SHOSYS ACADEMY 17 LESSON: Theories And Structures
Kelvin Sholar
1 Introduction To The Blog Series
This series of lessons and tests incorporates an easy music appreciation curriculum for adult beginners who are remote learning, or are self-taught. Lessons are posted on Mondays while Tests are posted on Saturdays. For more in depth and private guidance, I offer personal instruction by Zoom (Personal Meeting ID 8522954569) – for 1 dollar a minute. Time schedules range from a minimum of 30 minutes to a maximum of 60 minutes. Email me at [email protected] to set up personal instruction. I accept payments and cash gifts by Cash App ($KelvinSholar), Zelle ([email protected]) or Paypal (paypal.me/kelvinsholar).
2 Revisiting The Tree Of Knowledge
In Lesson 16, we learned about the knowledge of Universals and Abstractions branch of knowledge; as well as, Principles and Generalizations. In this Lesson, we will learn about theories and structures. This knowledge resides in the Universals and Abstractions branch of knowledge (1.30) of the Tree of Knowledge (1.00), at the ninth leaf from the left (1.32) – Theories. Benjamin Bloom describes knowledge of theories and structures as: “Knowledge of the body of principles and generalizations together with their interrelations which present a clear, rounded, and systematic view of a complex phenomenon, problem, or field” (Bloom 76).
2.1 Knowledge Of Theories and Structures
We have already learned about principles and generalizations as particulars in and of themselves that do not need to be related to each other in. Now, we learn about groups of principles and generalizations that are connected to form a theory of music or a musical structure.
A theory of music is a way to think abstractly about musical practices and possibilities. As it is assumed that composition, performance and audition are basic musical activities, then music theories often try to describe past processes of composition, performance and audition, as well as prescribe ways that future processes of composition, performance and audition (or listening) can be established.
As the process of composition involves knowledge, comprehension, application, synthesis, analysis and evaluation, then theories of composition focus on describing the cognitive skills and abilities (i.e. skills plus knowledge) of the composer. A theory of composition also addresses tuning and tonal systems relative to performance media, metrical systems, and ways that metrical systems are mapped to tuning systems in order to produce combinatorial possibilities of composition.
Likewise, as performance relates to the psychomotor domain, it concerns describing the gross physical actions that are needed to manipulate musical instruments (or performance media); as well as, the psycho-acoustic capacity to process musical information, and the willingness to perform musical acts. This makes the learning goals in musical performance consistent with the accepted understanding of Psychology and Information Theory.
When audition relates to the affective domain, the main objective is to describe changes in the development of the listener’s appreciation for certain subjective values of sentiment: such as aesthetics, a composer’s freedom of choice and redundancy, or the listener’s unresolved uncertainty. To deal with these subjective values of sentiment means to be concerned with the perspective of a subject: the composer, performer or listener.
Structures concern mathematical forms. The study of musical structure is abstract because when music is reduced to numbers there is no reference to specific physical sound pressure waves or psychical ideas; ideas and waves are merely interpretations of mathematical forms in an abstract theory of music.
An excellent example of the study of abstract musical structures in Western music theory can be found in Howard Hanson’s and Allen Forte’s study of the organization of pitch in Atonal and Serial settings. Then, instead of thinking in terms of tonal harmony and counterpoint, (or the relationship of multiple dependent and independent melodies at once), Western musicians are required to know about abstract pitch combinations, the integer notation of pitch, pitch classes, ordered and unordered pitch class sets, interval classes, enharmonic equivalence of pitch, octave equivalence of pitch, transposition equivalence of interval, inversion equivalence of intervals and the complement of pitch class sets.
3 Bibliography
Bloom, B. S.; Engelhart, M. D.; Furst, E. J.; Hill, W. H.; Krathwohl, D. R. Taxonomy Of Educational Objectives: The Classification Of Educational Goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay Company, 1956
Forte, Allen. The Structure Of Atonal Music, London: Yale University Press, 1973
Hanson, Howard. Harmonic Materials Of Modern Music, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1960