I have strong doubts about that. People probably thought the same about science and modern technologies a hundred years ago. Then again I know next to nothing about music theory but I'd be interested in hearing your reasoning.

I don't understand the third question; can you please elaborate? I don't see how "an aspect of music theory" can make a contribution to a musical genre

;)

by "Genesis" you probably don't mean the band but "origin, creation"

I just want to mention a blues composed by Ravel.

I still don't see how music theory enters here. what enters are just other musical influences; you don't need music theory for that

Carry on!

ah yes, a linguist. as Goethe said: "denn gerade wo Begriffe fehlen, da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein" ("because just where concepts are missing a word will appear just in time").

yes, there is something, a "je ne sais quoi", as the French would say ("I don't know what"; it is a phrase the French have for qualities that cannot be exactly named or described). and I am totally happy with leaving it at being a je ne sais quoi.

Thanks again,,,,,,,,,,that I understand.

I can't help thinking that the correct statement and question would be how much "music theory" is in Prog and show examples.

This discussion has some interesting things, but all in all, is ... just weird for me.

Excellent point!  Prog, as with nearly all music, builds upon that which preceded it.  Be it instrumentation, theory, composition....prog is derivative.  

Original music theory may have come into play with synthesists like Klaus Schultz and Tangerine Dream, who took the original synth noodling of psychedelic bands and created entirely new tapestries of music, fusing technology with technique.  I'd love to see the sheet music for "Phaedra!" 

If the Autobiography is true and clear, there is a sort of sheet music for many of the pieces by TD, possibly the later one, that would specify various moments in the music and its effects. However, it's hard to not think that it is all 1001 patches distributed over 3 or 4 players and it looking like there is no sheet music for it, but several members always had, in front of them, some kind of sheet music, specially Hoshiko, but she may be the one less familiar with all the music, compared to the others, but I don't think that anyone would ever know or notice that. 

There is a special on Vangelis, where he has a "diagram" of what he is playing and when. So it would suggest that the "sheet music" would not necessarily be the formal style that we expect, but something different ... in Vangelis' case, I think that it specifies the next theme, or event, on top of what is already there. Something like that.

I sampled that Elton Dean album, and it does seem like there's a composition underneath. Some avant-garde jazzers do that - have a composition and deconstruct it as they go. 

Anyway, here's proof of the emotional range free improvisation offers:

Tom Ozric wrote: maybe a branch from the intended discussion, ; a style that has baffled me forever - Free Jazz. What is the purpose ?? i love Soft Machine, Elton Dean, Henry Cow etc. when they break in to an Avante piece of music, it throws me 6 feet the opposite direction of my mindset. i love what these gifted musicians do, but i just don’t get the semmingly ‘randomness’ of it all. a good example is an Elton Dean Quintet album in have - Boundaries. it’s a difficult listen to me (as open as my ears/mind can be) but i persist, enjoy, and even ‘wow’ at this form of music and structure. what am i missing ??

In addition to the fine answers given, I would say original composition ~ new rhythms, melodies and harmonies that are yielded by spontaneous group playing ~ very often comes from improvisation, making it a valuable resource.

There are also subtle differences in thought in popular music "theory" and regular Western theory. For instance, a trait of jazz, which reappeared in R&B and Hip-hop, is the idea of playing "on top of" or "behind the beat" which refers to intentionally playing notes slightly earlier or later, respectively, than they are supposed to occur, sometimes to the point of creating polyrhythms in the latter genres. However, while the concept of polyrhythms and playing on top of or behind the beat have been combined to facilitate interesting grooves, in the context of R&B and Hip-hop, the specific polyrhythm isn't particularly important to understanding the music. What is important is how far behind the beat they are, how much they forsake the grid, rather than the specific interaction of parts. This involves Western theory, but isn't necessarily thought of in the same way as a classical musician. 

Captcha has been extra hard on me lately. :/

Until I went digging into the origins of Jazz, I could not appreciate it very well. To me it is one of the most interesting methods/genres of creating music. It has roots in everything is what it seems.

There is a great PBS documentary, I think by Ken Burns, called Roots of Jazz. I think it was shown over several episodes. It may not be the ultimate in jazz exploration, but it dives into some neat stuff...Especially the origins in the US which was New Orleans and spreading from there.....

I now know what to look for in record bins on old jazz.....

Great 1st post!!

As far as "odd" time signatures go: they aren't really integral to the common practice period, but were oft-used by modern composers such as Stravinsky, Bartok, Messiaen, Reich, among others. Not really integral I would say. Hindustani classical music has what Western theory would call odd time signatures, but the musicians think of it in terms of smaller subdivisions on a meterless grid. Gamelan music similarly. Odd meters can sometimes be found in eastern European folk music, which is where I think Bartok drew his inspiration from. 

The idea of a time signature in general seems to be an invention of western music. It doesn't seem like it has occurred in other cultures apart form the influence of western European culture. Other cultures with systems of theory tend to think differently about rhythm. I could be wrong about that, though.

Makes me think. Money by Pink Floyd (which peaked at #13 on US Billboard 100) was so close to being top 10. then we could say a song in 7/8 was in the top 10 charts.

 

 

 

 

 

A song in 7/4 (as an aside, I consider Money to be in 7/4, not 7/8) did make it to the top 10, #1 in fact, and before Money was even released. Turns out, you don't need to stay in 4/4 to make a hit; all you need is love.

I was thinking that folks pretty much thought that nothing else was possible in music for 300 to 400 years, and even in the movie (although not exact truth I do not think! Amadeus), it even suggests that this usage suggested is not right ... or something like that.

My main concern, is that too much of "progressive" music, has been about THE SOUND ... and not the music, and this is something that developed in the the recording age of music, and amplification ... that was not there before ... thus ... as I have said a hundred times ... UNPLUG IT ... and watch all that "music" disappear to almost nothing ... and this is my main concern for a lot of music that we consider "progressive" ... it will be difficult for us to appreciate if it is unplugged ... because it simply will not sound very good at all ... 

But music, as is the case in ALL ARTS, changes all the time, and my thoughts are that it will continually change into something else that we have not heard before ... what that will be is another question, but since none of us can see the future, the best we can do is say that ... WE DON'T KNOW!

But I'm not surprised to see an "academic" state that it is not possible to come up with anything new anymore ... it's the basis of the academic teaching in music, and if the idea "opens up", then the course goes all over the place and no one can teach it anymore. But the rigidness of its conceptual nature, for me is totally off key ... considering the history of music for the last 400 or 500 years, or even going all the way back to the days of Greece and Rome! 

The invention of electronic instruments including synth, Mellotron etc. as well as amplified acoustic instruments (guitar, bass, drum etc.) led to a whole host of innovations in music theory.  Have you ever seen sheet music for Tangerine Dream?  See the image in this link:

https://encyclotronic.com/music/berlin/timewind-klaus-schulze-r502/" rel="nofollow - https://encyclotronic.com/music/berlin/timewind-klaus-schulze-r502/

The invention of these new instruments led to modifications to music notation and composition.  Frank Zappa is one of the best examples I can think of, his music was painstakingly noted and transcribed onto paper.  Every guitar squeal, every drum rimshot, every sound was noted.   

This is where things get murky and difficult. In acting, literature and even painting, the intuitive approach is much more important, but its definition ends up being something that has less to do with what we "know" than anything that we do "not know".

Does it all amount to anything is another story, since (for the most part) the idea in improvisation, specially in acting, and other arts, is TO LEARN how you can more precisely express yourself, by tapping into bits and pieces that are different and are not reliant on ideas and thoughts ... ie, the famous "where is your inspiration", or "where is your this and that?" ... something that for many folks is not about "words" as it is bits and pieces that you feel and sometimes "see" that you might not even be able to describe precisely.

For my tastes, and this part is "opinion" too much of the (so-called) "progressive" music has lost its "inner" form to just sounds and ideas that had been used before ... when we first heard the whole thing, it was all NEW ... and now we consider something this and that simply because it is repeating what we already heard.

Finding your way, in a dark alley, so to speak ... is what all this is about ... and I'm not sure that at that moment you are thinking about some sort of theory to get you out of the dark ... you are looking forward to finding something/anything that will help you get out of the dark ... and this was a very important and valuable experience as an acting exercise, and something that musicians need to do badly ... to find their way through some murky waters, instead of re-writing the same book and ideas.

And yes ... that is very much about me and my "intuitive" ideas, although for me, it's really hard to tell you and everyone else that it has nothing to do with ideas at all ... it has to do with "experiencing" the moment, better and better, and this is where most musicians and actors quit ... for bits and pieces and trickery of things they know!

No issues with the rest of your write up ... 

HackettFan wrote: ... Which strategy a musician leans on more, I expect, is a matter of personality. ...

Probably more than just that ... I find, for example that Daevid Allen is the best "beat poet" out there as a musician, since his experiments, and his glissando excursions, and meditations, were about tuning in as a sort of zen thing to the "inside" so your visualization of the music is better interpreted. 

But then, if you read the book by Peter Michael Hamel (From Music to the Self) ... the whole thing becomes really confusing ... and more difficult, although it really exposes how many more people are looking past the limitations of westernized music to find something else!

(We did not even bring this into the discussion, btw!)

HackettFan wrote: ... There is another logical possibility; that music theory has not advanced because of Prog because it has not kept up with Prog. I have no examples yet, and may never have.

Either that, or as it has been said in some cases here, it has all become just pop music ... and to me, that is the greatest killer of it all, and my greatest fear ... we need to elevate the music past the pop music thing, and that also means looking at it as a top ten, or top 100 ... and simply discussing it as a "band/composer" and not just an album!

And until we "elevate" it some more, I'm not sure that we will ever find/accept anything in it as valuable in "music theory" ... something along these lines ... it just hurts ... there are so many pieces of music that deserve to be placed along the line of great musical pieces for the 20th century ... and yet ... all we think of in TARKUS ... is just another rock song, when we can also hear it in a piano, by a blind woman, what a magnificent piece of composition it is ... as modern as you and I could EVER/FOREVER consider ... and totally well done ... but I am not sure that "academics" are even willing to accept those kinds of beauty and give it some credit ... the fact that it was rock, or amplified, or electronic, should have nothing to do with it ... the fact that it made an impact is what this is about ... and it did, and still does in Rachel Flowers amazing hands ... but will Keith ever get the credit he deserves and died for?

That's my scary thought for the day!

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.  

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.

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?

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 Balkans. 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.

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?

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?  Don't try this at home kids.

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

Henceforth Barney shall be known as Tilda?

Guldbamsen wrote: I’ve really missed this place

Where have you been? This place misses you

Are you aware that no less a player than Novak Djokovic had Craig O'Shannessy in his box mainly for the granular detail of his punditry, for his ability to break down the numbers into winning/losing patterns?  The problem in fact isn't with punditry so much as it is with former players in most sports believing they have the sole right to offer commentary when they are often merely good observers of the game and not analysers of it because they did all the analysis subconsciously in real time and cannot articulate it. 

That's a bad argument because:

a)  The scoring system in tennis is a lot more complicated than football and there is also a lot more you can do with a racquet than the tip of your shoe.  It's not even close to comparable.  

b)  There are far more complicated scenarios that are analysed using data in business than football.  If it works there, it can work in football. 

The notion that football is somehow too complicated in a beautiful way as to keep it secure from the preying hands of data predators is a romantic one with little basis in reality.  Data about the game can and is being used in many sports as of today to improve outcomes.  It doesn't ruin the sport because both sides have access to the data so what they do with it ends up being unpredictable anyway. 

Data can't help a mediocre team win, that's not what it is used for.  It can help explain why teams win or lose and thus devise strategies better.  This is what music theory does too, simply provides an explanation for why something works or appears to work. 

Some prog musicians have composed music based upon fractals.  The late, great bassist for Starcastle, Gary Strater, was one.  His CD, "Eleven to the Fourth - Twice" was released before he perished from cancer.  RIP, friend. 

I appreciate this ... the only part that i do not like is when some folks will state that this and that does not fit ... specially when music is forever evolving and changing ... and within the rock/jazz context even more so than ever in the history of music!

My only "request", if I may, is that these not be about RULES ... and spend more time accepting that this and that person did something different with this and that detail ... and this is where some things go off badly ... and I remember Keith using a couple of knives in the old days ... and it wasn't to show off ... it was to get an extended sound from that part so he could play something else ... in the days where the machines being used were not as good/great in effects as they became!

Likewise, is something like TARKUS ... that sounds extremely modern and like a magnificent Piano Concerto in the hands of Rachel Flowers ... but I don't see any of those folks that "know" music theory and teach it, even discuss ... how much of the famous, and well known music is outstanding in its compositional state ... and King Crimson fits here also ... since when it comes to music knowledge and theory ... I doubt there are many folks that can top Robert Fripp, for example. But he will never get any acceptance ... for the incredible detail and definition of his work ... and to me, this is the only issue I have with "music theory" that has been stuck in stone for hundreds of years, and is continually looking stupid after so many years, but in between, you are always the stupid and stubborn kid that won't learn the theory! 

And "Prog" and "Progressive" in this case are the "bad children" that are being ignored ... and even thinking of discussing some folks that we love as idiots is insane, since many of them are very high level instructors in music ... but many "music theorists" in college and universities conveniently ignore that ... don't try to do a thesis on Edgar Froese for another 30 years ... he hasn't been dead long enough!

Again, theory only exists to explain what works.  It is not intended to be predictive.