More on Contemplative Music Theory

In a previous post, I discussed Contemplative Music Theory in the context of beginner’s mind, and asked what that might offer to improve our thinking about music, and music theory. That essay barely scratched the surface of what contemplation brings to the endeavor, so I’ll add a bit more now.

One primary benefit of allowing contemplation to enter one’s process of living and making decisions, especially of making inquiry into theoretical topics, is that the focus is on allowing insight to arise. In my experience, I often realize that something I’ve been thinking is too strongly influenced by a long-held or emotionally meaningful point of view, and that other ways of holding the topic in mind offer value. Such insight requires loosening of the mind’s grip on being right, and needs to be followed by close attention to past assumptions that I or the field in general have made.

Operating from the point of insight, admitting my truth to myself and others, is a much more productive path than arguing over who is right or demanding that one’s viewpoint to be followed no matter what. Of course the old dialectic, pulling from one side of an issue to the other, will still be of value, probably of even more value than when positions are held emotionally tightly. The willingness to open up and attempt to realize the veracity (or at least the possibility) of what others claim is essential. Forcing one’s decisions on another is unhelpful, will lead to negative outcomes all around.

One aspect of Contemplative Music Theory has to do with process: we talk of teaching others, when in reality all we can do is put the information out for others to absorb and help them put it into practice. Much resistance to old ideas comes from how they were inflicted upon us. In music theory, music lessons in general, old practices were often harsh, and included the use of pressure, threats and actual physical harm. Though we might turn against what is being taught because of those practices, they do not necessarily taint what is being taught.  Who could blame the violin, or classical music, or the concept of modulation for a mean-spirited teacher? Much of what one learns is by application through practice, and there are definitely thresholds of achievement. Our age has come to know, though, that encouragement, not being in a hurry, and a bit of fun make the learning go deeper.

These thoughts add up, in my world, to endorse a view of music theory as an open vessel, one that admits the many ways musical energy is created and absorbed, one that allows a process of discovery to replace a process of do-as-I-say-or-suffer. Moving forward, as we seem to be, toward a music growing from sound itself — significantly, a grounding not claimed as the product of a single culture — means that we live in an ideal time for this sort of openness. 

Inviting people in to experience and think rather than excluding the uninitiated from participating ought to produce an incredible flowering of thinking and music making.