The Practice of Music Part III
On Music Theory
Next free write: I believe in a holistic approach to compositional pedagogy that music theory and history, hearing, playing, and performing are interconnected and inform each other and are all vital to learning how to compose. This is my first attempt at articulating and organizing these thoughts so I have no idea how this will go.
To begin I want to focus on the physical playing and singing of music. There are two main areas of focus aural skills and keyboard skills.
Aural skills consist of sight singing, eventually without aid (except the first pitch of course), and being able to hear stuff like melodic intervals and harmonic dyads, chord qualities, scale types, common chord progressions, and different instruments. I think the end game of this is being able to hear music just by looking at the score and singing in a choir.
Keyboard skills itself has two distinct but overlapping areas of focus it seems: technical comfort at the instrument and the study of harmony. The first is straightforward practicing scales and arpeggios in various keys in parallel and contrary motion in increasing speeds, practicing chord progressions like certain sequential and cadential patterns in various keys and chord inversions--this also aids sight reading at the instrument. The second section refers to the skill of thorough bass, harmonizing a melody, and keyboard harmony. These disciplines help learn common practice harmonic idioms but also help develop an intuitive understanding of harmony and voice leading--this also relates to aural skills as it is the synthesis of a musicians aural and practical training.
Lastly, I am must keep in mind the 'intuitive' aspect of keyboard harmony. I do not want to unconsciously constrain my voice leading to common patterns like at modulations for example. I want to rely on my ear which will be informed by my study, not the other way around.
The first thing I want to set in stone in this section is in regard to what I mentioned above about musical style as a conversation. The Teacher, Theorist, and Composer R. O. Morris expertly articulates in the first chapter of his manual, Contrapuntal Technique in the sixteenth century (1934). “Every serious musician should have some knowledge of the history of his art, and of the manner in which his materia musica has been accumulated (3). Thus I cannot
I will be engaging heavily with the readings of Theorists. This comes with a warning:
I want to begin my practical study with the 16th century using the Roman School headed by Palestrina and the Tudor Composers as models as Morris continues “The sixteenth century is beyond all question one of the great periods of music, and its technique is quite unlike the technique of any succeeding period…Similarly a musician should not hesitate to spend a few months in mastering the idiom of the great sixteenth-century composers, for in doing so he will enlarge his mental horizon, acquire some sense of scholarship, and realize more fully the continuity of musical progress” (3).
