How Tone Really Works

Myth: Scale work & interval training educate independent tonal skills.
Truth: Scale work and interval training inculcate dependent tonal skills.

If you're interested, go hear My LunchBunch Choir Rehearsing a piece demanding Phrygian, Aeolian, & Mixolydian tonalities.  The video was taken on our 10th lunchtime rehearsal.  So this is kids ages 8-11 after 2 1/2 hours of work on this piece.  What you won't hear is any work EVER on scales or intervals.  I never use them. I prefer Gordon's MLT principles instead.  Read on...  

Tonal Context:
"The sense of tonality—the sense of a tonal magnetic center with subsidiary relationships—is built into the human organism.“ --Leonard Bernstein

Think Solar Systems, not Scales
I have my students envision tones as behaving like the solar system.  The sun represents the resting tone (keynote), and is the center of activity. It's 'gravitational pull' keeps the other planets (tonal patterns) in their proper orbits.  The strength of that center practically defines how well or poorly one sings and plays instruments by ear.  That's what Lenny was on about in the quote above.

While it's not a perfect analogy, the 'solar system' model is much, much closer to how the mind deals with tone than the old scale model (from the latin 'scala': relating to ladders). 

The truth is, scales are for fish.  And...perhaps for fingers, but perhaps not.

Scales are certainly not for musical minds.  And since tonal skill development is almost exclusively a set of mental--NOT physical--processes, scales are likely a bit of a hindrance!

Music is not made of scales; music is made of arpeggios in disguise. The disguises come in many varieties:  passing tones, escape tones, appoggiatura's, neighboring tones, etc., and they certainly make it look like music is made of scales. The disguises are robustly convincing. 

Think of it this way: when making sense out of language, not all words are created equal. Nouns & verbs usually carry the gist. 

Similarly, when making sense out of music, not all tones are created equal. Some tones are more essential to the sense, the meaning, the gist of the music. 

Contextualized arpeggios derived from the prevailing harmonic function are like the nouns & verbs of music. They are how tone REALLY works in the musical mind. 

ESTABLISHING TONALITY  
Research has shown that Leonard Bernstein is only partially correct in his statement above.  It's true that the sense of a tonal center is biologically built into humans (and most other mammals), but precious few of us are born with as powerful a sense of it as Lenny was. So for the rest of us, we've got work to do in strengthening the center and adding in those 'subsidiary relationships'.  


Strengthening the Center
Our work begins with initiating a sense of tonality (variously known as establishing tonal context or orienting kids to a mode):

• Sing to kids & for kids, but not with kids (listen to them!!).
• Establish mode often (for Dorian Mode sing LA-TI-LA-SO-FA-MI-DO-RE or play i-IV-VII-i chords).
• Initially, sing unaccompanied.  Add accompaniments later. 
• Use primarily wordless tunes in all modes.
• Sing conversationally not simultaneously! She listens to you while you sing, you listen to her while she sings.
• Leave off the final pitch sometimes; see if she 'fills in the blank.'

The salient differences are among the modes.   So, young ears must hear all the modes (major, harmonic minor, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, locrian, & aeolian).  Because each mode is organized around it's tonal center, hearing all of the modes facilitates the mental comparisons which allow for tonal centers to begin to be comprehended in the mind.

Research has solidly borne out the truth of the paragraph above.  The following experiment has been done, and replicated many times. Guinea pig your own students if you don't buy it:

Teach one group of students 16 brief simple melodies, all in Major.  Teach another group 16 brief simple melodies but use two of each mode (2 major, 2 minor, 2 dorian, 2 phrygian, etc).  After two months of this group 2 will sing in Major vastly better than the kids who spent 8x the amount of time on major!!  Plus they'll have an ear for other modes too.  The simplest explanation for why this occurs is that difference sparks learning (i.e. we learn by comparison); and the differences are richest between the modes, not between different songs in the same mode.   

So you're doing most of the singing in the early stages; they're listening & moving.  As far as what they perform; they echo tonal patterns and try to find/recall the keynote (resting tone),  It works best in this sequential order of difficulty:

1. Echo step-wise 3-note patterns within the mode (scale fragments).
2. Echo Tonic & Dominant pitch (ex.: they hear an E dorian tune & they sing E-B or B-E).
3. Echo arpeggios with cadence functions (ex. E dorian tonic is EGB, subtonic is DF#A).
4. They've arrived when they can do what I call  'Echo Plus.' You sing functional arpeggios (as in #3 above), they echo that arpeggio plus the keynote.  (ex. in E dorian you sing EGB,  they reply with EGBE.  You sing DF#A, they reply with DF#AE).

Regardless of whether they are working at 1, 2, 3, or, 4 above, listen extremely carefully to what they do, then conversationally imitate what the kids actually sing; right or wrong.  Don’t correct them!!!  Don't let on via facial expression or any other means whether they were right or wrong.  Just return to your pattern after singing their approximation.

By imitating them, you provide potent feedback; a sort of immediate musical mirror.  You are helping to facilitate the comparisons, but to progress as musicians, sooner or later they must discover the differences for themselves.


Evidence of a Sense of Tonality
The above leads to a sense of tonality**.  Leonard Bernstein's quote at the beginning of this article is essentially a definition of a sense of tonality.  You'll know it's becoming established when she can independently locate the resting tone (usually the tonic pitch or keynote).  That's the 'tonal magnetic center' Bernstein referred to.

**SIDEBAR WHINGE:   We shouldn't call it a 'sense' of tonality or a 'sense' of pitch.  They are not senses; they are skills!!  Calling them senses only serves to perpetuate the myths that you're born with them or not.  WHINGE COMPLETED**

A more mature sense of tonality integrates arpeggios into a constant awareness of the Resting Tone.  These arpeggios are learned in specific sequences (see Extending Tonal Skill, below), and comprise the 'subsidiary relationships' Bernstein mentioned.  In our old theory classes they were the cadential patterns we all wrote, but perhaps never truly processed musically.

This child is well on her way:  Toddler sings Darth Vader's theme music. :-) Take notice of how the keynote /resting tone is the most consistently in tune.

DEVELOPING TONAL SKILL:
Once tonality is established & keynotes/resting tones are becoming secure, we then can begin to refine and expand our sense (Skill!) of tonality and start building 'tone vocabulary'.

Every great musician carries around a sort of mental dictionary of tone patterns that are categorized in the mind by mode and harmonic function, and always related to the resting tone of that particular mode.  For shorthand let's just call it a tonal vocabulary.  

Why Develop a Tonal Vocabulary?  Because knowing patterns within modes helps you:

• Understand more of the melodic & harmonic content in the music you hear
• Improve your sense of the 'micro-dynamics' that highlight the ebb & flow of melody
• Read & Write music without needing an instrument
• Move beyond exploration & into improvisation, transcription & composition.

Ways to use a Pattern CD or Audiation Assistant for Tonal Development:

1. Listen to a pattern, then Pause, Breathe, & Sing it's first tone only.
2. LPBS  the Resting Tone/Keynote of the Mode only.  
3. Alternate the above responses.
4. LPBS  the Pattern you heard.
5. LPBS  alternate your responses between singing the Pattern or it's Resting Tone only.
6. LPBS  the Pattern followed by the Resting Tone.  (Alternate upper & lower RT's.)
7. LPBS the Resting Tone followed by the Pattern.  (Alternate upper & lower RT's.)
8. LPBS  the Pattern between two Resting Tones.   (Alternate upper & lower RT's.)
9. LPBS  a single ‘stuck’ Pattern (ostinato-esque).
10. LPBS  the Pattern then a ‘stuck’ pattern. (& vice versa)
11. Do any/all of the above with Solfege syllables.
12. LPBS  Pattern with Solfege syllables while looking at it's Notation
13. LPBS  Solfege syllables after hearing Patterns w/o Solfege syllables. 
14. LPBS  partial Patterns. (hear RE-FA-LA-RE; sing back only FA-LA-)
15. LPBS  partial Patterns before, after, or between Resting Tones.  (Alternate upper & lower RT's.)
16. LPBS  any other Pattern (Be creative!! Anything goes EXCEPT echoing.)
17. LPBS  a scrambled Pattern (hear LA-DO-MI-, sing MI-LA-DO-)
18. LPBS  Pattern w/a different harmonic function. (hear LA-DO-MI, sing SI-TI-RE-MI)
19. LPBS  in Canon (sing #1 after hearing #2, sing #2 after hearing #3, etc.).

EXTENDING TONAL CONTENT:
Pattern difficulty can be increased ad infinitum.  New tonalities should be paired up as shown below, so that students are always working on at least two simultaneously.  Again this helps facilitate the tonal comparisons that accelerate learning.  Patterns (harmonic function arpeggios) are introduced in the orders shown by the chord symbols:

1. Major—(SO-LA-SO-FA-MI-RE-TI-DO) teach: I-V7.  Later add IV, vi, ii, iii, V7/V.
2. Harmonic Minor—(MI-FA-MI-RE-DO-TI-SI-LA) teach: i-V7.  Later iv, iidim7.

3. Dorian—(LA-TI-LA-SO-FA-MI-DO-RE) teach: i-VII.  Later add IV, v.
4. Mixolydian-(RE-MI-RE-DO-TI-LA-FA-SO) teach: I-VII.  Later add IV, v.

5. Lydian—(DO-RE-DO-TI-LA-SO-MI-FA) teach: I-II. Later add V.
6. Phrygian--(TI-DO-TI-LA-SO-FA-RE-MI) teach: i-II.  Later add vii.

7. Aeolian—(MI-FA-MI-RE-DO-TI-SO-LA) teach: i-VII.  Later add iv, v.
8. Locrian—(FA-MI-RE-DO-LA-TI) teach: i-dim – vii.  Later add III.

Concise ideas on tonal growth can be found at:  Tips to Improve Ears

Personal Note: Edwin E. Gordon’s Music Learning Theory provides the basis for just about everything in this blog. I urge all parents & teachers to discover the efficacy of MLT. www.giml.org is a great place to start.