[Smt-talk] Using the Piano in Teaching Music Theory

[Ninov, Dimitar N]

Dear Colleagues,

Prof. Rick Cohn wrote: "Prof. Jablonsky is painting with an uncomfortably broad brush here.  Some of the best music theorists I know have guitar as a primary instrument, and some of the most accomplished music theory teachers I've encountered teach from the guitar (and fumble at the piano). I'm tempted to name names, but don't want to exclude anyone who belongs on the list of theorist/guitarists, and so I'll just leave this assertion unsupported. Their colleagues, and especially their students, know who they are." 

I do not doubt there are great musicians, composers and theoreticians who do not use the piano, but I have had numerous occasions to realize that piano is indispensable in teaching harmony. When I was a student, we had one long lecture in harmony and one laboratory class per week. In the latter, the professor would gather all of our homework sheets and would play them on the piano, with a red pen in hand and suggestions for improvement. There is no better way to learn the principles of harmonization than to hear your own errors played and commented on by a professional. 

What are we doing today? Just returning graded homework, with the hope that silent corrections in red pen will substitute for the real musical experience so much needed by the student. I myself always use the occasion to sit at the piano and play a student's homework upon their request. It is another matter how a teacher can find time for that. 

Lectures in harmony are no fun without piano either, for theoretical expositions alone, and playing music from youtube cannot substitute for a genuine process of mastering the principles of part-writing and harmonization. I teacher must be able to harmonize simple fragments on the spot and offer different versions of them, along with the ability to compare on the piano an erroneous example with its fixed version, so that the students hear the difference.

One of the reasons students massively lack working knowledge in harmony is the fact that some teachers, although supposedly good scholars (it is another theme how good a scholar can be who does not have working knowledge in the discipline of research), simply are not appropriate for the profession of harmony instructors. In the national Academy of Music n Sofia, for example, no one will be hired as professor of harmony without possessing good piano skills and being able to play idiomatically harmonic progressions and modulations. In fact, there is a piano exam for all candidates for the position of professor of harmony. 

But this is not all. Students who graduate in theory, composition and conducting are required to play a modulation at their final exam, for which they are given some 5-10 minutes to plan it in their head. Also, they are required to play on the spot a progression involving chromatic chords, upon a given scheme. Is it logical to expect a student to do something that a teacher cannot do?

If anyone tried to convince me that all these efforts to achieve professionalism are in vain, and there are shortcuts to acquiring working knowledge in harmony, I could only imagine...

Jazz harmony and guitar are a different world, and have my admiration. Many years ago, I was blessed to study with a jazz guitarist who graduated from the Dresden Conservatory in Germany. His name is Alexander Petkov, a virtuoso guitarist, who used Joe Pass guitar methods as his best examples, and even met personally Joe in Sofia. Yes, this was a fantastic teacher with such a refined sense of harmony, altered chords and modulation, that I can say absolutely nothing against using guitar to teach harmony. However, guess who were his most successful students? Guitarists, of course, who were able to pick his models and progressions and to analyze them with guitar in hand. Therefore, we again come to the conclusion that harmony is to be studied with the help of a harmonic instrument. This is why most of the greatest jazz people who play horns and saxes, usually possess surprisingly beautiful piano abilities (as a self-imposed, mandatory supplement). 

The bottom line is the realization that good teachers of harmony are skillful players of harmonic instruments. Berlioz did not play the piano but played the guitar and was a wonderful composer with a great sense of harmony. But even he kept a grand piano in his room, to "try some chords", as he shares in his autobiography. However, they did not hire him to teach harmony at the conservatory, resting on the claim he would not be able to "show how" to the students. But that is another story, for later Cherubini hired a non pianist anyway...

Thank you,

Dimitar 


Dr. Dimitar Ninov, Lecturer
School of Music
Texas State University
601 University Drive
San Marcos, Texas 78666