Of course it's true that only the earlier classical music was based on folk music. And of course even then they had to disguise that from some of the snootier patrons. Another thing they did was incorporate folk music from exotic clutures, like Mozart's Turkish march, tarrantellas, and such. Apparently exotic folk origins were more acceptable than the local stuff. So I was talking about the origins of classical music, not from the late 19th century on.

But even as late as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Dvorak there was a tradition of starting from a folk song and elaborating variations. Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony has a movement that starts with "In a Field a Birch Tree Stood," and Dvorak did the "Going Home" thing in the New World Symphony (although I understand he made it up himself to sound like an old folk song).

But, yeah, from Stravinsky on they were off into pure theory and new sounds. Then again, if they considered jazz and other world musics, particularly primitive music, "folk", then they were still getting a lot of inspiration from folk music (Le Sacre du Printemps). But as you said, they went miles beyond that.

Now about playing from theory versus playing by ear and reading - I was getting the impression that some people who had studied little or no music theory were thinking extensive theory knowledge was a requirement for playing, or even listening to, classical music. Of course any professional level classical musician of any instrument has studied plenty of theory, and they use it in their reading and playing (we're not talking about composing here). But plenty of student musicians can learn and play very complicated stuff before they get all the theory under their belt. And that doesn't mean they play mechanically - they can still put their heart and their trained ear into the music.

I would say that as you listen to somebody playing a sonata or concerto, you would be hard pressed to say how much theory they knew or used in their playing. Even composers can write very complicated stuff, because they want that particular sound, without necessarily knowing the academic theory behind what they are doing. You can pick out the melodies and harmonies you want by ear on a piano, write it down (or have a computer write it for you), and then convert that to parts for other instruments, without knowing any theory at all.

The same is true for jazz. Jazz uses much more complicated music theoretically than country and pop. But most of that came from musicians who were striving for sounds they wanted, not for theoretical constructs they wanted. Sure, some jazz musicians knew some theory, and did their own theoretical explorations, but most jazz was arrived at by ear, not from theory. The fact that academics can go back after the fact and tell us all the complicated theory that describes what Charlie Parker, or Coltrane or Ornette Coleman were doing, does not mean that those guys were thinking out every note in theory before they played it. They played from their ears and their hearts, and they had magic fingers trained by years of practice that could play what their ears and hears wanted.

Now composers, especially modern classical ones, are different. They do write a lot of stuff just based on the theoretical structures, possibly without knowing exactly what it will sound like. But a lot of composers are amazing at being able to know what the structures will sound like. In the old days when things were less dissonant, the composers were really good at that. Beethoven knew what the structures he was writing would sound like - that's why he could keep composing whole symphonies even after he was deaf.

At any rate, I don't really know what the hell I'm talking about. These are just some thoughts. This is a great thread.

What I was wondering about was how you learned about the more obscure scales. I'm not trying to get at anything. I was just wondering a bit about your theory influences.

You dudes that say you want to read:

How many hours per day do you practice reading ? Its hard but can be done with a bit of work like everything else.
My reading has gotten pretty weak these days because I have too much other work I need to keep up with. There is no big secret to it. You just need to put in the hours.

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if anyone knows any tips on how to read music on a pedal steel, let's hear them.

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I wrote an article about this.If somebody here can host it on their web site I'll E-mail it to them so they can post a link.

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just wondering a bit about your theory influences

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But plenty of student musicians can learn and play very complicated stuff before they get all the theory under their belt. And that doesn't mean they play mechanically - they can still put their heart and their trained ear into the music.

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I would say that as you listen to somebody playing a sonata or concerto, you would be hard pressed to say how much theory they knew or used in their playing. Even composers can write very complicated stuff, because they want that particular sound, without necessarily knowing the academic theory behind what they are doing. You can pick out the melodies and harmonies you want by ear on a piano, write it down (or have a computer write it for you), and then convert that to parts for other instruments, without knowing any theory at all...I was just trying to encourage steelers to not be afraid of theory, and also demystify the connection between academic music theory and the playing of classical music.

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We live in a culture that's dominated by the entertainment business. A business that is predicated on an endless supply of insubstantial and disposable products. The movie or show or CD we bought/watched this week is soon forgotten and we buy the one that's for sale next week and so on and so on. So there is a constant blizzard and overload of information, most of which is about nothing. It trains us to expect to be 'spoon-fed' our entertainment, "just sit back and get comfortable, we'll bring it to you", it's effortless, it's without substance, we never get enough and there is always room for more.

I have a close friend who teaches music composition on the graduate and post-graduate level. We were recently commiserating and he was complaining of how he's getting students who are almost completely ignorant of the literature beyond what they've heard on the radio (Classical 24). In his class he was making a point and used Webern as an example. He was then looking at a room of blank faces. One student had heard of Webern, but didn't know anything about him. This isn't high school music appreciation, these are college level composition students.

it is in MS Word document format.

I think it's safe to say that just as for every major league Nashville session player there are a hundred or so of us weekend warriors, so too, for every serious professional classical musician, there are hundreds of amateurs who can play what they read, and who may even play in community orchestras, but who have not studied theory.

We've all met people like that. They play music for the sheer enjoyment of it, without worrying about how much (or if) they're being paid.

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it was like someone letting me in on a really amazing secret: here is a really different way to compose music...anyone ever tried a pointillistic approach on PSG? That sounds like a job for Bob Hoffnar...

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Bob Hoffnar, Dan Tyack and I did a kind of masterclass at the musical-instruments- museum in Brussels, Belgium. We played some classical stuff. Bob, are there recordings from that?
JJ

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