Melbourne Music Theory Pt. 2 - A New Approach to Rhythm.

In the Western music tradition, rhythmic duration is typically organised by halving the duration of a note. For example, a minim or half note is worth half the duration of a semibreve/whole note, a crotchet (quarter note) is half of a minim, and a quaver (eighth note) is half of a crotchet.

There are some exceptions such as triplets, tuplets, and adding half of a note's rhythmic duration with a dot. But the fact still stands that rhythm is treated as divisions of each other.

The way rhythmic duration is counted in Melbourne Music Theory is not based on a system of division, but of addition. Divisions are also possible, and I will get to that later in the article. But for now, understanding the progressive duration of rhythm according to units of duration will lay down the basics of the system.

As MMT aims to be a descriptive and discretionary theoretical music framework as opposed to the prescriptive and systematic framework of traditional theory and notation, time signatures are seen as unnecessary much like key signatures in MMT. I believe that when the musician is free to discover how things sound and feel for themselves without tonality and rhythm being dictated, that more musical freedom and control is achieved.

MMT uses the same symbols as traditional notation, but they are assigned different values. Here is a table that shows the base values, which can then be modified in various ways to add and divide them as I will address later in the article.

And this table demonstrates how by adding +1 or +2 units of duration to a note gives us a spectrum of notes that rangs from 1 to 18 units of duration:

Much like traditional notation, notes can be tied together to achieve greater duration.

As mentioned previously, notes can still be divided and even multiplied. This is done in a similar fashion to how tuplets are traditionally given a bracket over the notes and a number that shows how much to divide those notes by. The symbols used for division are as follows:

The reason I chose these symbols in particular is quite transparent. The symbol for 1/2 is simply a circle split in half. The symbol for 1/4 is a circle quartered. The symbol for a triplet division is a Y, which looks like three even spaces divided by three lines.

Having these modifiers means that when using notes that are only one unit of duration, you can continue to divide the note so you're not left with a duration of 1 as the smallest unit available.

There are modifiers for multiplication as well. The maximum note available is a dotted semibreve which is worth 18 units of duration. With these modifiers, an even greater rhythmic palette is achieved.

The reasoning behind the choice of these symbols is also quite straight forward. The symbol for doubling the rhythmic duration of a note(s) is two circles, referring to the notes being double in rhythmic value. A triangle has three sides, denoting three times the value. A square has four sides to symbolise four times the value. And the vertically interlocking diamonds represent eight times the duration as it is the combination of two four-sided shapes.

These are the basic explanations of how all the rhythmic counters and modifiers work within MMT. Combined with the system of pitches, intervals, and their positions on the stave, this makes a complete system of notation and descriptive music theory for musicians to discover and create music in a purely discretionary manner.

In the near future I will make some videos, and potentially some exercises to help one acquaint themselves with MMT. I will also cover the benefits of using MMT as opposed to traditional theory and notation in the next article.

Melbourne Music Theory Pt. 1 - The Basics of the New Stave, Pitch, and Interval Naming Conventions

Regarding my last post, this article will touch on the new naming conventions for pitches and intervals, and what they look like on the seven-line stave that I've created.

The naming convention is quite simple. Instead of notes going from A to G with sharps, flats, and enharmonic equivalents, they just go from a to l. a is located where E would usually be and there is good reason for that when considering their location on guitar, piano, and the stave.

Take note that the pitches in MMT are written in lower-case letters to distinguish them from that of traditional theory.

Here's a little table that shows the equivalent pitches of Melbourne Music Theory in comparison to that of traditional music theory:

The reason I chose E to be referred to as "a" works for a few reasons:

1. The lowest note on a guitar is E.
2. The grand stave with its ledger lines in MMT fits exactly four octaves, the exact same range as a 24 fret guitar.
3. The location of "a" on the grand stave occurs at the bottom and top ledger lines, and the exact middle of the stave.
4. The grand stave in traditional notation with a similar amount of ledger lines (I'll get to that soon) fits a range of four octaves and a fifth, beginning at A and ending at E. So for piano, only a fifth's worth of tones are sacrificed in notation.

On to the stave. It is a seven-line stave that is aligned with the chromatic scale. This means that there are no key signatures or accidentals, every position on the stave is always the same pitch, and intervals always look the same.

Here is a diagram that show the grand stave with ledger lines, and the location of "a" across its range:

The convention for ledger lines is that there are three ledger lines at the top and bottom. In between the upper and lower staves there is another lines that runs straight through, with two ledger lines on either side of it.

On to intervals. Instead of seeing intervals from the perspective as notes that are either diatonic or alterations of them (ie: Major 2nd or Major 2nd), each interval is just given a number from 1 (tonic) to 13 (octave). This table shows how the interval naming scheme in MMT relates to that of traditional music theory:

The interval's number in MMT looks the same as the number in traditional notation. For example, a 3rd interval in traditional notation looks like the next line/space in relation to the line or space that the root not is located respectively. A MMT interval of a 3 also looks like this, but its value is different (as shown on the table, a 3 interval is the equivalent of a Major 2nd).

This is uniform though, you don't have to mentally calculate if it's a minor or major 3rd in relation to key signature or position within the scale. A "3" interval is always two semitones no matter what. In fact, the number directly correlates to how many semitones there are from the root note to that interval. It's incredibly simple.

Here's a diagram that shows how the same "shape" on the stave always results in the same interval.

One last thing about the stave before I work on the upcoming article on the new rhythmic system is that instead of the prefix of a bar including a clef, key signature, and time signature, all that is needed is a Roman numeral that corresponds to what octave the stave is in. For example, a V (five) means that the "a" in the middle line of that stave is the equivalent of E5 or the E above middle C.

Therefore a grand stave that covers the entire range of the guitar would look like this:

The piano equivalent would look like this:

To extend the range of the stave to reach the further octaves on the piano, one just simply has to write a new Roman numeral corresponding to the octave they desire on the stave.

I hope this stuff makes sense for everyone. And I look forward to writing the next article on how rhythm is organised.