I was playing bass just a few weeks ago and thought to myself how odd it is to count intervals with conventional theory. They say that music theory is "descriptive, not prescriptive" but I'm of the opinion that is a lie.
Western harmony favours diatonicism, everything is seen from the lens of the major scale. There are twelve tones per octave in our Western music tradition but they are numbered one to seven with modifiers such as major, minor, diminished and augmented. This locks a lot of musicians into a predominantly diatonic mindset of creating music and it becomes difficult to access tones outside of the diatonic framework.
The stave is also uneven in a few ways. Its organisation around the major scale means that intervals displayed on the stave aren't uniform. What looks like a major third in one position or key signature may actually be a minor third. This wouldn't be an issue if the scale that the stave was based on was symmetrical like the chromatic or whole-tone scales.
So, I developed a new approach to music theory and notation. Traditional theory and notation has too many unnecessary complexities that make it difficult for beginners to learn, and require too much cognitive processing. I will be writing a series of articles that explains exactly how my new system works, and also producing some tutorials and explanations on my YouTube channel.
I call it "Melbourne Music Theory". I actually don't know how Nashville Numbering works but I thought naming my method after my own city (which just so happens to be considered the art capital of Australia) was appropriate and similar to how Nashville numbering is named after that city.
What you can expect in these next few articles and upcoming videos are these:
- Better naming conventions for pitches and intervals.
- A new stave and ways to navigate it via symmetry.
- A new approach to accidentals.
- A new rhythmic system.