Advantages of Early Theoretical Study

Abstract

The importance of a theoretical foundation for the music student cannot be overemphasized. Par ents often believe that with lessons in piano and addi tional study of another instrument they are providing their child with a thorough musical education. Music theory, acquaintance with and study of tonality, intervals and chords, is considered a complex subject to be pur sued at college level. Yet four years before college, a youngster learns algebra, geometry, elementary chem istry, and physics. After I had given a piano recital a charming teen-ager was presented to me by her piano teacher and her mother. The girl was studying three instruments, piano, clarinet, and bassoon. I remarked that this was commendable es pecially if she wanted to compose music. The girl smiled and nodded. She appeared extremely well adjusted and was wearing a lovely, Pennsylvania Dutch print dress which she had made herself. I asked whether she was studying harmony. She didn't know what it was. I added that it was the study of chords. At this statement, the mother said, She's too young This was not the time nor the place for launching into a lengthy discussion, but the incident remained in my thoughts. I recall also a gifted piano student of mine, a Sophomore at the university where I teach, who was spending part of her summer holidays beginning the study of harmony. The initial piano teacher who instructs a child in playing scales and at the same time gradually introduces the tonic, dominant, subdominant, and the remaining fundamental triads is leading the pupil towards musical independence at a period much earlier than college. Cer tainly by the age of nine, with two years of piano lessons as foundation, the study of harmony may very well begin. The child thus forms the habit of writing notes, first by means of exercises in chord progressions. Occasionally, he should be encouraged to write something original. The regular exercise of notation will make writing music as easy as writing a letter. If there is creative talent, the aforementioned practice will facilitate it. If the student becomes a music major in college, he will not need to struggle with simple harmony exercises, for he will have mastered theoretical essentials along with his finger tech niques. He may take a placement examination for advanced standing and begin the formal study of composi tion. Even if a student is learning an instrument as a pleasurable hobby, a knowledge of the construction of music will enhance his understanding of what he is playing. This writer sees no reason why the study of strict counterpoint should not commence once intervals, chords, and modulation are understood. This may well take place at secondary school age, conservatively at age fourteen. The painstaking practice of writing exercises in species counterpoint will develop within the student a careful, analytical approach to all music that he will play on his chosen instrument. It is especially important to the keyboard performer, for the strict rules of 16th century counterpoint are not only a challenge when writing an exercise, but they clarify for all time the voice lines in whatever music he will perform. A study of strict counter point leads to understanding first hand the significance of a musical composition. Naturally, it follows that the more inherent the musical ability, the more the student will perceive. Most students of keyboard music can immediately see the contrapuntal lines in J. S. Bach's Inventions, and the Well-Tempered Clavier as well as the Suites and Par titas, but theoretical study causes a respect for this music that no listening, no history books, not even the music itself could produce. For example, in the second part of the Caprice from the C minor Partita, is it not a joy for a student to discover for himself that wonderful little wistful commentary by the middle voice in answer to the staccato humor of the upper voice-line? Here we see Bach looking ahead to 19th century Romanticism. Ex. 1 Partita No. II in C minor, Caprice, 2nd. part, meas. 16-20