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Any Prog characteristics in music theory?
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Easy Money View Drop Down
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As mentioned earlier, I have a masters in theory and I teach this stuff for a living, I have been for about 30 years now.
Music theory does not dictate or create anything, music theory just explains what's going on in a piece of music, such as what scales did they use, what rhythms etc etc. Its more similar to someone who collects insects and tries to determine their species.

The music is already created, music theory is just an attempt to define and explain what happened in this piece of music.
As far as new frontiers for Western music theory go, trying to notate some African multiple layered poly-rhythms have proven to be quite difficult, but figuring out a notation for different waves of guitar feedback would also be a challenge.

Edited by Easy Money - January 22 2020 at 21:20
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Originally posted by Easy Money Easy Money wrote:

As mentioned earlier, I have a masters in theory and I teach this stuff for a living, I have been for about 30 years now.
Music theory does not dictate or create anything, music theory just explains what's going on in a piece of music, such as what scales did they use, what rhythms etc etc. Its more similar to someone who collects insects and tries to determine their species.

The music is already created, music theory is just an attempt to define and explain what happened in this piece of music.
As far as new frontiers for Western music theory go, trying to notate some African multiple layered poly-rhythms have proven to be quite difficult, but figuring out a notation for different waves of guitar feedback would also be a challenge.

Excellent response!  Many years ago, I was a member of the university chorus at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (noted for its music program), and we did an experimental piece in which vocalists made different vocalizations like *bop!* and *bing!* according to a type of sheet music notation we were given.  There were some instrumentalists who did things like play trumpet notes while swinging the trumpet from one direction to another, inducing a Dopler shift to the tone.....it was a very cool experience.  
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Not sure if this has been mentioned, but maybe some of Zappa's contributions might count?

I'm thinking Xenochrony - layering multiple recordings of unrelated performances. Granted, it's similar to Charles Ives' idea of ensembles performing two or more different pieces at the same time, but by using recorded performances, Xenochrony allows the musicians to perform without influencing each other.

Or maybe his approach to conducting his band would count; the way he would conduct ensemble improvisations, or use gestures to introduce spontaneous changes in the way a composed piece was performed.
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I'm more interested if Van Halen copied Hackett from SEBTP....and everybody thinks he invented hammer on hammer off technique...😎
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Originally posted by Easy Money Easy Money wrote:

As mentioned earlier, I have a masters in theory and I teach this stuff for a living, I have been for about 30 years now.
Music theory does not dictate or create anything, music theory just explains what's going on in a piece of music, such as what scales did they use, what rhythms etc etc. Its more similar to someone who collects insects and tries to determine their species.

The music is already created, music theory is just an attempt to define and explain what happened in this piece of music.
As far as new frontiers for Western music theory go, trying to notate some African multiple layered poly-rhythms have proven to be quite difficult, but figuring out a notation for different waves of guitar feedback would also be a challenge.

Right on. Thank you.
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As I see it. Music theorists are like proffesional football pundits, who disect the game you have just watched and dictate the professional view...I always wind thru their pointless platitudes if I can..and make my own view on the game I have just watched...
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Originally posted by M27Barney M27Barney wrote:

As I see it. Music theorists are like proffesional football pundits, who disect the game you have just watched and dictate the professional view...I always wind thru their pointless platitudes if I can..and make my own view on the game I have just watched...


Given the choice, I would rather receive an objective explanation of how music is constructed from someone who has been paid to both play and teach the subject. I really can't see why your opinion on the music to hand has any relevance to this end. No-one cares if you like/dislike it. Those interested in music theory just want to learn more about the techniques and practices that were used to put it together. Are you Robbie Savage?Wink
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Originally posted by uduwudu uduwudu wrote:

Odd meters and diminished scales (think King Crimson). I Rock this is unique to prog mainly. It turns up in metal from time to time but with no where near the same quantity and inversions that Crim and the RIO world contributed.


Never Mind the Bollocks BalkansWink. There was a time when I shared this view but that was before I started to explore Eastern European folk music. Macedonian children sing and dance their playground skipping rhymes effortlessly in 22/16. The indigenous peasant music of the Balkans offers meters like 10/8, 22/8, 7/8, 7/16, 5/8, 9/8, 11/8, 25/16 (the list goes on) but even here the arithmetical 'dumbing down' betrays the lazy arrogance of the art music snob who will never appreciate that Balkan rhythms are really just combinations of short dance steps (2s) and long dance steps (3's) which even vary in performance interpretation from village to village. These ancient and venerable pulses are not a good fit for any of our cramped academic theoretical analysis.
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Originally posted by ExittheLemming ExittheLemming wrote:

... The indigenous peasant music of the Balkans offers meters like 10/8, 22/8, 7/8, 7/16, 5/8, 9/8, 11/8, 25/16 (the list goes on) but even here the arithmetical 'dumbing down' betrays the lazy arrogance of the art music snob who will never appreciate that Balkan rhythms are really just combinations of short dance steps (2s) and long dance steps (3's) which even vary in performance interpretation from village to village. These ancient and venerable pulses are not a good fit for any of our cramped academic theoretical analysis.

Which is one of my points about music from all over the world ... and how 1 or 2 countries "think" they own the definitions of all music, and the rest of the world is uneducated and not worthy of attention and couldn't possibly have music that is different, or better. It is, one thing that is absolutely insane ... when folks will go gagagoogoo over ApocalipseBullPucky, and then will never even consider Maria Bethania's Carcara done almost 5 years earlier about a metal dragon ... Brazil, couldn't possibly have any good music compared to the over rated media bound stuff in America and England! But you really think that many folks in "progressive" this and that will ever listen to something else? AND, I know the same thing happens on the academic circles, where the only things listened to are the "accepted" ones ... never anything else!

I thought, in the late 60's that the Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin thing (East meets West) would be a great step in that direction, but when I saw the show in Chicago, the fat old broads at the end of the concert were coming out and one said ... "how could any of that improvisation be called music?" ... totally missing the point of the whole thing ... !!! It was a show for the ages ... one of the loveliest thing ever ... but you think that it will be appreciated, even for when it was done?


Edited by moshkito - January 24 2020 at 06:16
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Originally posted by ExittheLemming ExittheLemming wrote:

Macedonian children sing and dance their playground skipping rhymes effortlessly in 22/16. The indigenous peasant music of the Balkans offers meters like 10/8, 22/8, 7/8, 7/16, 5/8, 9/8, 11/8, 25/16 (the list goes on)..
Wow, Balkan prog. Time for me to dig my zither out of the attic! Wink

Edited by SteveG - January 24 2020 at 06:21
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Originally posted by Moshkito Moshkito wrote:

Which is one of my points about music from all over the world ... and how 1 or 2 countries "think" they own the definitions of all music, and the rest of the world is uneducated and not worthy of attention and couldn't possibly have music that is different, or better.
^Straw man fallacy. Here's an actual academically trained musician, who does not think he owns the definitions of all music, enriching us with info on 9/8, Balkan dance and a few other things:
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Originally posted by M27Barney M27Barney wrote:

As I see it. Music theorists are like proffesional football pundits, who disect the game you have just watched and dictate the professional view...I always wind thru their pointless platitudes if I can..and make my own view on the game I have just watched...
I just want to point out in what way this analogy falters. You're trying to discount music theory with the pointlessness of pundits dissecting a football game. However, it is pointless only because they are not participants, not because anything about dissecting the game is inherently wrong. There is of course a real value to players and coaches dissecting the game in order to provide guidance on future performances and this is the real analogy. Their jobs rely on doing it and doing it well, in fact. Just replace players and coaches with musicians and dissecting the game with music theory and the analogy is corrected. (This is not to say that SOME sports fans/music listeners cannot also get something valuable from similar thought processes).
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I have a Mellotron with tapes of Mongolian throat singers, it sounds like this: 
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

I have a Mellotron with tapes of Mongolian throat singers, it sounds like this: 




I've always been fascinated by this phenomenon and am still unsure what makes it possible. When anyone sings a single note, you get it's fundamental frequency e.g the pitch 'A' at 440 Hz but also the overtone series of frequencies above that although these are practically inaudible to human hearing. With the Mongolian throat singers however, they seem to be able to amplify these overtone frequencies using their bodies to produce what are erm...chords/drones?! I read somewhere that this practice wreaks havoc with your inner organs and many throat singers don't live past 50? Shocked Don't try this at home kids.


Edited by ExittheLemming - January 24 2020 at 21:36
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Im sure the panheads underwear is positively dripping like a siberian thaw after listening to that...me, i'd use that to scare cats off my front garden...

Edited by M27Barney - January 25 2020 at 02:36
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I’m not sure it takes a panhead to appreciate throatsinging. I played that for my mum yesterday evening and was somewhat surprised to learn that she found it rather beautiful and serene in an odd way. Her normal favourites include Roy Orbison, Shakin Stevens, Boney M and ABBA
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The last sentence explains the prior unforseen predilection for mongolian throat clearing....anything sounds good after playing ABBA even the sound of a hurtling 3 mile wide meteor as it tears through the atmosphere prior to slamming into mother earth...
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Originally posted by M27Barney M27Barney wrote:

The last sentence explains the prior unforseen predilection for mongolian throat clearing....anything sounds good after playing ABBA even the sound of a hurtling 3 mile wide meteor as it tears through the atmosphere prior to slamming into mother earth...


If it lands anywhere near Swinton we can call it the music of the spheres Big smile
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Originally posted by ExittheLemming ExittheLemming wrote:

Originally posted by M27Barney M27Barney wrote:

The last sentence explains the prior unforseen predilection for mongolian throat clearing....anything sounds good after playing ABBA even the sound of a hurtling 3 mile wide meteor as it tears through the atmosphere prior to slamming into mother earth...


If it lands anywhere near Swinton we can call it the music of the spheres Big smile
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I’ve really missed this place
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