Musical Notes
Melodies on Manuscript
Music: An artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner.
Theory: A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.
Music can be anything you want it to be; it isn’t always explicable. Theory generally follows constraints and rules; everything must be explained.
I was always an intelligent child; I excelled in English and Japanese, always got outstanding marks in Maths, loved helping the teacher and enjoyed reading books, something my peers despised. I understood the theoretical components of my academic work; I liked to know why things happened.
But in my mind there was some kind of divider between ‘schoolwork’ and ‘life’; ‘schoolwork’ was the fascinating things we studied in class, the things my teachers taught. ‘Life’ was completely different; things that couldn’t be explained came under this category. Fairies, princesses, mermaids, magic; all things that just were.
I began to listen to my radio at night. I knew the word for what it played, everyone did: music. I even knew what music looked like; little black dots with lines on a page. But despite knowing this, I didn’t know how they made it. I knew nothing about scales and arpeggios, nothing about flats and sharps, nothing about minims and quavers. I didn’t know how they created music, and frankly, I didn’t care.
However, my school was the typical snobby private school and they decided that there was nothing to impress the parents more than music. Therefore our entire third grade class was dragged off to music theory lessons, to learn about how music was shaped and sculpted.
And I loved it. It was like the notes were a mysterious code, and in order to crack the code you had to learn what it meant; each symbol, from dot to bar-line meant something different, and should you miss just one, the code would become undecipherable. Should you make just one mistake, the whole thing would be wrong.
It became my obsession. Learning the note names, what a flat or sharp did, scales, arpeggios, intervals, tonic triads. I began to see how every element was connected, what changed pitch, what changed speed, what sounded good and what didn’t. I took up an instrument to try and create the notes I wrote on manuscript pages. I wasn’t very good at it; they were always better on paper.
I loved being able to answer when people asked ‘What’s this note?’ or ‘What’s this mean?’ It made me feel worthwhile, like there was something I could do that no one else could. I didn’t care if it was considered ‘geeky’ or ‘nerdy’, and still don’t. I revelled in the theoretical side of music much more than the practical side when it came to me creating it.
I’ve grown up a lot since my third grade music classes, and my passion for music theory has dwindled; at times, its flame has been all but extinguished. I always take a match and relight it though, no matter how long it takes. Theory calms me down, stops my mind from spinning and lets me think; it is something I could never give up.
It hasn’t saved my life.
But it’s sure as hell made it easier to live.
Theory: A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.
Music can be anything you want it to be; it isn’t always explicable. Theory generally follows constraints and rules; everything must be explained.
I was always an intelligent child; I excelled in English and Japanese, always got outstanding marks in Maths, loved helping the teacher and enjoyed reading books, something my peers despised. I understood the theoretical components of my academic work; I liked to know why things happened.
But in my mind there was some kind of divider between ‘schoolwork’ and ‘life’; ‘schoolwork’ was the fascinating things we studied in class, the things my teachers taught. ‘Life’ was completely different; things that couldn’t be explained came under this category. Fairies, princesses, mermaids, magic; all things that just were.
I began to listen to my radio at night. I knew the word for what it played, everyone did: music. I even knew what music looked like; little black dots with lines on a page. But despite knowing this, I didn’t know how they made it. I knew nothing about scales and arpeggios, nothing about flats and sharps, nothing about minims and quavers. I didn’t know how they created music, and frankly, I didn’t care.
However, my school was the typical snobby private school and they decided that there was nothing to impress the parents more than music. Therefore our entire third grade class was dragged off to music theory lessons, to learn about how music was shaped and sculpted.
And I loved it. It was like the notes were a mysterious code, and in order to crack the code you had to learn what it meant; each symbol, from dot to bar-line meant something different, and should you miss just one, the code would become undecipherable. Should you make just one mistake, the whole thing would be wrong.
It became my obsession. Learning the note names, what a flat or sharp did, scales, arpeggios, intervals, tonic triads. I began to see how every element was connected, what changed pitch, what changed speed, what sounded good and what didn’t. I took up an instrument to try and create the notes I wrote on manuscript pages. I wasn’t very good at it; they were always better on paper.
I loved being able to answer when people asked ‘What’s this note?’ or ‘What’s this mean?’ It made me feel worthwhile, like there was something I could do that no one else could. I didn’t care if it was considered ‘geeky’ or ‘nerdy’, and still don’t. I revelled in the theoretical side of music much more than the practical side when it came to me creating it.
I’ve grown up a lot since my third grade music classes, and my passion for music theory has dwindled; at times, its flame has been all but extinguished. I always take a match and relight it though, no matter how long it takes. Theory calms me down, stops my mind from spinning and lets me think; it is something I could never give up.
It hasn’t saved my life.
But it’s sure as hell made it easier to live.
♠ ♠ ♠
Written by Emily.