Music Theory 101

Handy Chart of Tritone Subs

One of my homework assignments this past week was to determine the tritone substitutions in all 12 keys for the V⁷/V, V⁷/IV, and V⁷/VI and their related IImin⁷.  Was that gibberish to you?  It’s Martian to most people.  This type of music theory is pure fun for me and I don’t have a way to share it with 90% of my family and friends.  I would like to explain in detail all the theory that I’m learning, but most people don’t understand it and don’t want to.  I would love to explain how cool it is, but from experience, I know eyes will glaze over.  Instead I’m going to try and explain why music theory is like math.   Then those who enjoy math, or any logical thought process, will have a closer understanding of why music theory is so awesome. 

Chord Analysis!

For me, music and math are similar in the way I think about the questions.  When I am working through musical mind puzzles, I use the same mental techniques that I would to solve a calculus question.  When I am doing a math question, I need to approach it in a systematic way that allows me to think of all the different variations possible to solve the question.  Figuring out a chord substitution uses a very similar mental process.  I see the chord, and if I can’t “solve” it in a glance, I figure out all the possibilities of where it’s going, where it came from, and why might it be there.  To do this, I need to keep all the different possibilities in my mind until I select the right version.  It’s like doing a Sudoku puzzle, but better, because then I can play the song and hear what I’ve just worked through conceptually. 

My Notes from Class

Even the method of being tested on this type of chord analysis is like writing a calculus exam.  My teacher was telling us how fussy the marking of these assignments would be in the normal school semester.  Everything he was saying seemed totally reasonable to me, it was like he was describing the picky marking of a calculus exam.  The prof kept saying that a systematic approach to this type of chord analysis is the only way to do it without missing details.  It sounded to me like he was quoting my math profs from this past year at SFU. 

Music theory is also a bit like physics.  It explains how music works they same ways that the kinematic equations describe how objects accelerate.  This also means that music theory and physics are cool in the same way, they both explain how different aspects of the universe work. 

The biggest difference to me between the math and music theory is that math happens on paper, but I can hear the music theory any time I listen to a piece of music.  Math is individual and happens in rooms, but music theory comes alive any time I play or listen to a piece of music.  If I were a better mathematician, perhaps math would jump off the page for me as well, but I’m content with math remaining paperbound.