In the first installment of this series, I began to describe the difficulties dyscalculics often have with formal music education. While I emphatically do not believe the cultural trope that “music is all about math” — it’s about SOUND, people — the way it’s taught in the West is all about mathematical relationships.
In music theory class, you learn that each scale degree has a number assigned to it. Right there, dyscalculic music students are at a disadvantage; we generally have a very poor memory for numbers, and very little grasp of how they relate to each other. Nonetheless, that’s how it is done; we dutifully learn that each scale degree has a number, one through seven. Phew! we think to ourselves. At least there are only seven scale degrees before it starts all over again!
Then we learn that scale degree has a chord that can be built on top of it while within the key signature. In the key of C major, C is “I”, D is “ii”, E is “iii”, F is “IV”, and so on.
Oh, didn’t I mention? We’re using Roman numerals now. What fun!
So, there are Roman numerals assigned to each scale degree, with uppercase letters signifying major triads, and lower case letters signifying minor triads.
That’s right, triads! Triad, as in “three”, is when you build a chord using three notes separated by intervals of a third. A C major triad is C, E, and G. So you not only have to keep track of the seven scale degrees of the C Major scale … you have to keep track of the 21 notes that comprise each of the seven chords within the C major scale.
OK, now we’re beginning to sweat. Why doesn’t this make sense? We’ve seen chords before. We hear them all the time, for that matter, and that’s supposed to be the important thing anyway. Right?
But it gets worse.
Because once you know how to build triads on each scale degree, you have to learn how chords progress. Not just the circle of fifths (there’s another number!) but where each note in a chord goes when the music moves to the next chord. Oh — and, even though we’ve been working with triads, most harmonic music is the interaction of at least four separate voices.
And now, you need to be able to follow the rules about which of the four voices moves where as the chords change. There’s probably at least one note that the two chords have in common, so whatever voice has that note in the first chord should just stay there. You can have two voices on the first degree of the chord (which is different than the first degree of the scale!), but you need to avoid having two voices on the third degree of the chord. And, let’s see … and if two voices are separated by an interval of a fifth, they can’t move in parallel, they have to move in different directions.
See, couldn’t be easier!
I had to take introductory harmony three times. Even then, I didn’t understand it until I started playing in a chamber ensemble that required me to learn figured bass. That’s a baroque practice where the harpsichord player gets music with just a bass line and some chord symbols and fills in the other chord tones herself. Suddenly, playing the bass line and seeing and hearing where they other parts of the ensemble were, it all clicked into place. There’s nothing like a practical lesson.
I was eventually able to learn music theory because, in spite of all the numbers and the abstraction, it actually means something. Those numbers and the rules that govern them all come down to how music sounds. Unfortunately, music theory instruction usually starts with abstracted chords and the numbers assigned to them, not by playing and singing musical examples. Dyscalculic musicians would do much better if it started where it matters, with the music itself.
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