

Being able to understand some of the compositional devices in a given piece can do wonders for the creativity and depth of our interpretations. It can, in a very real sense, be a life’s work. On the other hand, knowing even just a tiny microcosm of what has been discovered about these qualities of music and building upon these discoveries can completely change how we hear, listen to, perceive, perform, study, write about, and read about music.

We can never get to the bottom of it: why do these notes, rhythms, harmonies, time signatures, forms, and structures do what we sense them doing, and how can we describe them? How can we talk about them? How can we understand them? In one sense, it’s a futile pursuit these (admittedly incomplete, artificial, and simplistic) categories would take multiple lifetimes to fully comprehend, and often overlap and intertwine and act in dialogue with one another to such an extent that words and speech and years of dedicated study cannot even begin to comprehend their nature, function, and larger significance. It’s official: I now have a Master of Arts degree in Music Theory!!! That being said, I don’t feel like a master of anything-instead, I have more questions than answers, and perhaps an even greater awareness of the infinitude of music.
