Maybe S/He’s Born With It. Maybe It’s Music Theory.
Anyone who has ever taught a music theory or aural skills class has likely heard some variation on one or more of these lines from their students:
“I’ve just never been good at music theory.”
“I don’t like music theory — it’s always been hard and I feel like I never get any better.”
“What is the point of all of these theory classes? How is this actually helping me become a better musician?”
The implication behind statements like this is that some students are naturally predisposed to be more successful with music theory skills, while others are doomed to struggle against a never-ending barrage of harmonic analyses and melodic dictations. However, it is my view that music theory skills are just that: skills that can be developed and refined through focused and deliberate practice. Furthermore, I believe that the more these skills are developed, the greater potential a student has to develop further as a complete musician. Developing your music theory skills means developing your understanding of musical structures, which can in turn improve verbal communication about music and musical styles, as well as communication through musical performance. Refining your aural skills means improving your ability to hear these stylistic elements, which can lead to a more nuanced musical understanding and overall experience of listening to and performing music.
Critical thinking is always something that I stress in my music theory classrooms — I think it is important for students to think about why and in what contexts they should use certain skills in the most effective way. For example, students should understand that a Roman numeral analysis of the first movement of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik will likely reveal more about the piece’s construction than a similar harmonic analysis of Mos Def’s Mathematics. Likewise, the work of Kyle Adams on flow, rhythm, and meter in rap music will probably provide the analyst with more useful insights about Mos Def’s music than that of Mozart’s. One primary purpose behind music theory classes is that we can teach our students about the multitude of analytical tools at their disposal, and discuss how to use them as well as when and why to use them.
That being said, something that is equally (and in some senses, more) important for students to develop a complete understanding of these skills is to practice using them on a regular basis. While it is true that music theory is an academic discipline, it is also true that music theory is tied in with aspects of musicianship and performance, and as such requires practice to fully develop.
One common criticism of music theory is that it can be a dry academic discipline that seems abstract an only loosely applicable to the concerns of performers and educators. This certainly can be the case, but I think it should be one of the primary goals of music theory instructors to make explicit connections between the abstract lessons discussed in class and the skills students are working on for their careers. Students need to know how these skills can be useful to them, why they are important, and how to further refine their abilities with these techniques. Furthermore, students need to know how to incorporate these skills as part of their regular practice and work routines so that music theory becomes part of their identity as performers and educators. Much of music theory is skill based, and can be improved and developed through consistent and deliberate practice. In the rest of this brief post, I will offer a few practice strategies and discuss the benefits and some possible issues with these strategies, intended to help students develop their music theory skills.
Practice Makes Perfect. While there may be some issues with this age-old mantra, I think that the general idea behind this statement holds true for many things in life — the best way to get good at something is to do it regularly. This is true for any instrument, in which time needs to be spent in the practice room every day in order to improve. Music theory and aural skills are similar — the only difference is that the instruments in this case are your ear, and how your brain perceives and interprets certain auditory and visual stimuli. These skills can be improved, but adequate time needs to be spent deliberately practicing these abilities in order to effectively make progress.
One of the most important aspects of success in music theory is developing the knowledge of how to use the various analytical tools at your disposal. Undoubtedly, this is the point of most music theory classes that are offered in music schools across the country. However, in my experience, many students prefer to treat music theory and aural skills classes as a means to an end while in pursuit of their music performance or education degrees, completing the necessary amount of work to pass the class without necessarily engaging completely with the course content. But music theorists know that our field has so much more to offer musicians than simply the typical 4–5 semesters of required written theory and aural training courses. In my opinion, in order for these years of work to be most effective for our students, these skills should be incorporated into their regular practice and work routine as a musician and/or music educator. In this way, these skills will continue to be used and employed throughout a career to continue improving musical abilities, rather than a stumbling block on the path to receiving a music degree. Most concepts that are introduced in these theory classes are complicated, and take much longer to master than these required classes meet during the course of a collegiate career. I continue to learn and improve upon my music theory skills year after year, even though I have been done with required undergraduate music theory courses for about ten years now (and I plan to continue improving throughout my career as a music theorist). Effectively understanding and implementing these ideas takes time — they must be considered from multiple angles, and most importantly, put into practice regularly to help ingrain them into a complete sense of musicianship.
Much like the motivation to practice an instrument, the best type of motivation for practicing comes internally, and I think that one of the best ways to motivate someone is to show how certain music theory skills can effectively improve their musical abilities. Much of this work can (and probably should) be done in the classroom under the guidance of a teacher, but in order to discern how music theory skills can be most effective for individual students, time must be spent with these concepts on their own in order to see the ways in which they apply to individual students’ instruments, artistic goals, and career goals. Thus, I have included a list of ways that I have used to successfully help incorporate music theory and aural skills techniques into the daily routines of music students, which I think has helped their overall musicianship improve. One underlying message throughout all of these points that cannot go overlooked is that if these are not practiced on a regular basis as part of this routine, then they will not be as effective or beneficial for the student, so practice practice practice!
Attach practice time to your primary instrument practice schedule. One effective way I’ve found to incorporate practice time for music theory and aural skills is to talk with students about how to build in practice to their primary instrument practice routine. Given that one of the main reasons many students pursue music degrees is to study their particular instrument, I have found that it can sometimes be more effective to convince students to start their new practice routine by building it in to time that they already have blocked out in their schedule to practice their instrument.
My primary instrument is trumpet, so over the years I have used a number of different methods to incorporate some ear training skills into my practice routine that have helped develop my ear. First, whenever possible, I like to practice when I have access to a piano so that I have a tool to keep myself in check. My trumpet warmup routine often starts with a few different scale and arpeggio exercises, which are fairly similar to many of the elements being studied in theory and aural skills classes. Keeping this in mind, I use this three-part process when working on these warmup excercises:
- Conceptualize. Study the notes you are about to play before you play them, and ask yourself a few questions. Is this passage stepwise or arpeggiated? What are the exact intervals between each of the notes? Can you hear what those intervals sound like? Can you imagine yourself playing the passage perfectly, and what that would sound like? Even if you don’t do a written analysis for each part of the passage, I still find it helpful to think through some of these analytical questions prior to making any sound.
- Sing. Keeping some of these analytical questions in mind, I will then sing through the passage I am about to play. At this stage, depending on how well you can sing, the piano can be a useful tool to make sure you are staying on pitch. Ultimately, I think your goal should be to play just your starting pitch and then sing the rest of the passage a cappella. If you are not comfortable singing at first, you may want to check yourself every few notes by playing your pitch at the piano to make sure that you are staying within the key, but over time you should work to remove this crutch and sustain yourself with no external resources.
- Play. Now that you have thought about the passage from a couple of different perspectives, implement your analysis and play the passage keeping the work you just did in mind. I have found that if you take the time to do the first two steps, then you will play each passage more mindfully.
I have also found that the reverse of this same procedure can be helpful when dealing with certain concepts, in particular those with which a student tends to struggle. For example, I often work with students that have difficulty hearing larger intervals. Depending on the student’s individual situation, I will sometimes suggest that they practice these intervals by alternating between playing an interval on their instrument, singing that same interval, playing it at the piano, and conceptualizing the sound internally. Students may be more comfortable playing an interval on their primary instrument first rather than singing it, especially if singing is a relatively new skill set for them. Thus, when starting out, I think some students find it helpful to play the interval first and then sing it so they can first build on the skill they have developed more completely. Over time, I ask them to try and switch this process back to the order outlined above so that they are conceptualizing first before singing and playing, but reversing this process can be a helpful way to start for some students (especially students who have not had a lot of training in music theory).
The reason behind much of the work in music theory and ear training classes is to teach students the conceptual scaffolding on which particular musical styles are based (primarily Western classical music, given that this is still the focus of most collegiate programs). The better you are able to recognize (hear) these common archetypes, the more easily you will be able to understand the structure of a given musical passage. Composers tend to embellish these basic compositional figures in order to create a more unique musical surface, but I think that a good first step in understanding the complexity presented by musical passages is to understand the more common structures on which they are often based. Thus, while practicing your instrument in the ways I have described above may sound tedious, I think that it is an important step in creating a solidified understanding of music’s basic building blocks from a number of perspectives . Rather than just playing the notes on the page, it is more beneficial in the long term to practice while being mindful of how these notes are constructed to form a cogent musical idea. Otherwise, all 88 keys on the piano might as well sound like they were tuned to C4:
One issue to be aware of with this approach, especially as students are first starting off, is to make sure that they are accurately tying in theory concepts to the sounds that they are making on their instruments. I find it helpful to work with students individually while they get acclimated to this new system, just to be sure that they are properly tying in the thought process necessary to develop the theory skills with the practice routine they use on their instrument. As the student becomes more comfortable I think it is okay to relax a bit, but be sure that they understand the process of how to tie these elements together before letting them spend too much time on their own in the practice room.
Practice with your colleagues. I tell my students in every class (for what it’s worth, I also include this information in all of my syllabi just in case someone actually decides to read it) that I don’t mind them working together on homework or projects, as long as everyone is contributing and gaining something from the experience. Peers can often help translate certain concepts to each other in meaningful ways that may help them develop their skills beyond what they can achieve in the classroom. Additionally, I think that bringing multiple viewpoints into a discussion can be rather valuable in helping flesh out the intricacies of a particular concept.
Another potentially positive aspect of students working together outside of class is that they will sometimes come up with questions that can help to address possible blind spots in past lectures and correct any errors that you may have made that affected how a number of people interpreted a discussion. I think the important point to stress with students working together is that they need to write down these important questions so that you can help them, rather than trying to slog through them on their own.
One potential problem with this approach is that not every student will participate equally — one student may end up leading while others simply hang around without actively participating. The downside for the students is that these situations will often reveal themselves in quiz/test grades, given that students who rely too heavily on the work of others may not score as well on an exam as they do on homework. In these cases, I generally like to pull students aside separately and discuss these situations to offer them alternative solutions to their problem, which may include working in a one-one-one session with the student to give them more direct feedback and practice rather than letting them simply receive the answers from a classmate.
Look at additional examples in textbooks. I know that when I teach a music theory class, I tend to get bogged down in at least one (okay let’s be honest, usually all) of the prepared examples I bring to go over with my students. Many textbooks will contain additional examples that are never discussed in class, but that still go over other aspects of the relevant concept(s) for the lesson under study. This is often a great place to start if you are looking for some additional practice and/or review, since the examples have been likely been selected for a certain chapter for a specific reason. Furthermore, most music theory textbooks contain prose descriptions to help explain what is being illustrated in the example.
There are some possible pitfalls with this approach. First, many instructors choose to skip over certain examples that they feel are not great illustrations of particular concepts. It is often easier to introduce concepts in a concentrated fashion that ignores a lot of the gray areas, which may lead to confusion. If this is the case, then it can sometimes be a problem to send students on their own to work through these examples, potentially causing them to pull out their hair in frustration. I always tell my students to look at examples on their own with an air of caution, and to not get too bogged down in something that does not make sense to them. I encourage them to meet with me in person (or, for quick answer, sense me an email) in order to go through some of these more time consuming, less straightforward examples that we may not be able to touch on in class.
Differences in terminology between the textbook and the instructor’s preferences may also lead to some issues with this approach. I have specific ways that I like to teach most music theory concepts, which may or may not align with the particular textbook I’m using in that class. I always make a point of going over these differences in class (usually as a broader discussion of multiple ways to think about similar concepts), but if you are sending students on their own to read look at other examples in the textbook, be sure that they know what differences they are looking for in each section of the text.
(As a side note, I love focusing on these differences in class discussions so that students can understand other ways in which similar concepts are dealt with. Chances are that most people that they work with throughout their career in music will not look at music the same way, so I find that by focusing on multiple perspectives, you can help students develop alternative approaches and viewpoints that will hopefully help them be able to effectively communicate with other musicians in a variety of settings down the road).
Use online resources. There are a variety of online resources that can be helpful for students to put in some extra work outside of class, many of which are summarized nicely in a recent article by Michael Lively titled “The Development, Implementation, and Supervision of Online Music Theory Courses.” These range from free websites like musictheory.net, musictheoryblog.blogspot.com, basicmusictheory.com, and teoria.com, to commercially distributed software subscription packages such as Alfred’s Essentials of Music Theory, MacGAMUT, Auralia, and Picardy (shameless plug — I work as a content developer for Picardy). These sources offer a variety of opportunities for students to work on both written and aural music theory skills outside of the classroom, either informally on their own or formally as part of the course curriculum. All of these services offer a wide variety of content and pedagogical approaches, but for the purposes of this post it should suffice to say that there are a lot of opportunities for students to get extra practice online to support the concepts introduced and discussed in class.
One potential issue with these resources is that many of them function better as drills for repetition rather than a fully developed pedagogical platform. In certain cases, I think these resources can actually be beneficial — say, for a student who seems to have a good understanding of the basic concept and just needs to spend time practicing. However some students require a more consistent pedagogical approach to really benefit from this type of work, and thus may feel lost and/or develop bad habits from working through these drills on their own. With this type of student, I think it can be beneficial to check up on them (especially early on in the process) to make sure that they are working through these exercises how you would like them to, and to make sure that they are staying on track.
Conclusions. I think every generation has someone like Paganini who can tour all of Europe to display his virtuoso talents, or Midori who can rock out with Bernstein at Tanglewood by age 14. However, not all of us can be the next wunderkind of the musical scene, so for those of us who are not blessed with innate musical talent, we need to put in time studying and practicing to achieve a certain level of mastery with our chosen art form. We just went through a list of ways in which many (hopefully all) students can get extra work developing their music theory skills outside of class. However, as I stated at the beginning of this post, all of the ideas on this list are essentially meaningless if students do not actively use these resources on a regular basis. If students are not putting in the time to practice on their own outside of class, then they cannot expect to get the full benefits offered by a rigorous music theory curriculum. Engaged, deliberate practice means a lot of time and energy, and while telling students that they need to do a lot of hard work may not be the sexiest way to get them to practice music theory and aural skills, they need to spend the time and energy regardless. Unfortunately, coming up with a list of ways to convince students about the importance of practicing is outside the scope of this piece, but I think there are still a few things you can do to help get many students started down the right path. Demonstrate and reinforce the benefits of incorporating music theory and aural skills into a regular practice and work routine so that students can understand why these concepts are important. Be clear and deliberate about your expectations for your students, and be as consistent as possible in your pedagogical approach. Offer them multiple ways to work on their skills, both inside and outside the classroom. Finally, as an instructor, you should always make yourself available to help answer questions and keep students moving in the same direction. Ultimately, if we are not born with “it,” then working together, working hard, and using music theory may be our best answer for becoming better musicians.
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