CHAPTER 1 - Additional Notes
The Role of Syntax in Music
What is surprising about tonal music is that a scale made up of such
a few notes should be capable of such a large number, possibly infinite
variety, of melodies, harmonic structures, styles and varieties of music.
This reminds us of the similar problem in language where the syntax enables
us to generate an infinite number of sentences from a finite number of
words. The reason such a large variety of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic
structures can be generated is because we hear music not just as a series
of individual notes but because we are capable of subconsciously assembling
these notes into logical structures.
A common understanding of such patterns
between composers and listeners is dependent upon there being a commonly
understood system of syntax (for a particular style of music). Just as
there is for language. This book (and website) attempts to explain the
nature of this syntax for the 18th and 19th century western art music
and some of the music of the 20th century (in particular popular music).
For simplicity, I will describe this as
tonal
music. The evidence for the existence of this syntax is demonstrated
in a full thesis currently in preparation.
Some people would deny the existence of rules in music. They would claim
that rules merely restrict and that music is an art form and therefore
is completely free in its construction.
Against this argument are the following considerations:
1. As we can see from language (see previous
section
on linguistics).
a) Rules don't restrict possibilities - they increase them.
b) Rules don't have to be explicitly understood.
A native speaker of a language subconsciously follows the rules of the
language with accuracy without necessarily being able to say what those
rules are or without even having the means to describe those rules. The
absence of an explicit grammar for music does not necessarily indicate
the absence of an implicitly understood grammar.
2. We know that in
tonal
music chords have to be constricted in certain ways. Discords are
prepared and resolved according to given rules. Voices have to move in
certain ways to avoid bad musical effects. The basic teaching of musical
theory at all musical institutions acknowledges the way certain rules
govern whether combinations of notes sound tonal or don't sound tonal.
Why then, when discussing
chord progressions should we deny that
there may be rules governing what progressions produce correct tonally
sounding music? Anyone who has tried to harmonise a melody will have found
that some successions of harmonies sound
tonal but others do not.
Just following rules concerning chord structuring and voice leading is
not sufficient to create a harmonisation that sounds right.
3. We know there are areas of music where rules are essential. An example
of this is the rules governing the system of tuning known as
equal
temperament. This is has been, for over two hundred years, the generally
accepted method of tuning western instruments. Previous systems of tuning
only allowed modulation within a small range of closely related keys but
a system of
equal tuning allows modulation to all 12 possible keys
equally effectively. Rather than restricting the possibilities, these
equal temperament rules substantially increased the number of usable keys
and the possible extent of modulation. The music of Wagner and Richard
Strauss would not have been possible without the imposition of equal temperament.
This is a clear example of how rules are utilised in music and how they
can extend the possibilities rather than restrict them.
This is not to say that tonal music is just a series of rules. Of course
this is not the case. Linguists are quite happy to acknowledge that language
has creative components and systematic components. Each component has
to be studied in its own terms. Music, like language, has components which
are creative and components which are systematic. The creative components
are governed by artistic concepts such as: balance, form, beauty and expression.
The systematic components are governed by rules which determine the structures
of chords, the voice leading and the progression of chords.
The form of Syntax in music
Just as the grammar of a language has several components, the grammar
of tonal music is made up of components. These can be described as:
a) The structure of chords:
b) The rules for voice leading (part writing)
c) The syntax of chord progressions
Much has been written about a) and b), but there has never been an adequate
analysis of the syntax of chord progressions. Some writers described chord
progressions (or more accurately
root
progressions) in terms of tables of probabilities. However, these tables
tell us nothing about the relationships between the chords themselves or
between the chords and the musical phrase. I have included more on this
topic in the full thesis currently being prepared.
A theory of the syntax of chord progressions should explain the way chords
are assembled to make up a
musical
phrase.
Meta-syntax
In the discussion of the similarity between the syntactic structures
in music and those in language it should not be assumed that language
structures are replicated exactly in music. There is no equivalent in
music of the noun and the verb etc. Different languages have different
syntaxes so it would be strange if music exactly followed the syntax of
a particular language. The structures in music parallel those in language
by deploying the same devices as each language does in creating its own
syntactic structures. For the purpose of this discussion I will refer
to this as
meta syntax as the connection is at a level beyond the
surface syntax. This should be reasonably straight forward to understand
as follows:
1. Language and Music grammars both involve a system of classifying
their components
Systems of classification are used in many ways because they are a good
way of organising complexity. Objects classified together share some properties
whilst being independent in other ways.
In language, words can be classified as: noun, verb, adjective etc. Thus
all words described as nouns have the shared property that they describe
the name of something but individual nouns describe different objects.
Phrases can be described as a Noun Phrase; Verb Phrase; Adjectival Phrase
etc. Sentences can be understood as simple or complex. This grouping simplifies
the rules of syntax because rules can apply to the whole group rather
than to the individual components.
Music involves similar classifications: Chords can be
structural,
auxiliary or
passing etc.
Syntactic Elements
can be
static
or
dynamic and
phrases can be
complete or
incomplete.
These classifications will be fully explained later. However, you may,
in the mean time, follow the links to the glossary.
2. The complexity of language requires structures which exist at three
levels
The syntax of the sentence structure is made simpler by its organisation
into three levels as follows:
The sentence, The phrase, The word.
By grouping words into phrases the number of rules governing the syntax
is less than would be the case if the relationship was directly between
the word and the sentence.
Tonal music also utilises a three level structure to construct its syntax.
These levels are:
The Phrase,
The Syntactic Element,
The Chord.
Some previous attempts at the syntax of music depend on a direct relationship
between the phrase and the chord but satisfactory results can not be achieved
with this lack of sophistication. A successful theory of musical syntax
requires the identification of the intermediate level of structure between
the musical phrase and the single chord. This intermediate level is the
syntactic element
which is a component identifiable by the change of state between static
harmony and dynamic harmony.
3. In both language and music there is one basic structure which can
be extended by combining complete and incomplete structures in various
ways
We have seen from the
discussion on
language structures that additional phrases can be embedded within
sentences and sentences can be combined to produce conjoined sentences.
This increases the possible degrees of complexity whilst introducing a
minimal number of additional rules.
It will be shown that similar processes exist in music whereby complete
and incomplete phrases can be combined in ways that produce larger complete
syntactic structures.
It is at this
meta-syntax level that the similarity exists between
music and language. It is important to note that the theory discussed in this book is not
an attempt to
impose a structure on music or to attempt to describe
music by the use of a
metaphor. Some writers have done this, (
see
history chapter). The problems of starting off with a preconceived
metaphor are clear. Metaphors work well where the patterns are well known.
A description in a more familiar area can aid understanding if the metaphor
represents a model similar to the concept being described. But to start
off with a metaphor and then try and find correlations is dangerous. How
do we know that the metaphor chosen is an inappropriate one? Want if the
metaphor is close, but has aspects that are different to what is being
described?
The arbitrary application of an inappropriate metaphor can
hide aspects of the true structures being described. The patterns described here are totally the result of the analysis of
musical data which uncovers structures that are observable in the music
itself. I will include more on this in the full thesis being prepared.
It is also important to note that the above comparisons of syntax in
language and music should not be taken as a justification in itself for
the ideas presented. It is made merely to help the reader more easily
to understand the ideas. Justification is made purely on the basis of
the analyses of data from musical scores.
Return to Chapter
1
CONTENTS
Ver. 2.7
