jazz player, I feel music is explained all wrong. Unfortunately there's a lot of baggage from older eras where music wasn't well understood and was mostly a collection of heuristics. The fact that harmony understanding is usually explained in a chronological fashion probably doesn't help.
The problem (and I guess you know this already) is that although music is analyzable with math, how we experience music isn't entirely formalizable.
Music isn't math, just like physics isn't math. Math is just the tool we use to formalize and study them.
Just like words don't explain a lot by themselves: their relationships with each other, the whole text, and your tacit knowledge and reasoning do explain far more.
Take this chord chart (excerpt from a jazz tune):
It doesn't explain anything itself, but with a bit of analysis (and tacit knowledge) you can see patterns. E.g., there's a voice which goes in chromatic ascension and then is held (hinted by the C6 with a G bass and the explicit 9th in F9): Or only the ascending voice: But it can also be seen (and interpreted) as a purely ascending voice (though not chromatic): That line is found in the chord chart too (check it yourself). Which one is correct? None. And both. And there are many more hidden.It isn't obvious, but those relationships are there, and they're important, and you're supposed to be able to see them with your tacit knowledge (and highlight any of them in your playing if you want to!).
Of course it could be explicitly remarked and it sometimes is, specially in classical music or when the composer wants to highlight it himself. But then you lose a lot of what's jazz, like how different people view the same standard and express the subtleties as their music.
Also, there are so many hidden subtleties that the small chord chart would explode into a huge collection of remarks and explanations (imagine explaining what each word in a story means!) and those would probably differ depending on who did the analysis (like what exactly metaphors and allegories mean in text).
And that's why you've never found the correct formula: there isn't. If Einstein would've sworn by classical mechanics formulas, we would've never had relativity. Knowing those formulas is good though: each of them strengthen your understanding little by little. Einstein wouldn't have come up with relativity without classical mechanics.
The beauty here is that those relationships work because notes are just multiples of each other. Why do C and C# sound "awful" (unless you intend them to sound like that) played together while C and E (a major 3rd) sound beautiful? Because of their interference pattern:
C+C#: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28sin%28261.63*x%29+%2...
C+E: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28sin%28261.63*x%29+%2...
Is this math? Yes. Is your brain doing the math? Nope. But the math explains why your brain likes C+E more: their interference pattern is less chaotic (i.e. more harmonic) in the short term. Also, C+C# generates a weird long-term beat frequency[1]. Of course this doesn't explain the cognitive part (why does my brain like harmonic interferences?) but you get my point.
Do players/composers think about these interference patterns? Nope, because they use music notation, which highlights their properties without the burden of interpreting the sound wave frequencies. I can instantly recognize a major 3rd in C+E, not so much in sin(261.63 * t) + sin(329.63 * t).
The musical staff seems weird but it is comfortable too: chords formed with stacked thirds (the classic way of making chords) will always have their notes either on lines or spaces but not both, regardless of whether the thirds are major or minor. The oddball (like a chord with a 9th) really stands out. It also makes it easy to see if a chord is major or minor: three consecutive stacked thirds with a D bass and a # on the second third will be D major (D is minor in the key of C, thus why its second third has to be raised).
Sorry for the rambling :P This is what happens to my brain on music.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_%28acoustics%29
----
Did you study jazz theory? Something tells me you'd love it, and breaking with pre-jazz analysis definitely expanded my horizons. I'm slowly learning it (self-teaching jazz isn't easy, 2 years already and I still feel like a beginner) but it's definitely rewarding.
Here's some theory to get started if you're interested, both classical and jazz:
http://www.musictheory.net/
http://www.cs.uml.edu/~stu/JazzTheory.pdf
IMO breaking chords into moving lines (~counterpoint) is already a better start (and I've seen other guys saying that's how they digested harmony) than learning names, modes and such. It's a constructivist way to teach. Start with a line, then ask the person to harmonize over it. Name don't matter until this is fixed in your head.
Yes there's probably a strong relationship between frequencies ratios. Simple ones (3rd, 5th) are good to anybody, but you love jazz, don't tell me you don't get high on 13th and dissonant bits too. With time I started to enjoy following subtle and non trivial melody lines in harmonies (gospel tunes are full of it, fusion also, jazz obviously).
And that's just harmony. What about rhythm ? and grooves ? How do you write funk or swing on a score ? AFAIK it's not except by a little side comment; even though this tells you more about rhythm than anything else.
People measured relationship between notes, but I've never seen it done to 'beats'. I have a feeling that there's also ratios hidden in sequences of strokes that make or break a groove. Placing an almost unheard dead notes at an odd time before a strong beat will change the feeling so much. Counterpoint, for rhythm.
Jazz kinda breaks the deal, I found counterpoint a mooter-point (hehe) in jazz. There is so much freedom you'd have to analyze each performance individually. Even in the same recording of a song, two identical sections' counterpoint can vary wildly (or not have counterpoint at all!) Parallel fifths/octaves are a no-no in classical music (they break the counterpoint) while they're liberally used in jazz.
You can't even canonically analyze a chord chart. Is that C6 a C6 or an Amin7? (exactly the same notes: C E G A) It's both and it depends on the composer/performer and which one they want to emphasize.
What I mean is, chord charts are mostly a way to print standards in books :P Just like the word tree isn't a tree, a C6 isn't a C6.
Definitely a great point.
That's traditionally been left to the performer, even in classical music. Jazz brought that freedom to melody and harmony too.
Coincidentally, just yesterday I saw some discussion about it in a jazz forum, some good points there: http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/38021-why-there-more-b...
It's been done and is pervasive in traditional music theory (not so much in pop music). E.g. syncopation is a formal relationship between beats, or ornaments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_%28music%29), or even pulses, beats and bars (which are just a take on rhythm formalization).
There have been efforts to accurately transcribe rhythm and feel, but it mostly gets in the way (e.g. the comments here about swing transcription http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_(jazz_performance_style)#...). Rhythm seems to be more innate, while note relationships are easier to hear than to produce. If you got rhythm, you can tap swing feel so a side note should be enough (and allows for personal feel, just like tempo wasn't transcribed as BPMs and they used allegro, grave, moderato...) Improvising/transcribing melody/harmony isn't that easy though (I attribute it mostly due to the available variety compared to rhythm.) I guess that's why pop/rock songs transcribe notes/chords but rhythm is usually left as an exercise.
I personally like it the artsy-jazz way: do whatever you feel sounds good and express yourself through music. Theory is cool, but ear is king.