# Music theory as a science?



## Dany98

I have been thinking about music theory a lot lately, and realized it's very much like a science (chemistry, biology, physics). For example, when you analyze a piece of music, you can observe it and say something like, "Here is a tonic chord with an appogiatura in the melody that moves down to the seventh of the V7 chord. The V7 chord then resolves back to the tonic chord." That kind of thinking can be transferred to another science. For example, then you analyze a chemical reaction, you can observe it and say something like, "Here is a carbon atom that passes its electron to this other atom, creating this reaction." Just like chemistry is an invented language we use to describe what is happening at the subatomic level, music theory is an invented language to describe what is happening in music.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

I'm just waiting for quantum music


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## Nate Miller

if you buy the idea that matter is energy at a particular state of resonance....you know, Feynman's "sum-over-paths" sort of thing. Then consonance is resonance and resonance is stability. Dissonance is the destroyer of stability. It is like pure energy.

Hey, you wanted quantum, music....


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## Nate Miller

for the OP, you would probably enjoy reading Heinrich Schenker, if you haven't already. Not Schenkerian Analysis as a topic so much, but his books themselves.

A lot of them are not only translated to English, but they are available for a song on Amazon. Hell, "Harmony" is available used for less than a buck.

https://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Heinrich-Schenker/dp/0226737349/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1477657228&sr=1-3&keywords=heinrich+schenker


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## Vasks

and here, after 35 years of teaching that music is an art, not a science, along comes someone who counters that. Thanks a lot.:lol:


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## Nate Miller

Vasks said:


> and here, after 35 years of teaching that music is an art, not a science, along comes someone who counters that. Thanks a lot.:lol:


hey, but if we could get musicians graduating with a degree in science, they might be able to get better paying jobs. Maybe calculating the resonant frequency of a tall building or in medicine using really low notes to clear someone's blocked colon or something like that


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## Vasks

Nate Miller said:


> hey, but if we could get musicians graduating with a degree in science, they might be able to get better paying jobs. Maybe calculating the resonant frequency of a tall building or in medicine using really low notes to clear someone's blocked colon or something like that


Well hell yeah! I'm all for better paying jobs. But you know you're getting close to what the ancient Greeks used to do (i.e. playing certain modal tunes over a sick person to heal them) when you propose "_using really low notes to clear someone's blocked colon_". But I will add I hope those low notes are played with sensitivity and nuance because "_music is an art, not a science_"


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## EdwardBast

Dany98 said:


> I have been thinking about music theory a lot lately, and realized it's very much like a science (chemistry, biology, physics). For example, when you analyze a piece of music, you can observe it and say something like, "Here is a tonic chord with an appogiatura in the melody that moves down to the seventh of the V7 chord. The V7 chord then resolves back to the tonic chord." That kind of thinking can be transferred to another science. For example, then you analyze a chemical reaction, you can observe it and say something like, "Here is a carbon atom that passes its electron to this other atom, creating this reaction." Just like chemistry is an invented language we use to describe what is happening at the subatomic level, music theory is an invented language to describe what is happening in music.


The system of functional harmonic analysis surely has a quasi-scientific aura about it, and it is significant that, _most of the time_, two competent practitioners of the system will arrive at the same interpretations of the harmonic structure of a given musical passage. But the notion that this "invented language … describe what is happening in music" in a way comparable to how chemistry addresses physical phenomena is an illusion, and in the case of theorists like Schenker who fabricate their central concepts out of whole cloth, a delusion. The principal problem is that the quasi-scientific language of theory is hopelessly skewed toward a single parameter, its tonal-harmonic organization, making the aphorism "to one whose only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" particularly apt. There is good reason to believe that thematic organization, thematic processes, and so-called narrative design have played at least as big a role in musical structure for a couple of centuries as did tonal-harmonic factors, but because there is no quasi-scientific language at play in these domains, these areas have been understudied and undervalued. The scientific view of theory and its language has, according to a number of thinkers, been a significant impediment to a broad, work-centered music criticism and to efforts to figure out "what is happening in music." Joseph Kerman's _Contemplating Music_ and "How We Got into Analysis and How We Can Get out of It", Janet Levy's "Covert and Casual Values in Recent Writings about Music," and Ruth Solie's "The Living Work: Organicism and Musical Analysis," among many others, critically examine the dubious assumption that harmonocentric music theory actually yields a comprehensive view of what is happening in music.


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## Nate Miller

I thinks its just best to keep in mind what the first four letters of the word "analysis" actually are


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## hpowders

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> I'm just waiting for quantum music


Nah! That music would be too Bohr-ing!


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## Becca

Dany98 said:


> I have been thinking about music theory a lot lately, and realized it's very much like a science (chemistry, biology, physics). For example, when you analyze a piece of music, you can observe it and say something like, "Here is a tonic chord with an appogiatura in the melody that moves down to the seventh of the V7 chord. The V7 chord then resolves back to the tonic chord." That kind of thinking can be transferred to another science. For example, then you analyze a chemical reaction, you can observe it and say something like, "Here is a carbon atom that passes its electron to this other atom, creating this reaction." Just like chemistry is an invented language we use to describe what is happening at the subatomic level, music theory is an invented language to describe what is happening in music.


Science: a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged *and showing the operation of general laws
*

Just because you can make repeatable analysis about a piece music does not turn that analysis into a science because there is no fundamental laws underpinning it, just the semi-random choices of the composer.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Nate Miller said:


> if you buy the idea that matter is energy at a particular state of resonance....you know, Feynman's "sum-over-paths" sort of thing. Then consonance is resonance and resonance is stability. Dissonance is the destroyer of stability. It is like pure energy.
> 
> Hey, you wanted quantum, music....


Give me Pure Energy anyday.............


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## Woodduck

Acoustics, neurobiology, and psychology are sciences, because they analyze, describe, explain and predict natural processes according to natural laws. They are both involved in understanding music as a phenomenon. Music theory describes the art of composing according to chosen procedures, not natural laws, and so is not a science.


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## Becca

Woodduck said:


> Acoustics, neurobiology, and psychology are sciences, because they analyze, describe, explain and predict natural processes according to natural laws.


I take considerable exception to describing psychology as a science in the same way that the others are. Maybe it will become one in the future but even the great Hari Seldon wouldn't dare to apply it to individuals.


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## Woodduck

Becca said:


> I take considerable exception to describing psychology as a science *in the same way* that the others are. Maybe it will become one in the future but even the great Hari Seldon wouldn't dare to apply it to individuals.


"In the same way"... Meaning?

Don't you think that there are universal psychic processes and patterns which constitute a core of human nature, apart from individual behaviors, yet largely directing them? Psychology may be a difficult science, but why is the understanding of human thought, emotion, and action unscientific? And can we say anything meaningful about music's effect and importance without psychological concepts?


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## Guest

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Give me Pure Energy anyday.............


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## Gordontrek

Nate Miller said:


> hey, but if we could get musicians graduating with a degree in science, they might be able to get better paying jobs. Maybe calculating the resonant frequency of a tall building or in medicine using really low notes to clear someone's blocked colon or something like that


Funny you should say that; my minor is astronomy.

As to the OP's question, I can definitely see the scientific side of music theory. The conventions of voice leading are based on aural patterns that human ears find acceptable and pleasing. That, however, is where I believe the study of music theory stops and other disciplines, like neuroscience and psychology, begin. The musician's job is to detail and describe the aural patterns that humans like, and the job of the neuroscientist and psychologist is to describe _why_ we find them to work to our ears. Not to say that these fields are exclusive- they are very much complementary and it would behoove anyone working in any one of them to gain a working knowledge of the other two.


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## Funny

EdwardBast I agree with everything you said except


EdwardBast said:


> ...theorists like Schenker who fabricate their central concepts out of whole cloth...


I have plenty of issues with Schenker and his overreaching arrogance but in fairness he saw his theory as an extrapolation from the overtone series, which he saw as the one true natural indicator of musical organization. I also have some issues with that assumption but to say "whole cloth" is to give him short shrift.


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## EdwardBast

Funny said:


> EdwardBast I agree with everything you said except
> 
> I have plenty of issues with Schenker and his overreaching arrogance but in fairness he saw his theory as an extrapolation from the overtone series, which he saw as the one true natural indicator of musical organization. I also have some issues with that assumption but to say "whole cloth" is to give him short shrift.


Yes, the expression "created out of whole cloth" isn't really apt. What I should have said is that his central concepts, like the Ursatz and Urlinie, are empty tautologies glorifying some of the trivial and unavoidable consequences of starting and ending a tonal piece in the same key. For me, Schenkerian analysis is a single good idea, reductive hierarchical analysis (good when applied to foreground and early middle ground levels at least), dressed up and weighed down with quasi-religious abstractions, naive organicist philosophy and fetishistic graphic conventions.



Gordontrek said:


> As to the OP's question, I can definitely see the scientific side of music theory. The conventions of voice leading are based on aural patterns that human ears find acceptable and pleasing. That, however, is where I believe the study of music theory stops and other disciplines, like neuroscience and psychology, begin. The musician's job is to detail and describe the aural patterns that humans like, and *the job of the neuroscientist and psychologist is to describe why we find them to work to our ears*. Not to say that these fields are exclusive- they are very much complementary and it would behoove anyone working in any one of them to gain a working knowledge of the other two.


Who handles why musical patterns work to our brains?


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## Nate Miller

Woodduck said:


> Acoustics, neurobiology, and psychology are sciences, because they analyze, describe, explain and predict natural processes according to natural laws. They are both involved in understanding music as a phenomenon. Music theory describes the art of composing according to chosen procedures, not natural laws, and so is not a science.


but hold on there a minute....consonance and dissonance ARE physical acoustic phenomenon. Most treatises of harmony start by justifying the derivation of the scale from the overtone series, which is a natural series.

Modern composers are working outside the convention of functional harmony, but not outside of the medium of sound. At the absolute far end of the fringes you have acoustics as a physics and perception as a psychology.


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## Nate Miller

EdwardBast said:


> ....naive organicist philosophy


Kant wasn't naïve

...just sayin


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## EdwardBast

Nate Miller said:


> Kant wasn't naïve
> 
> ...just sayin


True. But many of the applications of organicist philosophy to music were. David L. Montgomery addresses this in "The Myth of Organicism: From Bad Science to Great Art" (_Musical Quarterly_ 75, 1991). The essays of Kerman, Levy and Solie cited above do as well.


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## Nate Miller

EdwardBast said:


> True. But many of the applications of organicist philosophy to music were. David L. Montgomery addresses this in "The Myth of Organicism: From Bad Science to Great Art" (_Musical Quarterly_ 75, 1991). The essays of Kerman, Levy and Solie cited above do as well.


you can have your opinion, but I've read what he wrote and I can decide for myself. Composing out an idea is organic enough for me not to get in a huff. People are products of their time. That he was familiar with the idea of "the truth being the whole" doesn't surprise me and it doesn't get in the way of me being able to think about his musical ideas. When you read works from other eras, you run into that sort of thing, don't you.

now I'm not trying to be "Mr Schenker's champion" over here, but you are saying that his idea of an organic whole in a good piece of music was "naïve", and I just don't see it. I've read most his published work, and Schenker never struck me as being "naïve". Opinionated, yes, naïve, no.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> Acoustics, neurobiology, and psychology are sciences, because they analyze, describe, explain and predict natural processes according to natural laws. They are both involved in understanding music as a phenomenon. Music theory describes the art of composing according to chosen procedures, not natural laws, and so is not a science.


Yes, human hearing is a complicated scientific subject indeed, involving, as you say, acoustics, neurobiology, other aspects of biology and physiology, and psychology. But there is also a complicated relationship between the "laws" of music and how human hearing functions. 
One small example: There is/was an online test for sensitivity to differences in pitch. Nothing too fancy -- they give you a reference tone and test your ability to distinguish it from tones very slightly sharper or flatter. What I found interesting was that after my ears had a period of quiet or rest, I could easily detect very slight differences in pitch. But taking the test repeatedly with no rest periods in between, I became progressively less able to detect pitch differences. My ears/mind began to compensate for the slightly out of tune pitches and hear them as the same. Musicians I know, and conductors in particular, are well aware of this phenomenon, as I'm sure you are.


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## EdwardBast

Nate Miller said:


> you can have your opinion, but I've read what he wrote and I can decide for myself. Composing out an idea is organic enough for me not to get in a huff. People are products of their time. That he was familiar with the idea of "the truth being the whole" doesn't surprise me and it doesn't get in the way of me being able to think about his musical ideas. When you read works from other eras, you run into that sort of thing, don't you.
> 
> now I'm not trying to be "Mr Schenker's champion" over here, but you are saying that his idea of an organic whole in a good piece of music was "naïve", and I just don't see it. I've read most his published work, and Schenker never struck me as being "naïve". Opinionated, yes, naïve, no.


Of course you can decide! Composing out a work from an Ursatz is organic enough. It just has nothing to do with how music actually works or how it is composed. Anyone who thinks there is a unitary explanation for musical structure encompassing works from Bach to Rachmaninoff, a period in which the very nature of music and its relation to human thought and experience was reconceived more than once, is failing to engage with reality. Perhaps naive is the wrong word. Delusional might be better


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## millionrainbows

It's rather misleading to say that music has nothing to do with mathematics or the science of acoustics, as if it were all "pure art" based on pure emotion. 
That's like saying "Astronomy has nothing to do with telescopes."


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## Nate Miller

EdwardBast said:


> .... Perhaps naive is the wrong word.


so you admit you were wrong, then. Good. We have something we agree about


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## EdwardBast

Nate Miller said:


> so you admit you were wrong, then. Good. We have something we agree about


Yes we do! 

Obviously, my position is contentious and overwrought! Too much exposure to Schenkerians and Schenkerian analysis in my studies. I'm trying to get over it.


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## Nate Miller

EdwardBast said:


> Yes we do!
> 
> Obviously, my position is contentious and overwrought! Too much exposure to Schenkerians and Schenkerian analysis in my studies. I'm trying to get over it.


I knew it wasn't me you had a beef with, it was him! :lol:

I was lucky, I had a really good musician teaching Schenkarian Analysis when I had to take it, so it wasn't so bad. At least Dr Korsyn could play, so I got to hear a lot of great piano playing.


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## millionrainbows

There's nothing wrong with Schenker analysis, either. He was trying to reduce everything down to "the one note," which is what all music is based on. Ask Ravi Shankar, or Lamont Young.


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## vosok

Let me ask all of you, whether music harmony is a science?


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## millionrainbows

vosok said:


> Let me ask all of you, whether music harmony is a science?


Not a science _per se;_ but consonance and dissonance are expressed as ratios. This figures into harmony, as the "art" is based on resolving perceived dissonances.

Music is sound, and sound is physics, and the human ear perceives sound as ripples on the eardrum. These are inescapable facts. Whether or not you want to say it's science or art becomes irrelevant, once one delves into it.


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## vosok

millionrainbows said:


> Not a science _per se;_ but consonance and dissonance are expressed as ratios. This figures into harmony, as the "art" is based on resolving perceived dissonances.
> 
> Music is sound, and sound is physics, and the human ear perceives sound as ripples on the eardrum. These are inescapable facts. Whether or not you want to say it's science or art becomes irrelevant, once one delves into it.


What about: "_Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature_." (Paul Valéry)


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## EdwardBast

vosok said:


> What about: "_Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature_." (Paul Valéry)


Quoting a poet on the nature of science is like an American quoting Donald Trump on constitutional law.


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## Nate Miller

millionrainbows said:


> There's nothing wrong with Schenker analysis, either. He was trying to reduce everything down to "the one note," which is what all music is based on. Ask Ravi Shankar, or Lamont Young.


that's actually not what he was doing at all. this is what a lot of people say, but they are wrong.

What his work is really about is the composing out of a fundamental structure. the German word is auskomponierung, the "exercise of composing out". What he shows is the different techniques used to "compose out" simple contrapuntal structures.

so composing out from simple framework to the complex foreground is a different animal than reducing down to one note, or even one fundamental line.

a lot of folks also think its about reducing everything to I-V-I, which again is missing the point

but seriously, most people I encounter learned Schenkerian Analysis at music school and didn't ever read any of Schenker's actual work directly. So if you had a bad teacher, then you probably were presented with the idea that this was about reducing everything to the ursatz, or some such similar nonsense.

if you can play, then his ideas actually make a lot of practical sense. If you are shaping your line, then you already are making decisions about how the foreground relates to a deeper structure, right? How else do you know which are the strong notes that should be brought out?


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## Vasks

Nate Miller said:


> that's actually not what he was doing at all. this is what a lot of people say, but they are wrong.
> 
> What his work is really about is the composing out of a fundamental structure. the German word is auskomponierung, the "exercise of composing out". What he shows is the different techniques used to "compose out" simple contrapuntal structures.
> 
> so composing out from simple framework to the complex foreground is a different animal than reducing down to one note, or even one fundamental line.
> 
> a lot of folks also think its about reducing everything to I-V-I, which again is missing the point
> 
> but seriously, most people I encounter learned Schenkerian Analysis at music school and didn't ever read any of Schenker's actual work directly. So if you had a bad teacher, then you probably were presented with the idea that this was about reducing everything to the ursatz, or some such similar nonsense.
> 
> if you can play, then his ideas actually make a lot of practical sense. If you are shaping your line, then you already are making decisions about how the foreground relates to a deeper structure, right? How else do you know which are the strong notes that should be brought out?


Yes, the Ursatz (most fundamental background) is the least important (_although it is a bit interesting in a wryly way_). The most useful as you say is in the middle ground.


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## millionrainbows

Nate Miller said:


> that's actually not what he was doing at all. this is what a lot of people say, but they are wrong.


Perhaps you have misinterpreted me. My position is validated by the WIK definition, which goes into much more detail than your refutation.

*Schenker's theory is monotonal: the Ursatz, as the diatonic unfolding of the tonic triad, by definition cannot include modulation. Local "tonicisation" may arise when a scale-step is elaborated to the point of becoming a local tonic, but the work as a whole projects a single key and ultimately a single Stufe (the tonic).
*


> What his work is really about is the composing out of a fundamental structure. the German word is auskomponierung, the "exercise of composing out". What he shows is the different techniques used to "compose out" simple contrapuntal structures.
> 
> so composing out from simple framework to the complex foreground is a different animal than reducing down to one note, or even one fundamental line.


You did not explain exactly what "composing out" means, or give a reference; and the WIK excerpt above directly contradicts your assertion.



> ...a lot of folks also think its about reducing everything to I-V-I, which again is missing the point


Again, the WIK reference to "key area" contradicts your assertion.



> ...but seriously, most people I encounter learned Schenkerian Analysis at music school and didn't ever read any of Schenker's actual work directly. So if you had a bad teacher, then you probably were presented with the idea that this was about reducing everything to the ursatz, or some such similar nonsense.


You should have more respect for other people when they express their views. Maybe there is a gap in your knowledge due to the way your brain is wired so literally.
I had a good teacher, and later got this book:





> ...if you can play, then his ideas actually make a lot of practical sense. If you are shaping your line, then you already are making decisions about how the foreground relates to a deeper structure, right? How else do you know which are the strong notes that should be brought out?


I agree with this.


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## Nate Miller

hey million rainbows...I learned from that text book, was taught by Kevin Korsyn who studied with Alan Forte, the author of your book there. I have read Schenker's actual books in English and some parts even in the original German, too, so I pretty well know what he was after

I don't know what WIK is, but if it is Wikipedia, give me a break. all that means is that whoever posted that didn't understand either.


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## millionrainbows

Nate Miller said:


> hey million rainbows...I learned from that text book, was taught by Kevin Korsyn who studied with Alan Forte, the author of your book there. I have read Schenker's actual books in English and some parts even in the original German, too, so I pretty well know what he was after


Then it is obvious that you have taken what I said about Schenker analysis way too literally, or have interpreted it wrongly, or are just wanting to engage in conflict.

I speak very generally, especially in forums like this. Plus, I have no idea who people really are, or what their agendas are.



> I don't know what WIK is, but if it is Wikipedia, give me a break. all that means is that whoever posted that didn't understand either.


Yes, it is Wikepedia. Generally speaking, Schenker analysis is about tonality and hierarchies (you described as layers or foreground/background), so I see it as, ultimately an "ursatz" manifestation of tonic.

This is the way I think, and it is not my job to defend my position to you, or to explain things to your satisfaction.


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## Nate Miller

millionrainbows said:


> I speak very generally, especially in forums like this. Plus, I have no idea who people really are, or what their agendas are.


same here. I have no time to educate you in Schenker's work, and I'm not writing an academic paper, either

Why not go and read what he wrote in Die Freie Satz? its been translated.

nobody likes hearing that they are all wet. I get that.

but you're over reacting a little, pal


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## Ramako

Music Theory is not a science. But it could be.

The closest it gets to science at present is cognitive music theory. For example, in 'modelling tonal tension' (Lerdahl and Krumhansl) they propose a model for how tension works in music. They develop a method which predicts how 'tense' any given moment of music should be (out of previous work) and apply this method to several musical examples. They then play these musical examples to listeners and (using a few different techniques) get these listeners to similarly rate how tense each moment of the music is. The values generated by the method and the listeners largely match, providing evidence for the theory.

This is how science works. Sometimes traditional music theories are tested using cognitive techniques, but this doesn't happen as often as it should.

I don't think I'm misrepresenting the OP too much to translate it to the following syllogism:



Dany98 said:


> Just like chemistry is an invented language we use to describe what is happening at the subatomic level, music theory is an invented language to describe what is happening in music.


1) Science is a language with a proper domain
2) Music theory is a language with a proper domain
3) Therefore music theory is a science

which is obviously false.

Without music theory creating specific hypotheses which are then subjected to scrutiny, it cannot be a science (as science is currently understood). I'm actually trying to develop scientific music theory at the moment (or at least should be  ) so this is a subject close to my heart.


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## Nate Miller

when I was in college and studying theory, I remember one semester working on an analytic system that really looked at the tones at the raw frequency with an eye toward defining the relative consonance and dissonance from one collection of tones to the next. there are other systems that do that, but I was not reducing everything to the same octave, so tones separated by an octave or more wouldn't be the same as a close voicing. this gets into the combination tones and that sort of stuff.

I think that if you are looking at music in terms frequency, then there is a good bit of science about it.

I've always said that an artist in these times needs to consider acoustics as a physics and perception as a psychology, and in those terms, music theory is a science.

but pronouncing that such and such progression is a ii-V-I in the key of G has a lot of arbitrary assumption built into it that it would be hard to defend that as science


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## vosok

It is possible to argue a music theory is science or not, but there are academies, conferences and the congresses are organized, dissertations are defended and so on. All as in science.

And now come the next European Music Analysis Conference 
http://euromac2017.unistra.fr/en/home/

It would be interesting to find out, what is the Music Analysis in general, who needs it and why.
It would be interesting to find out, who need conference and what they give the music theory.
This orgasm is or asthma?


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## Ramako

vosok said:


> It is possible to argue a music theory is science or not, but there are academies, conferences and the congresses are organized, dissertations are defended and so on. All as in science.


These things happen in history, literature, philosophy etc. too. They are characteristics of an intellectual discipline, rather than specifically of a science.


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## Ramako

Science always involves some element of empiricism, and usually in a fairly strict way (e.g. the scientific method).

That said, a number of fields that are called 'science' are not very scientific. I don't particularly want to derail by arguing specifics, but at the very least many scientific fields have an issue with reproducing their results:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

If I were to argue that music theory is a science, I would go about it by looking at the realities of most scientific disciplines. Music theory doesn't stray so far from these. The main issue is that many music theoretical principles are primarily intuitive rather than resting on empirical studies. That said, I would rather defend the strict definition of science for the self-serving reason that my PhD is largely based on applying it to music theory. Otherwise I would be wasting my time for three years


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## millionrainbows

Ramako said:


> Science always involves some element of empiricism, and usually in a fairly strict way (e.g. the scientific method).
> 
> That said, a number of fields that are called 'science' are not very scientific. I don't particularly want to derail by arguing specifics, but at the very least many scientific fields have an issue with reproducing their results:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
> 
> If I were to argue that music theory is a science, I would go about it by looking at the realities of most scientific disciplines. Music theory doesn't stray so far from these. The main issue is that many music theoretical principles are primarily intuitive rather than resting on empirical studies. That said, I would rather defend the strict definition of science for the self-serving reason that my PhD is largely based on applying it to music theory. Otherwise I would be wasting my time for three years


But a discipline doesn't always have to depend on empirical evidence or principles to be valid, illuminating, and valuable as a furtherance of knowledge in a particular field. Look what Durkheim did with sociology, by simply accepting as a given certain social 'realities.'

From WIK: As an epistemology of science, realism can be defined as a perspective that takes as its central point of departure the view that external social realities exist in the outer world and that these realities are independent of the individual's perception of them. This view opposes other predominant philosophical perspectives such as empiricism and positivism. Empiricists such asDavid Hume had argued that all realities in the outside world are products of human sense perception. According to empiricists, all realities are thus merely perceived: they do not exist independently of our perceptions, and have no causal power in themselves.Comte's positivism went a step further by claiming that scientific laws could be deduced from empirical observations. Going beyond this, Durkheim claimed that sociology would not only discover "apparent" laws, but would be able to discover the _inherent nature of society._


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## donald

I think there is the issue of definitions when talking about music theory as a "science". If you consider science in a strict sense as the pursuit of the "scientific method" where evidence is gathered and a hypthosis is developed and supported or not, then music theory as musical description is not very scientific. A lot of music theory as taught in school amounts to descriptive analysis. I think that music theory should really be more about functional analysis. That is, how do the structural and sonic components of a composition fit together and work together to produce a coherent, and ultimately a great, work of art. If music theory can do that then it is useful and relevant, regardless of whether it is scientific or not.


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## millionrainbows

Music is connected to mathematics, and mathematical concepts have been applied to music. 

If you want to talk about music as an "art," then that's a different area. This is a music theory forum, so it's appropriate to speak of music and mathematics.

Where did "science" come in to the purview of music? I don't really think that's the right term.


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## pcnog11

There is always a micro level and a macro level to art. On a micro level, when you analyse each chord progression, harmonic/key changes and dynamic structures, it could be a science. I am a chemistry major and what is going on at the molecular level, we can draw some (but not all) parallel with music and chemistry. The micro level is certainly technical in nature. 

On a macro level, music is certainly an art, which is communication of ideas, emotional, experiences, mindset etc. I think most people look at music as an art because they view it at the macro level. 

The science or technical level one can management will facilitate effectively the expression of the macro level of the art.


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