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 the chromatic scale. It is also uneven in the sense that from first line to fifth line, the range is a ninth rather than an octave.
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 requires too much cognitive processing. I will be writing a series of articles that explain exactly how my new system works, and also producing some tutorials and explanations on my YouTube channel.
I call it "Melbourne Music Theory" (or MMT). 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 rhythmic system.
- The benefits of using this system compared to traditional theory and notation.