Old-time musicians

More than 600 teachers and students in the classroom were waiting with expectant eyes for Fan Ning, the honorary professor of the Department of Composition, to talk about his "Introduction to Harmony".

They were all curious about this great musician who could write so many beautiful works including the "First Symphony". What on earth was he thinking about when he was composing? How will the four courses including "Introduction to Harmony" have a profound impact on the current situation of artistic creation, as he said before?

"Let's look at something casually first, something purely intuitive and without going into depth." Fan Ning started with this sentence.

The chain gears slid, and three small sliding blackboards, each with a score of 16 bars in length, gradually dropped to the appropriate height behind Fan Ning.

They are fragments of famous orchestral works by masters from the medieval period, the Authentic period and the Romantic period respectively.

"They are all very familiar works. Do you think there are any changing trends?" Fan Ning asked.

From a seat near the front of the stage, a few more professional responses came from the audience, which showed that these students had a solid foundation.

Fan Ning laughed when he heard this: "To put it bluntly, as the times move forward, the notes are becoming denser, the rhythm is becoming more difficult, the number of lines of music and temporary sharps and flats are increasing, and of course, their expressiveness and drama are also gradually expanding."

There is no profound and abstract summary that even fans of the outer courtyard can understand.

"We all aspire to write good music like the masters. Therefore, the textbook "Composition Science" defines some commonly used musical vocabulary names, summarizes some commonly used writing procedures, and then the most important thing is to combine the amazing music of the masters. The heart-pounding fragments are collected into examples and discussed in different categories.”

"All in all, our artistic creations are mostly driven by inspiration. The role of theoretical textbooks is to accumulate the essence of inspiration from the masters into a tower for us to refer to and imitate."

"It's always a good idea to study the works of our predecessors. Those geniuses stand at the highest point that human inspiration can reach. If we don't follow the path opened by the masters, we will accomplish nothing."

"But the problem is, it's too difficult to learn." Fan Ning pointed to the music examples. "I used to doubt my life because of them. Why can't I write these exciting music? My ears say it sounds good, but my brain says it doesn't. Yes, but you won’t be able to learn it if you just follow it.”

Fan Ning's complaint caused empathetic laughter from the audience.

It turns out that this talented composer's feelings when facing the master are the same as our perspective.

"The problem definitely doesn't lie with the masters, right? The problem lies with ourselves. Most ordinary people are not so inspired. Although they are willing to use diligence to make up for the gap, art does not seem to buy our account."

"There is something wrong with our analysis and learning methods!" Fan Ning said frankly, "And now that the Romantic music vocabulary is becoming more and more complex, an extensive theoretical system like "Compositionology" can no longer meet the needs of the artistic period! Use inspiration to sing Fighting alone is dangerous and not universal. We urgently need rational assistance and theoretical innovation!

"

"Before innovating the "Composition Science" system, we need to clarify one issue first - "

“When we talk about composition, what are we talking about?”

Fan Ning turned around and circled two ovals on the score on a blackboard with two "swish" sounds. They were long, narrow, vertical, one on the left and one on the right.

"This is harmony."

"The time of music flows from left to right on the score. When we pay attention to the 'vertical' relationship when composing, our minds tend to think about the feeling of 'multiple notes sounding at the same time', so there is "Harmony".

He made two strokes of "swish" again, and circled two ovals on another score. This time they were long and narrow, placed horizontally, one up and one down.

"It's counterpoint."

"When we pay attention to 'horizontal' relationships in composition, we're actually constructing melodies. No one writes boring monophonic music these days, and in polyphonic passages we figure out how to make two or more melodies coexist harmoniously." , even for the keynote fragments, we will consider how the movement of the melody complements the movement of the bass and other accompaniment parts, so we have "Counterpoint."

For the third time, Fan Ning drew several large dotted lines on the score.

"This is the form."

"Imagine a vertical axis, and then imagine a horizontal axis."

"Thinking about harmony tends to be vertical, but not always vertical. When harmony follows the changes in music, it takes on a horizontal meaning."

"Thinking about counterpoint is more horizontal, but not always horizontal. When considering how the pitch and rhythm of the two melodies complement each other, it takes on a vertical meaning."

"The difference between harmony and counterpoint is not clear-cut. There is also counterpoint in harmony, and there is also harmony in counterpoint. When the former thinks about the larger scale, the music fragments written tend to focus on the main key, and when the latter thinks about the larger scale, the music fragments tend to focus on the main key. Polyphony And when the vertical axis of harmony and the horizontal axis of counterpoint meet, they form a 'face'!"

"The 'face' is the macro structure of the work. We need to think clearly about which 'faces' the music will contain, whether it will be repetition or change, what comes first and what comes next, so we have "Music Form Analysis"."

"And finally"

This time Fan Ning took a handful of colorful chalks of red, blue, green and yellow.

He dyed the note heads of different parts of the score with different colors.

"It's the orchestration."

"We have not only invented one instrument, but also different timbres with the same pitch and rhythm will produce completely different effects. We must consider what kind of character to give them, so there is "Orchestration"."

"Now, back to the original question, what are we discussing when we discuss composition?"

"Vertical harmonic progression, horizontal melodic counterpoint, horizontal and vertical interweaving and surface combination of musical forms, and selection of instruments with different timbres and characters. This is the direction that the extensive "Composition" should be refined, and it is also the "Harmony", "Counterpoint", "Form Analysis" and "Orchestration" that I will introduce in the four months of the fall semester."

Some concepts or ways of thinking that are unclear in everyone's mind are gradually cleared by Fanning at this time.

It turns out that a piece of music and a set of composition theories should be considered according to these four dimensions. I have considered them on weekdays, but many times they are too entangled and mixed, and my thoughts have never been as clear as today!

"It is true that music writing is not a math problem," Fanning said. "We may not be able to write masterpieces of master level if we follow the theory step by step, but the key lies in proportion or probability!"

"Most of us cannot become music masters, but by combining rationality and inspiration, ordinary people can get closer to their great ideas as much as possible. Originally mediocre craftsmen may become young artists; original young artists may become famous artists; and those seekers who have risen to a higher level and are only missing the last barrier may lack the integration of rationality and inspiration."

Many people think that music theory is something that mediocre students can learn, and real masters are free to express their inspiration and produce masterpieces. This is not right. This is actually a kind of wishful thinking.

If you carefully check the life of music masters, not all of them, at least 80% to 90% of them can find words like "during xx, I studied harmony\\/counterpoint\\/composition at a certain university or with someone."

Masters are precisely those who have learned music theory most solidly.

Fanning opened the lesson plan he prepared: "Well, I need to emphasize again that due to limited class time, I cannot explain in depth. My four courses are only 'introductions'. Please focus more on changing your thinking and seeking inspiration to build a new knowledge system framework."

"Then, let's start with the first course "Introduction to Harmony" and gradually embark on the artistic path of integrating rationality and inspiration."

More than 600 teachers and students who have completely entered the state sat upright, holding pens tightly, and listening attentively.

"Two notes sounding at the same time are 'harmony', and more than or equal to three notes sounding at the same time are 'chords'. Their different combinations continue to play, which is the 'harmony' change of music." Fanning went straight to the point and was concise.

"There are three common chords: a combination of three notes is called a triad, a combination of four notes is called a seventh chord, and a combination of five notes is called a ninth chord."

"In our conventional vocabulary, chords are constructed in threes, with the lowest note being the 'root', and the upper notes being called the 'third note' and the 'fifth note'. No matter how the relationship between the notes in the chord changes, these names remain unchanged."

"We can use chords in either original position or inversion. The simplest i-sol is original position, and the octave position of some notes is inversion, raising do by an octave. After it becomes mi-sol-do, the span of high and low notes becomes a sixth, so this first inversion is also called a ‘sixth chord’; after mi is also raised an octave and placed on top to become sol-do-mi, because the span includes a fourth and a sixth, this second inversion is also called a ‘four-sixth chord’”

“Now I invite two students to come to the stage and write down the original position and inversion table of common chords”

Fanning first sorted out the simplest definition of harmony, from composition and inversion, to the TSDT (tonic-subdominant-dominant-tonic) functional system of positive triads.

If “Basic Music Theory” is high school mathematics, then courses such as “Harmony” are probably equivalent to calculus. For first-class public school music students who already have a solid foundation, it is easy to understand these things, just like a high school graduate studying a freshman course.

However, everyone feels that Professor Fanning’s sorting and summarization is extremely systematic, comprehensive, clear and orderly. This part alone is better than the popular “Composition” in terms of “teaching quality”.

"Next, we will teach the basic principles of four-part harmony writing."

From here on, the audience felt extremely surprised for the first time.

As the most basic form of serious music, four-part harmony is similar to the sketch of art and the scale arpeggio of piano. It is the basic skill that composers must practice first.

A good sketch is also a treasure of art, and a good scale arpeggio is also a heavenly sound. In the same way, even if the masters use four-part harmony to write a simple music framework, it is also beautiful enough to make people cry.

But it is painful for beginners.

The principles are remembered, the cases are understood, and they can learn it once they learn it, but they are useless once they write it. There are flaws everywhere, and it sounds particularly awkward and unpleasant.

In several music schools in Theolien, those who can write the simplest four-part harmony beautifully can be called ruthless people wherever they go, and piano geniuses and grade leaders have to admit it.

For the vast majority of students who are not enlightened, it can be said to be a "metaphysics"-like existence.

There is no other way. We can only follow the examples extracted from the works of masters, feel, imitate, try and modify them repeatedly. If you can't learn it, you don't have enough inspiration.

But next, Fan Ning completely restored and embodied the hidden principles behind it!

Starting from the basic principles, he taught everyone how to write bass, explained the connection skills of sixth and third chords, terminated/passed/auxiliary fourth and sixth chords, and various situational applications of dominant seventh chords.

As for why the examples of the master's works sound so good, he analyzed how the key notes in those fragments played a role, and named them as passing sounds, auxiliary sounds, lingering sounds, and pre-occurring sounds according to their functions.

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He pointed out that a beautiful harmony by the masters was the alternating use of dense arrangement and open arrangement. Finally, he also elaborated on practical techniques such as harmony connection method and melody connection method.

All the perceptual cognitions were confirmed by rationality, and these people who usually thought hard felt relieved. Moreover, when the clouds came out, they also discovered their huge misunderstandings in the past.

——The music that I always thought sounded beautiful in the past must have been composed with a large number of colorful chords due to an explosion of inspiration. If I fail to taste it in daily practice, it is usually attributed to insufficient inspiration.

Fan Ning's demonstration made them discover that the first problem in harmony writing is not to spread inspiration and find colorful chords, but to first arrange the existing chords in the four-part harmony. Rigorous and accurate!

The connection of each part, the conflict and resolution direction of intervals, whether chords should be in original position or inversion, which notes can be omitted, and which ones can be repeated to emphasize the reason why a serious music is natural. One more note will appear redundant, and one less will appear redundant. The reason why the structure is missing is precisely because the creator refined the simplest musical material, instead of abusing colors, stacking double tones, thickening the octave, or inserting a large number of arpeggiated passages to create momentum.

As long as you follow these principles proposed by Fan Ning and understand these techniques, you can write a few measures of very pure and beautiful classical four-part harmony even by simply using i, iv, and v chords!

The 600 audience members in the audience were completely convinced.

As Fan Ning said, harmony is an "empirical discipline" and the reference standard is good-sounding music. However, people's acceptance of "good-sounding music" varies in different periods.

However, he simply absorbed the experience of "how to make music sound good" and turned it into a theoretical rule that can be practically implemented!

Although it is tiring and troublesome, it is really useful. You no longer have to search for inspiration and make random revisions when writing!

The plan for this round of courses was 3 mornings and 9 hours. In the evening after the first day, Fan Ning continued to polish the subsequent teaching in the office of the administration building of the conservatory. He suddenly felt something in his heart, the image of the person outside the door. sketched in the mind.

So Fan Ning raised his head with his pen: "Dean Xu Ci, please come in."

The "bang bang" knock on the door came a beat late. Professor Xu Ci, who opened the door, hurriedly took off his hat: "

Professor Carloen, please negotiate urgently. Can the venue of the second lesson tomorrow morning be changed? "

Several old friends have passed away. Xu Ci, who is already the dean of the conservatory, is currently the most familiar with Fan Ning in the school. He is one of the attendees of today's class, and he is not polite at this time.

"What happened?" Fan Ning asked in confusion, "Isn't the quota for this course fixed at 400? And more than a hundred small stools can be added to the walkway in the open space?

"You don't know how strong the response is." Dean Xu Ci said with a wry smile. "With your popularity, you were already so popular before the class that you added seats. The response after the class spread again. Starting from noon, the music The college has received a large number of new audit requests, including students who did not get extra seats today, faculty and staff from the music college and other colleges, and people in the music industry from other schools."

"Now the number of people who want to attend has exceeded the number of students who have chosen the course! Many people are looking for connections to get a spot, and they all come to me one after another. There are even people who can't get there in time from other cities and call to inquire about Professor Fan Ning's "He" "Introduction to Acoustics" is scheduled for the next lecture. I can only reply that I have no answer yet and ask him to pay attention to your "Introduction to Counterpoint" at the end of October."

"The school has fully anticipated your popularity, but we really didn't expect that an internal elective course would be extended to the outside world!"