Triad Inversions Explained

Learning to Read Music with Comprehension

 

Reading music and understanding music are two quite different things. I’ve known players who read, I’ve known players who understand, and I’ve known players who do both.

Reading music without understanding is like learning to read a book without understanding what you’re reading. For a person such as this, how many books would they be inspired to read?

Understanding music is the most important thing, but without reading, access to new ideas, concepts, pieces, etc., is a lengthier and more difficult process. So why not learn to read music with comprehension?

I believe that the central problem lies in the way reading is usually taught. It can be boiled down to this, “When you see this note it is telling you how to play it on your instrument, i.e., what pitch and how long to hold it.” This is what I call rote reading. Rote reading means that you don’t know what the music is saying or how the music works. It’s like learning to read letters without understand the words, let alone understanding what those words are actually saying. It seems absurd that a person would read a book and not know the story, but that’s exactly what happens with rote reading. Again, I ask the question, for a person such as this, how many books would they be inspired to read?

But what if a person first learns a musical concept, let’s say natural whole steps and half steps, and then is taught how those steps are represented in musical notation, and then how they are created on their instrument? The same process can then apply to intervals, scales, chords, phrases, etc. In every case, the introduction of the musical idea precedes the musical notation. Learning to read music in this way, with comprehension, paves the way to creative and intelligent interpretation and expression as opposed to merely imitating the interpretations and expressions of others.

Andre Segovia once said, What the world does not need is another guitar player. What the world does need are musicians and artists who happen to play the guitar.” Rote reading and rote playing can never transcend the domain of the guitar player, but reading and playing with comprehension is in the domain of the musician and it is the domain of the musician that creates the foundation for the further development and expression of the artist.

“A real artist works at a level beyond both the guitar player and the musician yet embodies the highest attainments of both. Absorbed in the artistic sphere he creates works that are enduring and that assists humanity in its ongoing struggle to free itself from the bondage of ignorance and destructive self-interest. Through his works the artist, absorbed in the artistic sphere, distills the lessons of material life and its aspirations, and shapes them into an expression of life’s universal quest for meaning, fulfillment, and love.” – From Silence to Sound, by Michael Kovitz, Available from the author at fromsilencetosound142@gmail.com

                                                                                                                                  © copyright Michael Kovitz 3/2/21

 

When a Sound is more than a Sound

What do Shamsuddin Farid Desai, John Coltrane, Toru Takemitsu, and Jimi Hendrix have in common?

The answer is that one cannot understand their music without being appreciative of sound. Of course all music is made of sound, but knowing that is not the same as being aware of it. You walk into a room and someone asks you if you were aware of walking into the room. You think back and remembering the entrance way and the fact that you were previously outside and that now you are inside, you answer, “Yes, yes I was aware of entering the room.”—but this is not necessarily true. Remembering that you did something is not a guarantee that you were aware of what you were doing at the time. And knowing that you just listened to this or that piece of music is not a guarantee that you were, at the time, aware of sound.

Sound, what is it? Let’s first  take a look at a sound, a single sound. A sound is not a note. Nobody hears notes. Note is, in fact, an abbreviation for notation—an indication of two aspects of a sound—pitch and duration. Notation works well in a system in which sounds with specific pitches and specific durations are used to create and express concrete musical forms—a music in which individual sounds are combined in various way to create forms. In this kind of music the sound is often subservient to what it creates.

But the music of Shamsuddin Farid Desai, John Coltrane, Toru Takemitsu, and Jimi Hendrix make sound itself equal to, or even superior to, what the combinations of sounds produce. For musicians like these, a single sound can have more than one pitch and duration of these sounds often cannot be measured out on a grid defined by a time signature. Also, from the timbrel point of view, sounds previously considered non-musical are sometimes embraced by musicians and composers. Want some concrete examples?

The Star Spangled Banner – Jimi Hendrix  –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjzZh6-h9fM

Raga Yaman – Shamsuddin Farid Desai  –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9L9YrMuXuI

Impressions (India) – John Coltrane  –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSViN6lwGKU

From me flows what you call Time – Toru Takemitsu – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWipy3Q6gAI

A soundician is someone who works with sound. Not all soundicians are musicians and not all musicians are soundicians. But, it is my opinion, that the best musicians are also soundicians. Without an awareness of, and a feeling for, the living quality of sound, music seems somehow flat to me—like wallpaper—somehow two-dimensional instead of three—or four.

Technique is not only a matter of fingers or lips and tongues, and physical training can go only so far. Real technique results from a striving to create sound in accordance with one’s musical vision. To accomplish this, instruments are sometimes stretched to their limits and when they can stretch no further they are modified or replaced. Can the same be said for the ones who play them?