Welcome to my fall 2009 foray into music theory. Really, I just stumbled across some music texts while looking for books on audio. It was pretty nostalgic and I felt encouraged to consider learning something else—remember how I used to do. At first I was glancing through some books on counterpoint… then I migrated to the fundamentals to refresh myself. I have been listening to a lot of jazz and classical piano, and I’ve been intrigued to go back over what I am actually listening to, theoretically. Second occurrence to provoke a practical interest is going into the studio and needing to critically listen to and analyze music when recording and producing it. As I perused the table of contents to a couple random theory books, I realized that all of the fundamental level things came back to me instantly. It would not serve me efficiently to read through an entire book to get one chapter’s worth of information.
Then I found it… Theory of Harmony by Arnold Schoenberg. The period that Schoenberg was active in and the trends in music he was known and/or responsible for are some of my favorite (barring, actually, his serialism composing). This time period crosses the symphonic and solo pieces everyone loves to hear with the beginnings of a new century’s worth of revolution in music. This revolution considers all aspects of what had not been challenged so boldly before—tonality, form, and orchestration. Schoenberg was one of the first (along with his contemporaries and some recent predecessors) to begin tampering with the definition of classical music and subsequently, how we perceive and write all music.

His Theory of Harmony is regarded as his “seminal theoretical work” (Roy E. Carter, xv) …
“Most obviously, there is the proposition that the system of major-minor tonality is no necessity of music, no natural law—even if it is partially founded upon the natural laws of harmonics; it is rather a convention, once viable, now exhausted, now undoubtedly to be modified or replaced by other conventions, perhaps by ‘tonalities’ of twelve tones. Then there is the fascination with ‘tone colour’; there is the notion that musical order may be manifest in many previously inconceivable ways; and there is the very questioning of the need for order in music” (xv).
I plan on outlining these principles for you—the old ways that Schoenberg upset and the new ways that he excited, and is still exciting. I will use abecedarian measures whenever addressing the technicalities of music theory, but I will not hold back whenever addressing the abstract tangents and applications that these notions necessitate. (For one, that is the point of this foray; for two, anyone reading this has the intelligence to grasp the philosophical parts).
I also plan on making examples out of my own current work or sketches, as well as ideas for works, to supply my benefit and still yours as well.

It is said that this work of theory was meant by Schoenberg to be theoretical, not necessarily to introduce or to teach you music theory. (This, I will help you with)—a guide was written later to assist teachers and pupils in using this text to learn music theory, but what we will find is that this text is much richer than anything you could hope to acquire in a general study music theory textbook. His writings hope to inspire thoughts of life utilizing music (consequently thoughts of music, too, but in the broadest yet most direct usage of an art form). For you to have your own attitude and opinion and taste in music is necessary, in order to take what is given here and put it in your place of edification.
View mine, view his, and design your own. Please be kind to share any novel ideas or any comments.

Preface to the First Edition:
In this, Schoenberg gives us an account of his teaching style—fallible and subject to change with more learning, realization of erring in his teachings, and that the most important aspect is “the search itself!” … “finding, which is indeed the goal, can easily put an end to striving” …
Schoenberg goes on to describe to us that the only method of learning is action. During the time of this writing (1911—right after the industrialization of America), the thought on many people’s minds was ‘comfort’, which he likens to a philosophy. And within a disposition towards life that is set on, riddled with, founded upon, searching after comfort… you do not learn, you do not cope with problems (as he puts it—‘guilt’, and those who premise themselves upon comfort either “repudiate” it or “transform it into virtue”). –“Those who so love comfort will never seek where there is not definitely something to find”… a quality that breeds stagnancy, a precedent to failure and ruin.
Within our fields, it is never acceptable to find ourselves at rest. To receive an education, as Schoenberg affirms, is “to know something of everything without understanding anything at all”; our experience should be improved by restructuring our perception of searching/achieving with two words: Ausbildung (development of skill) and Durchbildung (notion of thoroughness).


Op. 21, Pierrot Lunaire

(next, the first two chapters I will cover in one post, and will be a further address to teaching and the philosophies brought on by teaching, Ausbildung, and Durchbildung; after that, the theory begins)
For further reading, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schoenberg  and http://www.therestisnoise.com/  - the important part to know first is his book of the same name, The Rest is Noise; it's in practically every library in the world if you want to read it (and I highly recommend it)