Over the years I have been quite aware that I haven't been as diligent in my study of Music Theory as I ought. Sure, I passed all of my classes in College, but I confess that my ear is faster than my brain. Where I have learned to write melodies and accompaniments that may use advanced devices, I have not had the patience to analyze these processes according to the formal language of Music Theory. For me, the music just has to sound right. I have been gratified however when I get flattering feedback that my music has genius. The approach may be a bit primitive, but the outcome sounds like I know what I'm doing. Hmm....that's a point to ponder.
Those of you who have studied the works of the Great Masters, do you also remember learning that they just wrote what they liked and many regularly broke the rules as they went along?
What a comforting notion. They wrote what they liked according to their understanding and sensibilities. Or in other words, they created music that sounded good to their ears regardless of what the academics said was correct.
What a comforting notion. They wrote what they liked according to their understanding and sensibilities. Or in other words, they created music that sounded good to their ears regardless of what the academics said was correct.
Plenty of the great Masters surely had a wonderful command of the language of Music Theory. Still, some of the best music that has been passed down to us comes through musicians who couldn't personally even write it down. After all, music is a heavenly gift. Musicians have always made music throughout our long history. Music Theory developed along the way as a system to help musicians notate their music and let them communicate their ideas to others as well as preserve it for future generations. Music Theory is a language. It is not the music.
This holds true in the world of Musical Theater, too. Styles and fashions come and go. Composers are always looking for inspiration and who knows where that inspiration will take them.
Take the music of Alan Menken for example. In writing "Pocohantas," he clearly used influences from Native American instruments, motifs and tonalities. For "Beauty and the Beast," "The Little Mermaid," "Tangled," and others, he followed traditional American Musical Theater song forms such as the production number, soliloquy, love duet, novelty song, reprise, and finale to support plot development and resolution. For "Hercules," he used styles of American pop songs through the decades such as Gospel and 1960's rock and roll. That's just one prolific composer. There are so many other examples.
In writing my Children's Musicals, I have tried to hunt for musical inspiration that would best fit the stories. In "Stone Soup" I wanted music that sounded like the 1800's American Westward movement. Both "Momotaro" and "A Successor to the Throne" needed music using Oriental pentatonic tonality. For "Parizade's Quest," it had to have music that evoked ancient Persia. For "The Tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff" I borrowed melodic motifs from Edvard Grieg. I researched Old English Pantomime circa 1600 and typical styles of Renaissance music especially Nursery Rhymes for "The Adventures of Dick Whittington." And, I took a page out of Alan Menken's playbook for "Never Cry Wolf" by using some pop music of the decades for inspiration even though the story is set in ancient Greece.
Don't think I ever once worried about Music Theory when writing these songs. My training and study shows, I suppose, but the music just had to sound right. Guess I am more primitive than genius level.
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