Music theory

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Music theory is all about trying to understand how music works. Someone who makes a special study of music theory is a music theorist.

People who think up their own music are composers. People who play or sing music are “performers”. It is important for both composers and performers to understand what makes the music sound the way it does. In the times of the Ancient Greeks the famous philosopher Pythagoras tried to explain how instruments are tuned. He understood the science of the vibrations that the instruments make and explained how and why the octave is divided into twelve parts.

In the Middle Ages there were several famous music theorists who wrote books about music theory. Their ideas are very interesting for us because they tell us what people thought about music at that time.

In the 18th century some composers wrote books on music theory. Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach (son of the famous Johann Sebastian Bach) wrote a book called: “An Essay on the true art of playing the Keyboard”. Leopold Mozart (the father of the famous Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) wrote a book called “The Art of playing the Violin". Both these books were extremely well-known in their day. In spite of their titles the first halves of these two books are both about music theory. They tell us a lot about how music was played in those days: how some rhythms were played quite freely and how ornaments in the music were played.

Today people who want to compose will study music theory, perhaps at university or music college. They will study harmony and counterpoint as well as form. In this way they will understand what makes a good piece of music. They will be taught “rules”. These rules are not laws, they simply mean: the way that most great composers wrote music. If composers want to break the rules when they write their own compositions, they are free to do that.

Music theory is important for people who perform music because all these things help people to understand the music they are playing. Anyone who takes music examinations, e.g. from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, will be expected to know some theory and must take the grade five theory exam before progressing to grade 6 and higher practical exams.

Learning music theory helps people to become better musicians.