Modality: Same Place, New Beginning
Last week I covered the topic of motifs and melodies, and for the next few weeks we'll be working through the components that make up their anatomy. However, we'll be breaking from the convention of typical theory texts in that we won't be discussing scales and chords just yet. Instead, the initial focus will be on modality, intervals, and voice leading. The main reason for this is that modality existed long before chords, functional harmony, and other Common Practice techniques; a lot of these concepts simply do not apply or translate well to modes anyway. Rather than expecting the reader to forget everything they've read, or risk the misapplication and over generalization of concepts we'll start from the actual beginning.
Motifs and Melodies: The Power of a Single Voice
I'll generally try to write these blogs in a way that they are continuations from each other, but some (last week's for example) are strictly for clarifying terms or concepts that will be used quite often. Eventually I may write a linked glossary, but that's for another time. This week we'll be looking at motifs and melodies, and ways to approach them as both a writer and listener. We'll start by establishing some definitions.
Frequency, Pitch, and Notes: The Building Blocks of Building Blocks
Similar to the relationship between video games and programming the experience of listening to, and even to some degree writing music is built on layers of abstraction from 'lower level' type concepts. Part of being a competent composer and musician is to understand the lower level concepts, and be able to work at various levels of abstraction. At the highest level of just listening you're not immediately concerned with things like form. Moving one layer down you may be focused on overall form, but not be focused on specific chord progressions. From there layers move down from chord progressions->chord voicings(inversion)->voice leading->counter point(voice independence)->intervals->motifs/melodies->notes->pitch->frequency->silence.
Modern Philosophy of Classical Traditions: Theory, History, and Musicianship
The goal here is to boil down hundreds of years of theory and tradition, and try to restructure it for the post-modern mindset. A significant amount of music history is made up of numerous pendulums where attitudes and practices move in and out of common use. It's sufficient in this context to simply acknowledge that the practice existed, give a description, and then move on to the next thing without trying to be persuasive about why the practice is good or not.
Why Start a Blog
Most of the topics I'd like to cover are audio related with most of those topics being related to music theory (concepts and practice), production (design, mixing and mastering), and sometimes venturing into video game programming (game engines, audio engines, and coding). The goal is to have a progression to each topic starting with an overall philosophy, and then moving on to basic concepts that will be the basis for future posts