Music as a Language

 Music as a Language

It is sometimes useful to think of music as a calculus, as a rigid system of

numerical relationships. It seems, when you think about the fact that everything

reduces to intervals and their relations, that fundamentally music theory is

mathematical. It is sometimes useful, but it isn’t entirely accurate to think about

music that way.

Music isn’t a calculus, music isn’t an abstract system of numbers, music is an

expression. It is creative in the same way that painting a portrait is creative, and

the difference between creative musical meaning and representing music

mathematically is the difference between painting deeply and creatively and

painting by numbers.

All of this is to say that music isn’t math, music is a language. And just like our

ordinary language, it is messy, subtle, complicated, expressive, nuanced and

sometimes difficult. There are things you can learn, rules if you like, that make

up the grammar of music. This is the system of notes, intervals, scales, chords

(which we will learn in this book), etc. But to make use of theory it is always

important to remember the way language works — you can’t learn a language by

learning a set of rules, you have to learn it by immersing yourself in it and

getting a sense of its practices.

To understand music as a language means to always make theory come alive,

never to let it sit and become stale. To live it and practice it by listening, playing,

singing, expressing, writing and thinking it. Intervals are only as good as the real

notes that compose them, and music is only as good as the linguistic expressions

that it comprises.

In Part 1 of this book we will setup the fundamental framework that constitutes

music language, namely notes and intervals.

In Parts 2 and 3 we’ll see how notes and intervals are used to create more

complicated structures, such as scales and chords.

Just like a language music doesn’t happen without time, which is why Part 4 is all

about time and rhythm, and how to understand this crucial component of music.

In Parts 5 and 6 you will learn about the types of harmony, how to approach

composing and manipulating musical structures, and how to be more expressive

musically—which goes beyond merely playing the notes or chords.

Finally, in Part 7 we will dive deep into harmony and examine some advanced

musical concepts that will give you a grander perspective about the wide scope of

music, and the possibilities you may not have even considered or knew they exist.

Get ready, and let’s get started.