[Smt-talk] Refreshing To Talk About Music Theory Instead Of Music Theory Education

[CARSON FARLEY]

Thank you Stephan Soderberg for making your blog available to those of us who want to talk about music theory and not music theory education. I recently enjoyed the article on Frank Zappa's use of the Lydian mode and I'm exploring the articles with great joy from the last journal. It amazes me that so much of the discussion of music theory is about the past and not the present or future. And this brings up an interesting philosophical point. Physicists or those in Medicine would not spend so much time studying the past as we do in music and this is because the great masters of music are important and timeless as models for art. However, we do live in the modern world and I think we should incorporate modernity into our musical attitude and outlook including technology. I've often wondered if it would be possible to compress the information of musical history into valuable formats without becoming completely engrossed in the music of the past as the model for all classical musics - so that there is time to consider music of present and forward looking possibilities or new directions entirely. While the topic of music theory education is interesting to those in education, it is not necessarily interesting to those who are interested in musical theory. 


Carson Farley 
Composer/cellist/theorist 
University of Washington Alumnus
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