Talk:Music theory
From Academic Kids
- Contributors please read WikiProject Music terminology if you consider working on these subjects.
To do:
- Some clarification needs to be made between different schools of terminology. For instance, there needs to be a page explaining the difference between Classical, East Coast/Berklee Jazz and West Coast/Commercial pop nomenclature, particularly on the chord page which currently betrays a definite Berklee bias, because that's how I think. I'm currently trying to draft someone that I know would be capable of doing it, but if someone else feels up to the task, please do so.
- The tuning page is a night mare. It needs some sort of major overhaul, and the task is so large that no one has yet been willing to take it on.
- There are a number of sub articles, such as chord, scale, and counterpoint which rightfully belong as sub headings of Harmony. How exactly to go about this, I'm not quite sure.
- The pages are currently quite weak on History. There has been some effort to add entries on individual composers, and those efforts are to be applauded, but as far as an actual overview of Music History goes, we are currently very lacking.
- Finally, and most dauntingly, many of the pages as they now exist are still rife with error, and many pages need large re-writes. This only adds to the incoherence on this topic which is introduced due to inconsistent use of terminology. The terminology issue is something that we need to get out in the open, and there needs to be established a definite default nomenclature for theoretical matters. I think that the traditional classical music approach should probably be deferred to, with treatment within that with differences in terminology. For instance, when dealing with chords, the lower case roman numerals should always be used for minor chords.
These are just some thoughts, and I'd really like to hear what other people think. I'm new to Wikipedia myself, but I've already become quite taken with concept. Unfortunately, I think there are really only a few of us at this point who have the background to properly address the topic. To that end, I think that we should all make the effort to try to recruit more people to the cause so that this resource can become as complete and usefull as I know it can. JFQ
I agree. We're lacking a lot in this area, and a big clean-up is needed. We may as well use this talk page as our base of operations.
- Tuning Page: I'll start moving text from the tuning articles back in.
- You are braver than I.JFQ
- done. it's still a mess, but we can see at a glance what we're dealing with. -- t.
- Terminology: How about we create a Music Terminology page? Bring in the debates on "tone" and "note" and "pitch" from other pages -- they'll be useful too for definitions of the concepts. -- Tarquin
- Excellent Idea. I'll get on that. JFQ
So I recently changed the intro paragraph to: "Music theory is a term for ways to think about music. In its broadest sense theory ranges from highly technical theories to the most basic assumptions such as which music is 'good.'"Hyacinth
- This was an improvement over the previous: "Music theory is a way to think about music," since there are many music theories.
Camembert change my sentence to: "Music theory is the body of theory concerning music, as opposed to its performance. In its broadest sense theory ranges from the highly technical to the most basic assumptions such as what constitutes a 'note,'" since, "i'd not say deciding whether something is "good" is basic at all."
- then to: "Music theory is the body of theory concerning music, as opposed to its performance. In its broadest sense theory ranges from the highly technical to apparently basic assumptions such as what constitutes a 'note,'" since, "maybe even that's not straightforward."
- Camembert- I agree with taking out "good" but I don't think that your final sentence is otherwise an improvement. I think there are many music theories (as the above discussion recognizes). Traditional music theory actually is concerned with performance, in addition to the culture music is created in. Currently the latest version of the sentence excludes these topics. Also, both of us have been saying, "Music theory is theory about music," which is not the ideal first sentence. I leave the article as is (with your changes intact) until I have a better sentence to propose. Hyacinth
to explain...the split here is that some music theory has these very complex technical constructs, but these are all answers to simple questions compared to the most important questions, "Is it good?" "What makes it good?" These are handled mostly in the popular realm with very simple vernacular, not complex technical language. I wanted to touch on this breadth and depth in my revision of the intro.Hyacinth
- Well, I just quickly edited the page to remove a "refers to" in the first sentence (it's a pet hate some people have, and I thought I'd change it before somebody else did) and to get rid of the implication that deciding whether music was good or not was a "basic assumption" - I agree that the end result isn't very beautiful, feel free to hack it about. For now, I'll remove the bit about theory being opposed to performance (I just meant to say that... well, it's theoretical rather than practical, but maybe it's superfluous to spell that out), and fiddle with the rest a bit, but really, it's hard to say anything very constructive about the subject, I think, because it's just too broad, and different people mean different things by the term. This page just seems to be serving as a gateway to some others. Of course, if you can do anything more interesting with it, feel free :) --Camembert
This article contains a list of music theory topics. It seems to me that this unecessarily duplicates List of musical topics. Does anyone see a reason for two seperate lists? Otherwise I will get rid of this, which may decimate this article.Hyacinth
Ok, I started to rewrite this article, as I said on Talk:List of musical topics#Music theory topics. It's not done -- more of a sketch, really -- but I think it's better than the big list that was there before. I didn't include everything that was on that list; most of what I left out is included below. Some, of it should probably go back in, but other things are explained elsewhere and aren't really relevant. I also changed the intro definition; it basically said, "music theory is theory about music and it can be simple or complicated", which doesn't really explain anything. -- Merphant 01:11, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- Musicology
- The mathematics of the Western music scale
- Microtonal music
- The tritone
- The key
- cadence (music)
- inversion (music)
- harmonic progressions
- harmonic accompaniment
- figured bass
- atonality
- The measure.
- hemiola
- Orchestration
- Arrangement
- Instrumentation
- Improvisation
Ineffable?
The following sentence was just added to the intro:
- In the Western tradition, the study of music theory stems from a belief that the acts of composing, performing, and listening to music are all based on traditions that may be explicated to a high degree of detail (this, as opposed to a conception of musical expression as fundamentally ineffable except in musical sounds).
Why only in Western music? Anyway, this assumption about the "beliefs" of music theorists isn't really justified. To be sure, musical skills are taught and passed down (in every culture), but that doesn't mean that every aspect of composing or performing is rule-based. Rules come afterwards. Mozart didn't know what Roman numerals he was writing. And does this sentence add anything to the reader's understanding? It seems more like a disclaimer. Does the existence of a dictionary imply a belief that the act of verbal communication is based on traditions that may be explicated to a high degree of detail, as opposed to a conception of communication which is more organic? —Wahoofive (talk) 17:31, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
