Class Report
Music Theory: A Crash Course
Teacher: David Klinger (above)
Documentarian: Dan Hollander
Location: Mad Momos
Date: May 21, 2014
See more photos of this class on Flickr!
What we learned:
The theory of music is like the theory of relativity: It’s deeply rooted in logic and structure, but can also be tested empirically.
Just as you don’t have to understand relativity to function on a day-to-day basis, a grasp of music theory is unnecessary to compose beautiful music. If you want to compose, use your ears, be patient, and let someone else figure out why it works.
Music theory = Math.
Memorize intervals. Intervals will help you play chords and progressions, since chords are defined by the intervals they contain, and progressions are defined by the root of the chords’ interval with respect to the key. For example, to play a major A chord it helps to know that C# is the major third of A, and E is its perfect fifth. Similarly, to play a 1 - 4 - 5 progression in D, it helps to know that G is the perfect fourth of D, and that A is its perfect fifth. It is like memorizing basic arithmetic to learn math.
Resources: musictheory.net is super great!
What an alien visiting earth would think about this class: Says David, the teacher: “Since most aliens are baffled by humans’ obsession with ‘music,’ they would hopefully find it interesting to understand the way we think about it. However, not having the same emotional connection to sounds, they would have no interest in composition themselves. They’d find music theory to be an ultimately pointless pursuit, and our syntax for it to be a bit inefficient, but for some reason that they wouldn’t even be able to explain themselves, they’d be glad that humans are dedicating so much time and thought to such an arbitrary and valueless art.”
Daniel Hollander writes for sustenance and serenity and absolutely adores alliteration. Also, food. Food is great.