Re: What's the relationship between scales and chords?

On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:11:52 -0800 (PST), LJS <ljschenck@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Feb 27, 7:10 am, i...@xxxxxxxxx (paramucho) wrote:
On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:39:50 -0800 (PST), LJS <ljsche...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Feb 26, 5:26 pm, Joey Goldstein <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tom K. wrote:

Using II for supertonic hasn't been done for nearly forty years.

On the contrary. Most jazz harmony books use upper case Roman numerals
for all chords.

We don't write simply "ii" or "ii7". We write "IIm" and/or "IIm7".

--
Joey Goldstein
<http://www.joeygoldstein.com>
<http://homepage.mac.com/josephgoldstein/AudioClips/audio.htm>
joegold AT sympatico DOT ca

the only major book that I know of that uses UC/RN has been the Piston
Harmoy text. I am sure that there are others, but I have not run
across any books in mainstream use that does not use UC/LC with the
delimiters. I have also not run across the use of RM/maj-min etc.
either. All the texts that I have seen use the standard UC/LC RN
notation in the standard manner.

In my quest to try to keep current, an you give some examples of who
is turning back the clock to use the older system based on Piston? I
know you stated Jazz theory books, but in the classes that I have
taken, there was no such use of this in these classes either. I don't
know why anyone would, so if there is an advantage to reverting to
this additional separation from standard theory notation, please give
us some details.
LJS

What standard?

After checking out your list of books, I see how you might be
confused!



These are the books that I happened to pick up and check. All
reasonably recent, some very recent.

ANALYSIS OF TONAL MUSIC, Cadwallader etc
A GUIDE TO MUSICAL ANALYSIS, Nicholas Cook
MUSICAL ANALYSIS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Jonathan Dunsby etc
A GENERATIVE THEORY OF TONAL MUSIC, Fred Lehrdahl etc
TONAL HARMONY IN CONCEPT AND PRACTICE, Alan Forte
HARMONY IN TONAL MUSIC, Joel Lester
HARMONY, STRUCTURE AND STYLE, Leonard Ratner
HARMONY AND VOICE LEADING, Edward Aldwell etc
INTRODUCTION TO SCHENKERIAN ANALYSIS, Alan Forte etc

And each of them uses all upper-case. Most of them follow traditional
classical practice and let the key signature specify major or minor.
Beyond that, there are the usual differences in usage that are found
in music texts.

As usual, there is no generic standard. But, if anything approaches a
standard in classical practice it would seem to be the traditional all
UC model.

Well, I tried to find information on your collection, here is what I
was able to find this morning.

ANALYSIS OF TONAL MUSIC, Cadwallader etc
Schenkerian Theory? This is an example of standard functional
notation?

No, this is a recent book (1998) which I assume would follow a
"standard" if such a "standard" existed. Let's face it, "standards"
that aren't followed can hardly be called "standards".

A GUIDE TO MUSICAL ANALYSIS, Nicholas Cook
Is this another Schenkerian approach? The authors seem to think so.

Wild guessing on your part. Cook deals with half-a-dozen approachs,
only one of which is Schenkerian.

MUSICAL ANALYSIS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Jonathan Dunsby etc
An edition written to provide support for N. Cook's book above that
aimed to foster both a way of thinking and manner of doing Ian Bent's
"Analysis" from 1987.

More wild guessing. It was written around the same time as Cook's, and
covers a similar range of topics but with more emphasis on later
styles. It is quite independent of Cook.

You think that this book, written to explain another author's way of
thinking is an example of something that would be considered
standard?

No, I think it is a book which would *follow* an established standard
if such a standard existed. The fact that none of these books
*follows* the so-called "standard" puts the "standard" in serious
doubt as far as I'm concerned. It seems more like a local fan club
than a *standard* "standard".

And it's not written to explain another author's etc etc.

A GENERATIVE THEORY OF TONAL MUSIC, Fred Lehrdahl etc
"We gave tried to achieve a synthesis of the outlook and methodology
of contemporary linguistics with the insights of recent music theory
(The Bernstein Lectures)... Lerdahl supplied musical insights and
Jakendoff, the linguist, constructed formal systems to express them.
The result is a theory formulated in terms of rules of musical
grammar."

Taken from Chapter 1, Theoretical Perspective.

This book seems to be an extension of Bernstein's cross discipline
approach to explaining philosophical musical theory to scholars from
disciplines other then music. It is primarily to use linguistics to
help explain similarities of music and language.

Lehrdahl/Jackendorf is Lehrdahl/Jackendorf. Everyone knows that :-)

TONAL HARMONY IN CONCEPT AND PRACTICE, Alan Forte
Couldn't find information on this one, may be out of print but:
Holt Rinehart & Winston; 3rd Sprl edition (June 1979)

This seems however, that it was written more than 20 years ago if my
math is correct.

But not more than 40 years ago.

HARMONY IN TONAL MUSIC, Joel Lester
Jestor Review
Harmony in Tonal Music by Joel Lester. Author(s) of Review: David
Neumeyer
Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 5, Spring, 1983 (Spring, 1983), pp.
132-136

The article points out that this book is a combination of Schenkerian
analys and basic instruction in traditional harmony so as to give a
unified approach. The author go on to state that although there is a
lot of good theory in these two volumes, that it, like many others,
fails to live up to the hype by the author.

One reads many negative reviews of harmony textbooks. From Amazon:

Benjamin/Horvitt/Nelson:
I'm rather surprised at the positive reviews of this book. It is, in
my opinion, the poorest excuse for a Theory book I have ever seen.
It is nothing more than a skeletal outline.

Gauldin:
I am currently a TA at a university and have been forced to use this
book for my class. Forced, mind you, is the operative word here. Of
my own free will, I would never have chosen this book. Gauldin often
uses terms that are not "standard" in the theory world and even
gives an entirely new definition and usage for a term that IS
standard.

Koska/Payne
I've been teaching music theory for 35 years, and have seen a lot of
texts that I like less than this one. However, it doesn't make this
one wonderful.
As other reviewers have mentioned, there are a lot of errors.
Also, there are far too many places in the examples where they say,
"Ignore this note", or "Forget about this for now". You'd think
they'd have found better examples without making the interested
student wonder what's really going on, and the less involved student
confused with excess.

and:

I am an active conductor and I feel I have a much stronger grasp of
music after having been taught a more honest and comprehensive way
of studying music and this was only after years of deprogramming
what I had learned through the Kostka and Payne. I am still
struggling with this issue. If you're serious about music, DO NOT
GET THIS BOOK!

Also note that this review was written in 1983, and thus is again more
than 20 years ago.

But not more than forty years ago.

HARMONY, STRUCTURE AND STYLE, Leonard Ratner
MCGRAW-HILL, New York, 1962 (hmm, over 40 years old.)
Could not find illustrations but the text is really rather straight
forward and extremely basic so far as I could see. He could have used
Piston's method and this one might actually have been a book that was
used in some colleges for Freshman theory, but from what I could see,
it was nothing special or popular enough to set a standard.

You seem to think I was listing books that might *set* a standard.
That was not the case. I was demonstrating books that do not *follow*
the "standard" you mention -- and one requirement of a "standard" is
that it be followed.

HARMONY AND VOICE LEADING, Edward Aldwell etc
Ahh, a basic theory book that seems to be based on normal things of
interest to functional harmony, and according to the contents does
seem to use UC/RN symbols. And it seems to slip in at 19 years old to
more recent than the 20 years mentioned by Tom.

Nope, the figure Tom mentioned was "forty years":

Tom K. wrote:
Using II for supertonic hasn't been done for nearly forty years.

All the books I cited fall well within that period, and all use II for
the supertonic. The statement is simply erroneous, and citing
Aldwell/Schachter would have been sufficient to show that.

It does however (I
could only get the Contents to view) seem to be a version of the
Piston Harmony as far as I can tell by the organization of the topics.
At least it is not Schenkerian!

In fact the book is written by two Schenkerians. You can't get much
more Schenkerian than Schachter. Although it's a reasonably
straight-forward harmony textbook, Schenkerianism is at its most
obvious in this book.

There's a discussion of their approach vis a vis Kostka/Payne and
Piston here:

Of course, Aldwell and Schachter represent a modern strain of
theorypedagogy that is much less tied to the root orientation of
earlier books such asWalter Piston?s Harmony, represented on the
left of the example. Piston firstcovers chords I would call D2 in
Chapter 9, which treats first-inversion chordsgenerally; thus
students hear about the D2 chord VII6 along with I6 and V6, II6and
IV6, not to mention the infamous III6 and VI6. His coverage of the
remainingD2 chords follows Aldwell and Schachter?s strategy, if not
their ordering: the V6/4chord arrives in Chapter 11 along with other
6/4 chords, the V4/3 chord follows inChapter 13 with other
inversions of the dominant seventh chord, and the VII6/5chord brings
up the rear in Chapters 14 and 15 with leading-tone seventh chords.
A glance at the Kostka-Payne table of contents reveals a strategy
similar toPiston?s. After dealing with fundamentals, they cover root
motion first, in chapters5 through 7. 6/3 chords and 6/4 chords are
taught by analogy with their root position counterparts in chapters
8 and 9. Seventh chords are treated one root at atime, inversion by
inversion, in chapters 13 through 15.
www.amsteg.org/content/docs/smt2005-talk.pdf

The author also discusses why he prefers all-UC to mixed UC/LC.

INTRODUCTION TO SCHENKERIAN ANALYSIS, Alan Forte etc

Again, published in 1982 and then to explain a much older idea of
theory that is really not that concerned with UC or LC RNs. Hardly an
example of a Standard for Music Theory Notation.

See above and above.

So what do we have. Is it 5 books on Schenkerian theory? one on
Bernstein's approach to music not from a functional manner so much as
from a developmental manner? two dinosaurs that may use the UC but are
not really the mainstream of what students are generally studying and
a possible rewrite of the Piston book.

Leaps of faith based on leaps of faith:

Four of the books are standard harmony textbooks designed to used in
college courses -- the fact that some have a Schenkerian angle is
irrelevant and barely visible in the subject matter. I certainly
hadn't noticed in some cases. Schenker is not mentioned past the
foreword and there is little or no Schenkerian analysis in the texts.

Only two books concern Schenkarian analysis. The most recent of the
two being published in the past couple of years.

Your idea that these books "may be a rewrite of Piston" is wishful
thinking on your part. I have probably twenty or so harmony books,
collected at second-hand shops over the years. Most of them have the
same kind of contents, some of them the same sentences. That's less
true of the books I cited, each of which tends to be pretty
idiosyncratic in one way or another.

One can find descriptions of Kostka/Payne, cited by TomK, as
"Schenkerian":

Much of the most advanced theoretical/analytical work being done
in music today finds its basis in the theories of Heinrich Schenker,
and Schenker?s theories also permeate even the most basic theory
texts (see for example, those by Westergaard, Kostka /Payne, and
Aldwell & Schachter).
Some web site :-)

And I seem to recall a friend who had to teach Gauldin last year,
saying that it was Schenkerian in approach, but I may err.

As shallow as my research is on these books, it seems as though I have
checked them out more than you have and quite frankly, I am
disappointed at this selection as a set of books that show that UC
functional notation is the norm! I have to wonder if you just flipped
through and took a quick look at the illustrations and didn't even
bother to see what the books were about.

I own these books and am intimately aware of their subject matter.
Your guesswork has been terrible, even "shallow" is an overstatement.
Beyond that you even shortened the cited timespan from forty to twenty
years. Four of the books I cited are straight-forward harmony
textbooks produced well within the forty year period Tom mentions.

Shallow is an understatement :-) Really.

I only did a quick look at
the web and found that all but 2 of these books were certainly not the
type of book that would be considered a standard of any kind for
functional analysis notation and only a couple even touched on the
subject.

Again, you seem to happily take grand leaps of faith based on a mere
sniff of evidence. Four of the books are standard, college-level
harmony textbooks and nothing else. The fact that their authors come
from the Schenkerian side of the tracks is irrelevant and is barely
evident in some of the texts and the same can be said of Kostka/Payne.


And, anyway, I did not assert, nor mean to imply, that any of these
textbooks would *set* the standard. As I've said above and repeat
below.

Do you really use these books as a source for your Classical
Theory?

I use a broad range of material, however much of it is considerably
older, e.g. C.P.E. Bachs "Essay". I have noticed over the years that
music theory is only slightly less subject to fashion than dressmaking
is. Thus, I try not to tie myself down to any particular period, and
the approachs of the present period have not much more value to me
than earlier approachs.

Most of my recent reading on the subject is of the "standard"
textbooks that I picked up in Germany last year: Grabner, Maler and
and de la Motte, all following Riemann's approach, of course. By the
way, in that field we can talk about a definite change of the standard
from all UC with superscripts to a mixed UC/LC model. It was
introduced by Grabner (or perhaps Maler) and has completely supplanted
Riemann's original notation.

Are they standard in your school? or were they standard at
Berlkee?

I am not attached to any "school" (which I assume you mean in the U.S.
sense) and I don't know why you think I have any connection with
Berklee? Are you confusing me with someone else?

In fact, the books selected themselves. I just picked up a bunch of
books waiting to go back onto my bookshelves, the idea being that if
UC/LC truly was the "standard" then I would see that standard
reflected in these books, many of which are well-known "standard"
works in their own right. I find it remarkable that the so-called
"standard" you describe is reflected in *none* of them.

Indeed, you seem to be telling me that the "standard" you're talking
about only applies to certain kinds of books. Which brings me to my
first question: please tell me which kinds of books this "standard"
applies to and why it doesn't apply to other theory-related works in
the field.

The limiting period I used was well below the forty years mentioned by
Tom. I wasn't aware that you would consider a book only twenty years
old to be a dinosaur, which leads to my second question: when was this
"standard" established? And, if the standard didn't apply only twenty
years ago, how long might one expect this new standard to last?

Another of your complaints was that these books could not be
considered as the type which would *establish a standard*. Please cite
the books which do establish this "standard" (and tell me why it
matters if they're Schenkerian or not Schenkerian):

For the record, I am not defending the all-UC approach. I simply don't
see that two or three recent textbooks can be said to have established
a new "standard". A "standard" requires a broader consensus over a
longer period and can only be said to be effective when it's
*followed*. I note that the few references to labelling made in the
2003 CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF MUSIC THEORY are also all UC. The on-line
Grove seems to use all-UC although, the article "Harmony (1) [Jazz]"
compares alternate forms of notation. I also don't see that teaching
books are necessarily more able to establish standards than analytic
or theoretical texts.

.

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