[Smt-talk] ABSENCE OF LEAD SHEET

[Proctor, Gregory]

Daniel:

I didn't mean to imply that inversion was less significant in vernacular music; I meant to assert thaqt our notation is silly and that inversion is overrated in classical music.


On Apr 19, 2013, at 3:01 PM, Daniel Wolf wrote:

> While my own student years were sometime back in the Lower Jurassic, I can still recall vividly that most of my cohort of students came to University music study already well-equipped with lead sheet chord facility. Those who had jazz experience were particularly adept at being able to assign a name to any vertical combination of tones. A significant added value of college-level music theory was precisely in the aquisition of skill of locating those chords in functional and linear environments (i.e. real repertoire) in which "inversion", for example, did make a difference.
> 
> Also, though I can't claim any expertise in vernacular musics and would be happy to be corrected on this point, the assumption — perhaps due to an orientation towards guitar chord and single-handed keyboard "voicings" — that chordal inversion and voice leading are less important, or even disregarded, in vernacular musics, strikes me as unsustainable. This might be tested by a recognition test in which a number of harmonic progressions associated with popular or standard songs are played but with randomly revoiced harmonies.
> 
> Daniel Wolf
> 
> On Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:58:07 +0200, Proctor, Gregory <proctor.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Since I have been teaching graduate students primarily in the past few years, I find myself using lead sheet notation more and more. It is especially helpful in reminding them that what "inversion" a chord is in is usually insignificant compared to its nature (triad, added sixth, seventh). Roman numeral conventions with figured bass numerals bizarrely combine a pitch-class assertion but with a lowest pitch-class..
>> 
>> 
> -- 
> Dr. Daniel James Wolf
> composer
> Frankfurt am Main
> djwolf at snafu.de
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