A Modest (Technical) Proposal

OK, music theory teachers, here's a more definite proposal. The teaching of music theory needs to be changed. Can we start by getting rid of inversion symbols?

Bear with me while I develop my argument. I spend a lot of time beating inversion symbols (in Roman numeral analysis) into my students. They're seemingly arbitrary ("6" for first inversion, "6 - 4" for second), and difficult for the students to internalize. Now, I do agree that inversions of triads are important to note. Unless you're writing really eccentric music (and may the gods bless you if you are), a second-inversion triad has a specific connotation and creates specific expectations. Refuse to deal with those expectations, and the result is a musical faux pas, and sounds like you don't know what you're doing.

However, let's go on to seventh chords. Root position is "7," first inversion is "6 - 5," second is "4 - 3," and third is either "2" or "4 - 2." (I invariably teach "2", but always get a student or two already trained to use "4 - 2.") Using triads, it's important to deal with the second inversion carefully, but with seventh chords the second inversion rule is greatly relaxed, especially diminished seventh chords. The "4 - 3" chord, theoretically to be avoided, is actually quite common. And so by April I have a bunch of freshmen sweating over whether a dim. 7th is "6 - 5" or "4 - 3," and I have yet to see a context (outside of Baroque improvisation) in which it makes a damn bit of difference. Different inversions of chords can have quite different effects, but what possible purpose can it serve to specify those inversions in Roman numeral analysis? The prohibition (or at least careful handling, if you prefer) against non-cadential 6 - 4 chords can easily be noted and dealt with some other way. When having students write harmony according to pattern, all the inversion symbols do is asymmetrically isolate the bass line and prevent them from coming up with creative solutions to that one line. Of course we can talk about the advantages of sometimes putting the third or seventh of the chord in the bass, but why cling to a prescriptive notation for same which only really has application to Baroque figured bass? And in 17 years of teaching, I have not yet had a student go into Baroque keyboard accompaniment as a career.

Of course, I'm afraid to send students out into the world not knowing what a "4 - 3" chord is. I don't want them doing badly on grad-school entrance exams, and I don't want Bard to get a reputation for loose scholarship. Is that any reason to continue drilling this arbitrary and useless convention? Will you stop teaching it if I do?

July 13, 2005 6:11 PM |

Categories:

Sites To See

Postclassic Radio! - Kyle Gann's internet radio station that accompanies the blog; see the playlist at kylegann.com

American Mavericks - the Minnesota Public radio program about American music (scripted by Kyle Gann with Tom Voegeli)

Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar - a cornucopia of music, interviews, information by, with, and on hundreds of intriguing composers who are not the Usual Suspects

Iridian Radio - an intelligently mellow new-music station

New Music Box - the premiere site for keeping up with what American composers are doing and thinking

The Rest Is Noise - The fine blog of critic Alex Ross

William Duckworth's Cathedral - the first interactive web composition and home page of a great postminimalist composer

Mikel Rouse's Home Page - the greatest opera composer of my generation

Eve Beglarian's Home Page - great Downtown composer

Just Intonation Network - a meeting place for people interested in alternative tunings

Erling Wold's Web Site - a fine San Francisco composer of deceptively simple-seeming music, and a model web site

The Dane Rudhyar Archive - the complete site for the music, poetry, painting, and ideas of a greatly underrated composer who became America's greatest astrologer

Utopian Turtletop, John Shaw's thoughtful blog about new music and other issues

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by PostClassic published on July 13, 2005 6:11 PM.

The Elusive Review was the previous entry in this blog.

"Aspiring to the Condition of Music?" No Way is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

AJ Ads

Introducing
AJ Arts Blog Ads

Now you can reach the most discerning arts blog readers on the internet. Target individual blogs or topics in the ArtsJournal ad network.

Advertise Here

AJ Blogs

AJBlogCentral | rss

culture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
CultureGulf
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Dewey21C
Richard Kessler on arts education
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
Life's a Pitch
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
Mind the Gap
No genre is the new genre
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude

dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...

jazz
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...

classical music
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
On the Record
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Overflow
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds

publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera

theatre
Drama Queen
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
lies like truth
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Stage Write
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms

visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.