Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.

Regular Contributors


Adrienne Albert
Beth Anderson
Larry Bell
Galen H. Brown
Cary Boyce
Roger Bourland
Corey Dargel
Lawrence Dillon
Daniel Gilliam
Peter Gordon
Rodney Lister
Ian Moss
Tom Myron
Frank J. Oteri
Carlos R. Rivera
David Salvage
Stefano Savi Scarponi
Alex Shapiro
Naomi Stephan
David Toub
Judith Lang Zaimont

Composer Blogs@ Sequenza21.com

Lawrence Dillon
Elodie Lauten
Anthony Cornicello
Everette Minchew
Tom Myron
Alan Theisen
Corey Dargel

Latest Posts

What's New is Old Again
Galen H. Brown

the unfamiliar
David Toub

If You See Someone, Say Something.
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The Academy Has Accepted Your Music
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The Award
Lawrence Dillon

More Pulitzer Chitchat
Galen H. Brown

who has a lock on the prize?
David Toub

Pulitzer Recording Endowment
Galen H. Brown

Del Tredici in Portland
Tom Myron

prizes
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Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019

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Thursday, April 14, 2005
Theory and Practice

I would love to start a conversation about music theory and its utility. What is it good for? What constitutes a “good” analysis? Does theory “help” you compose, or does it help performers deliver a satisfying interpretation of a piece? Should it even bother with one or the other?

Right now, I’m studying Klumpenhouwer networks and Perle-Lansky cycles. These are interesting, and the work of David Lewin (an ex-teacher of mine), Henry Klumpenhouwer, Philip Lambert and others on this subject is, in its way, brilliant. But I find it frustrating that when one applies a K-net to the score one finds the beautiful isography that’s been expressed often represents a pretty convoluted way of hearing a passage – one that requires a fair amount of massaging of the composer’s music. Does strong isography really help us hear atonal music? Should it, in order to be good theory? Or is it enough for music theory to just present elegant, abstract models consistent within themselves? Is how we “hear” a piece, then, too personal for the realm of theory? I’m torn.
posted by David Salvage 10:18 AM


 


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