Song Conversion Sunday: The Importance of Knowing Music Theory - Tangent

I spent most of the afternoon transcribing a piece of music into a format that my church choir will be able to read and understand this morning. This has led me into thinking about how many times I've had to use the skills that I learned in music theory as part of my roles of music director, music therapist, and composer/songwriter. I don't think there has been a day where I didn't use at least a small part of what I learned in music theory, whether that be dictation, sight singing, or the actual theory lessons. I think I've used my music history information less, but theory forms the basis of all of my active musicking.

This week's adventures in theory included the transcription of the anthem for this morning, but also included analyzing new songs shared by my intern, figuring out my own accompaniment patterns for new songs, and improvising music to support what my clients contributed. All sorts of music and theory as part of my day.

I think that part of my song analyzing process comes from the realization that theory is so essential to what happens in the brain during therapy. I want to know what elements of music affect different aspects of human behavior, and I want to know what I can do to change those aspects. I also like knowing what I can change to support my clients in and through the music that we make together as part of our music therapy interactions.

So, I analyze music.

I analyze music all the time. Even when I don't have to - I'm listening to how the melody moves, how the harmonic progression supports the melody, how things are arranged to make me take notice, I entrain to the beat, and I soak in the rhythmic patterns. I pull apart the music I use in therapeutic music experiences so I know what I can use. It's all about music theory.

I still am trying to remember about Augmented Sixth chords from my days in Dr. Shumway's theory classes...