Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum How do you teach theory?

Whatever it was, it was the only WTC I saw mentioned. Now the site doesn't open at all. There is just some pretty wallpaper and golden words with a title if I click on your link. nm.

Have you tried switching your computer off and back on again?

If you aren't talking about their functionality, it's all useless. Just memorized information with no real application and no connection to music. That's my objection to "theory", as I usually see it taught.

For instance, *why* did a diminished chord come to be associated with a 7 chord, as if it can only exist as an alteration of another chord. In other words, how did we end up with the C-Eb-Gb-Bbb spelling as the only suggested spelling?

Because once we accept C-Eb-Gb-A, getting rid of the double flat, it leaves the door wide-open for at least:

C-D#-F#-A

And that's only a start.

Also, functionality begins a huge discussion about the so called "German 6th chord", as in:

C-E-G-A# to B-E-G#-B
That's what I was trying to say.
The relevance, I think, is the key, which is why I talked about "musical vocabulary".

No. It's a way of analysing music.
I disagree. Analysis makes playing Bach easier, for the most part. But you are going too far.
That's an odd statement. If anything, I'd say structural analysis is equally iportant there.

Gary, Bach is teaching composition - therefore it's better to approach him from that direction. KS would have more luck playing the 19th century rep without theoretical knowledge as opposed to Bach. Bach expected informed performers.

It is not about how I, personally, might play music or learn music. I have already explained my observation. I don't need to be persuaded of the importance of theory since I'm studying it.

I do know that theory is a two-way street, where the intellectual can precede the practical, or the practical can be used as an experience which the intellectual will then explain. At the end the two march hand in hand.

I would have loved to explore that particular piece in view of what you wrote. Unfortunately your link gives me an error message on the bottom, and even when I did get a bit further in there seemed to be nothing by that name.

KS

I would make the same point about Chopin's Em Prelude, which can be used as a study of how to alter chords, one note at a time. It's a great study in chromaticism.

If your preference is to concentrate on composition using only Bach or mostly Bach (which certainly would be a valid approach), then obviously this is fine.

I reached Bach *through* the Romantics, which is just a differnt path.

I assumed from this you were talking about your own experience, KS. There are plenty of other sites with WTC I to download.

My point is you don't need to understand Chopin's harmony for a successful performance. You do with Bach. Bach, to a great extent, was a musical scientist.

My teacher gives us theory assignments. I find the work to be very interesting, but it is tedious. I don't "hate" it, but sometimes I'd rather not do it. We apply theory during our lessons, when she tells me about certain things--chromatic scales, tonics, etc, but then with the theory workbooks and texts that I use, it reinforces them at home. (She uses the ABRSM Theory Practice text and workbooks with me, while with my younger brother, she uses the Foundation of Theory workbooks, I believe.)

Even if I do "hate" theory, or find it boring, I believe that it is every student's responsibility to learn it. Without theory, you never understand the whole picture that the composer is trying to paint for you. What is Bach without knowing what trills and mordents and key signatures are? What is Chopin without knowing about phrasing and timing?

Theory is imperative.

To answer your question, Chris, my purpose in teaching theory is more like the latter definition. I want my students to be able to recognize the chords and structure in music so they can become good sightreaders and improvisors. I want them to see music as a "language" so it can be applied to anything they pursue, whether it's piano, violin, singing, etc.

I love it when a student gets a new piece of music and starts seeing what it is made of. The building blocks, if you will. It makes them feel much less intimidated when they are familiar with them.

But can some of that harmony also be understood at a subconscious level or visceral or instinctive level, given the nature of harmony? And turned around, is it possible that someone who has turned off all feeling of music will not perform Bach as he was meant to be played, even though he has this intellectual understanding?

You absolutely do need harmonic understanding to play Bach. Anytime somebody says "Bach is boring", they are listening to a performer who is not harmonically or structurally aware.

I see what you are saying about Chopin, in that his harmony (in many cases) is easily accessible to the ear and intuitive, as to meaning and tone. But Harmonic knowledge is just so important even in romantic era music because so many important things can slip under the radar. Even simple things like a deceptive cadence (Chopin's b- prelude), or insistent appogiaturas (Brahms' 118-2), may fall through the cracks if one does not perform a complete harmonic analysis of every single note in the performance.

Historically significant harmonic gestures like Modal mixture\alteration can be invoked more prominently by performers.

It is so much more inspiring to understand every single note in the composition than to just say "that sounds cool"

I should also mention that the act of analyzing each note in a performance is also an art in that one often sees what they are looking for...Two artists will name a harmony two different ways, and there may be disagreement on which chord is used as a pivot into the next key.

All of these varied interpretations will change the final performance.

KS, tension and release are visceral. You're welcome to approach Bach as a 'naive'. It's not what he's about though. Bach, in his time, was as high as culture gets.

Sure...But what are you saying?

Music has aspects of academy and artistry. If you are turning off all feeling of music then you have greater problems as a performer.

Jeremy, kbk had written that one cannot play Bach at all if one has not studied theory formally. I certainly intend to study theory, am in the process, and can see how it helps in interpreting and understanding music. But I wondered about the absolute nature of this statement. In particular I wondered about my own experience. Before I studied theory I was led to play music a certain way, and later I discovered that I had been sensitive to the compositional structures of music and so in a sense had some internalized "sense of theory". My playing would have obeyed at least some of the rules of theory, but it was not intellectualy acquired at that point. It seemed possibly that the absolute "not at all" part of playing Bach without having book-learned theory might not always be the case. One can be sensitive to the structures of music - that is not the same as "playing with feeling" - and bring that into one's playing. One can do a lot more when one has the actual theoretical knowledge. There is so much more clarity.

It was supposed to be a small question, which has somehow managed to take on a life of its own. I didn't mean to hijack the thread.

There is a huge difference between playing with feeling and playing with expression.

One of them involves the intellectual and technical components as well as artistry.

P.S. I do see what you were saying then.

And I follow what you are saying about feeling vs. expression. It's good to see it in words.

A bit late to the discussion, but you can find WTC books I and II here . (Scroll down and look under "W" )