Hello @ all, first of all, let me introduce myself. I'm new to this list. I live in Berlin, Germany, and pay my rent by working as an arranger / composer and lecturer. I recently switched programs, so now I'm a Finale user.
I subscribed a couple of days ago to this list and just wanted to add my two cents as regards to the "theory thread". (Not too many posts about the application itself in the last days...) Music Theory, maybe throughout history, is and was always a result of analizing, closely watching at and listening to what other people already *did*. A rule did not neccessarily apply to them, as theory was always sort of later than the actual works theory dealt with. So what is does is to afterwards find out why certain horizontal / vertical elements of music actually sound good, for example. It's not too much of a law, just knowledge passed over to many generations. Plus, times are changing, music changes, and so does theory, depending on the style someone's writing in. There have been numerous interesting points made about doubling thirds, and one might apply rules from the past while writing his music, thus avoiding doubled thirds in four part-harmony. But again, people do not neccessarily obey these rules. Most don't even know them. (I remember my counterpoint lessons at university... ergh, not that I really do. To be honest, I forgot the rules that make up a "good" counterpoint. ;-) In the end, the ear and individual flavour judges whether something is "wrong" or "right". To me, as a jazz musician, Free Jazz sounds wrong (just my personal taste), no matter how hard they repeatedly hit the notes on their horn to convince me of their coice of notes.
From my point of view, good knowledge of theory (harmony) makes the
process of arranging and composing for larger ensembles much easier. If you know your theory, you can easily travel somewhere else. If you don't, you're in a process of trial and error. And, after all, these errors one encounters maybe just got him and her to learn some, well: theory, at least in a way. "Much time is needed to travel the oceans of music. Still more, to learn how to navigate in them." - Hector Berlioz My regards from Berlin Robert
Am 05.02.2007 um 18:16 schrieb Aaron Rabushka:
One of my former band directors used to say "never apologize on a horn." "Correct" is for theory homework, not for composing real music. People who think that it's hard to learn the rules of classroom theory get even more mindboggled by trying to create cogency outside the rules. Aaron J. Rabushka _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
