In several of the classes I teach and in some of the readings I've been doing on my own recently, the distinction between compositional theory and analytical theory has come up. I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about the distinction between the two.
A compositional theory is a prescriptive theory. It provides you with a set of principles by which you can create a piece of music. One could argue that there are as many different compositional theories as there are pieces of music in existence. As Robert Morris notes, composers are interested in making original music, and compositional theories "must always respect the indeterminacy of compositional choice" (Morris 1994, 78-9).
An analytical theory is a descriptive theory. It provides you with a set of tools to describe the properties of music that has already been composed. More often than not, an analytical theory must be sufficiently general to apply across a broad range of musics, perhaps in an effort to show similarities among pieces of a particular style period or genre.
There are some theories that seem to tread the line between the two. Set theory, for instance, works equally well as a compositional theory and an analytical theory. The pedagogy of counterpoint began as a compositional theory but has recently evolved into an analytical practice: students learn how to write fugues not so that they can go out into the world and write fugues, but so they can understand how Bach wrote fugues.
In the typical undergraduate theory sequence, most of what we teach is analytical theory. Topics such as scales, key signatures, triads, part-writing, and counterpoint all serve to illuminate the behaviors of pre-existing music. We tend to teach these topics through quite a lot of composition (species counterpoint exercises, part-writing exercises, and so on), which may lead some to think that we're actually teaching a compositional theory.
More on this later...
**(The Morris citation above comes from his essay "Recommendations for atonal music pedagogy in general; recognizing and hearing set-classes in particular" which appeared in the Journal of music theory pedagogy in 1994.)
A compositional theory is a prescriptive theory. It provides you with a set of principles by which you can create a piece of music. One could argue that there are as many different compositional theories as there are pieces of music in existence. As Robert Morris notes, composers are interested in making original music, and compositional theories "must always respect the indeterminacy of compositional choice" (Morris 1994, 78-9).
An analytical theory is a descriptive theory. It provides you with a set of tools to describe the properties of music that has already been composed. More often than not, an analytical theory must be sufficiently general to apply across a broad range of musics, perhaps in an effort to show similarities among pieces of a particular style period or genre.
There are some theories that seem to tread the line between the two. Set theory, for instance, works equally well as a compositional theory and an analytical theory. The pedagogy of counterpoint began as a compositional theory but has recently evolved into an analytical practice: students learn how to write fugues not so that they can go out into the world and write fugues, but so they can understand how Bach wrote fugues.
In the typical undergraduate theory sequence, most of what we teach is analytical theory. Topics such as scales, key signatures, triads, part-writing, and counterpoint all serve to illuminate the behaviors of pre-existing music. We tend to teach these topics through quite a lot of composition (species counterpoint exercises, part-writing exercises, and so on), which may lead some to think that we're actually teaching a compositional theory.
More on this later...
**(The Morris citation above comes from his essay "Recommendations for atonal music pedagogy in general; recognizing and hearing set-classes in particular" which appeared in the Journal of music theory pedagogy in 1994.)