Music theory has a reputation problem. My own training is a testament to this; stuffy theory classes without an instrument in sight, learning about arpeggios, scales, circles of fifths, and intervals as abstract concepts. It goes without saying that I left all this jargon behind when I went to tepidly perform a poorly prepared piece. The practice of music was between me and the notes on the page. Simply put, I didn’t understand where music theory could fit into it.
Music as a subject in school also did little to justify the relevance of these apparently benign concepts. Just as there is always a student foaming at the mouth to doubt whether Shakespeare deliberately included such and such a poetic technique, there will always be someone to doubt whether Mozart knew he was performing a parallel modulation, or whether The Beatles consciously included a plagal cadence in She’s Leaving Home. The overall impression was clear: Music theory is just an esoteric dogma with very little relevance to the actual composition or performance of music.
This impression was dispelled when I took up the guitar, whereupon I discovered a whole realm of compositional applications for those self-same scales, arpeggios, and intervals. One observation, which changed both the way I appreciate and play music, was that knowledge of chord tones – the notes within a chord – allows one to write very strong melodies. This is one of the primary reasons why musicians practice arpeggios, which are the notes of a chord played in ascending or descending order. Somehow, this simple fact never reached me in all my classical training. Back then, the purpose of what I was learning remained completely obscure; music theory took on a grotesquely academic and frivolous image.
It is perhaps intuitive that targeting the notes that comprise the underlying chords leads to a more directional and intentional melody. Many guitarists will be aware of the infamous pentatonic scales, which are often played with reckless disregard for the chords underneath, resulting in meandering melodies and questionable note choices. Even without understanding why, it is easy to distinguish pentatonic noodling from deliberately placed, well-chosen notes. The former often sounds aimless and insipid, while the latter is more likely to be melodic and expressive.
In Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’, David Gilmour plays two solos. The first is probably the most iconic of the two, clearly demonstrating his awareness of arpeggios, which he uses to construct a solo that is not only melodic, but anthemic. The first note is F#, which appears in the underlying chord of D major, and is briefly ornamented by an adjacent non-chord tone to introduce a moment of transient tension. This choice of notes begins the solo in a manner that is lofty and magnificent, but also screaming with emotion. As the chord shifts from D major to A major, Gilmour descends through the notes of an A major arpeggio, with a brief non-chord note for tension, as before. The phrase is concluded in noble fashion by emphasising the note D as we land once again on the D major chord. Gilmour continues, but the moral of the story is his expert use of chord tones to create a melody that is incredibly deliberate and stately. This first solo provides a stylistic contrast to the second solo. The latter is fantastic in its own way but relies more heavily on chord-agnostic shredding of the pentatonic scale, which confers it a sound that is bluesy but perhaps less melodic or directional.
A similar study can be made of the Dire Straits masterpiece ‘Sultans of Swing’. Mark Knopfler’s tactful guitar-work displays a clearly discernible and effective vocabulary of practical theoretical concepts. Knopfler makes extremely dextrous use of deliberate arpeggio-based licks to construct the song’s solos. The conclusion is a flurry of fleet-footed notes that can quite literally be boiled down to straight-forward arpeggios over three repeating chords. The sonic effect of Knopfler’s emphasis on chord tones is an extraordinarily sophisticated and directional cadenza that is quite remarkable in rock music.
Where does this leave us? My experience with music theory during my musical education was one of exasperation. And yet, evidently, many of the concepts included under the umbrella of music theory seem to have their place, providing a valuable guide for composition. Theory does not have to be a wholly academic endeavour. I’d bet that David Gilmour and Mark Knopfler probably did not read about chord tones and arpeggios in a book, but rather incorporated them by osmosis, and experimented with them in the making of real music. It seems that, in many cases, this kind of experientially derived, rough-and-ready theoretical understanding is leagues more effective than an overly intellectual knowledge that is never translated into actual music. When music theory and music practice were treated as separate, I had no interest. However, when these parallel studies were combined in the aforementioned songs, I became a much more receptive student.
Perhaps a more practical approach could salvage music theory’s reputation problem.
