Music Versus Gobbledygook – Music “theory” demystified

As Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain On Music says, “It’s a shame that many people are intimidated by the jargon musicians, music theorists, and cognitive scientists throw around.”

All arts have this problem: the divide between the creation, and the description of the creation. Imagine the experience of gazing at the painting of the Mona Lisa, relishing the soft amber tints and her mercurial smile. And then imagine your experience of attending a lecture on the history of the painting as well as the chemical makeup of the canvas and paints used, in excruciating detail.

It’s the same with music. You can enjoy music washing over you without needing any technical knowledge at all of what key it may be in, or time signature or even who wrote it. And furthermore, you can MAKE MUSIC without any technical knowledge!

But, to understand the enemy is to be better armed, so lets dive into just a tiny bit of “music theory”, or as I like to call it, gobbledygook 🙂

Ok, think of it this way. In music (or any collection of sounds for that matter), there can be only two ways that notes or sounds can occur: Either separately, or together. Right?

Either our notes occur one after another, like ants in a line, or they can happen at the same time, stacked on top of each other and mingling their flavors.
In music, when notes occur “in a line”, this is called a Melody. For example if you were to pick out twinkle star on the piano, that would be a melody.
Conversely when notes happen at the same time, this is called a Chord. (Imagine plunking several keys down at once).

That is all there it to it, as far as melody and chords! Together these two elements create what we call Harmony, assuming they are notes and chords that we like of course. (What is harmonious to one person can be irritating and even “unmusical” to another).

And whether these notes are higher or lower is described by the word Pitch.

But the most important element, that brings the notes, melody and chords together, is of course rhythm.

Without rhythm we would just have a random collection of notes and chords, and it would more resemble noise than anything. (We will learn more about this in Chapter 6, on “organized sound”)

Once again the problem is that there is a whole slew of confusing jargon surrounding rhythm,which is at its essence simply a collection of different heart-beats.
Some heart-beats are fast, some are slow. Some go “lub dup”, some go “lub dup dup”. But you dont have to have any numbers assigned to them to enjoy them, and even thump along.

But as usual, there is a fancy term for a simple concept, and so these various heartbeats have become to be called Time Signatures, or “what Time” the song is in.

Most music (in Western culture anyway) is based on even numbers (2 or 4 beat patterns), but lots is also uneven (in 3’s, like a waltz). To use our heartbeat phrasing, even beats are “lub dup” and uneven beats are “lub dup dup”. But, once again, the inventors of written music have discovered the most confusing way possible to depict this, with several numbers and slashes for each imaginable timing. These scribbles are called “time signatures”. Ignore them.

So the next time you hear the pretentious phrase “time signatures”, just nod sagely and bite your tongue. All these people are trying to say is that the rhythm is organized a particular way. And all you need to know is that it’s either “lub dup”, or “lub dup dup”!

The rhythm is what also determines whether a song is faster or slower. This is called Tempo.

Then there is that terrifying word “Scale”, as in “you practice your scales or you’re not getting any desert!”. This one is really simple: When you take notes and line them up in a row from low to high, or high to low, like a ladder, it is called a Scale. As anyone knows who lives with a piano player, scales are used to practice with, and later on scales are used as a sort of musical yardstick to measure and analyze things. In and of themselves, however, scales are not very musical at all.

(In my method of teaching music I actually avoid scales for some time, choosing instead to learn our notes through melodies and improvisation)

Perhaps one of the more confusing terms in music theory is “Key”. Why couldn’t they have just called it the “home”? Because that’s all it really means: the note that the melody or song hangs out on the most, and usually ends on. The “home” of the song.

The “key signature” is the overly complicated way musicians write the Key down on paper, involving pound signs “sharps” and lower case b’s (“flats) and a whole lot of nonsense.

Most of us had overheard musical types discussing whether a song is in a “Major or Minor” key. The theoretical explanation for this is too complex for the scope of this book (see my publication “Music Theory for Hillbillies” for a more thorough delving), but the basic meaning describes the “mood” of a song. Songs that are in a major key get their notes from the Major scale, the scale that contains notes which are generally bright and upbeat (or “happier sounding”). When you alter some of the notes in that scale (by changing their pitch) the scale changes it’s mood, and if we alter the “third” note in the scale by moving it lower (a “1/2 tone”, but don’t over think this!) the scale changes to minor, and sounds more subdued and “sad”. Therefore Major or Minor songs come from Major or Minor scales, dictating their mood and feeling.

Finally there is that funny word “Tuning”, as in “man that sounds out of tune”, or “hey lets tune up before we play..”

In general, “tuning” refers to our notes being at the correct pitch, or at least matching each other’s pitches. If the person next to you singing happy birthday is singing a little higher or lower than you, they are “out of tune” with you. And on stringed instruments, these pitches can be adjusted (tuned) by twisting the tuning pegs or knobs at the end of the neck. Pianos usually take an expert an hour (and $80) to get tuned, and “fixed pitch” instruments like the xylophone and the accordion are tuned at the factory, and everyone else just has to tune to them!

Now, so you don’t have to go crazy with your highlighter, here is a list of the “music theory terms” we have used, and a brief reminder of what they actually mean. For the average human, these ten terms are as much as you’ll really ever need to know regarding music terminology. In the words of myself, “Don’t say it, Play it!”

Melody = “Notes happening one after another”, in any order.
Chords = “Notes happening all at once”
Harmony = The “combination of Chords and Melodies” (or any several musical sounds
that go well together)
Pitch = How high or low a note sounds.
Time (or “time signature”) = The type of “beat” (heartbeat) the music is based around. Tempo = The foo foo word for how fast or slow the music is.
Scale = Notes arranged in a straight line, going up or down (not very musical, but used for musicians to “practice” and generally annoy others)
Key (or “key signature”) = The “key” is just the note that a song mostly hangs out around, and usually ends on. The “home” of the song.
Major & Minor = Whether a song sounds “light and happier” (Major), or darker and sad (Minor), based on the scale it’s built from.
Tuning = How high or low our strings are adjusted (with the little tuning peg thingies)

Now go make some happy sounds!

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