126: Robert O. Gjerdingen (Music Schema Theory and Partimento)

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🎵 Title and Ending music by Christopher Dzengelewski: "Almost Done"
I have the huge honor to welcome back to the program, the esteemed Professor Robert Gjerdingen, he is the author of the groundbreaking 2007 “Music in the Galant Style” which won the Wallace Berry award from the Society of Music Theory in 2009. He followed up that book with the excellent 2020 book “Child Composers in the Old Conservatories” and he frequently updates the great website partimenti.org which if you are interested in partimento, need to have that website bookmarked because it has a ton of great material and is constantly being updated.

[@NikhilHoganShow]

0:00 Start
0:47 Did your studies with Leonard B. Meyer and Eugene Narmour influence your research in Schema and Partimento?
7:10 Were you already well versed in roman numerals and function theory before looking for something different?
8:47 What was the reaction to your book "A Classic Turn of Phrase"
13:10 How does one systematically learn music schema theory?
18:41 Did you get a chance to read "The Solfeggio Tradition" and what is your opinion?
21:41 Is plainchant and Gregorian Chant instruction useful for music education today?
23:47 More thoughts on the Solfeggio Tradition
25:55 Can we realize partimenti on non-keyboard instruments?
28:34 Should beginning partimenti students start with 4-voices or 2-voices?
33:07 What do you think about Arnold Schoenberg's criticisms of thoroughbass?
37:23 How should a partimento student adapt to the modern 20th-century's widespread use of chord symbols?
41:22 Don't chord symbols validate the fundamental bass system of Rameau which is very different from partimento?
44:11 Composers who write orchestral or ensemble works thinking of chord symbols rather than counterpoint
47:27 Roman Numerals get a lot of criticism for being vertically oriented but aren't figures in figured bass also vertically oriented?
49:26 What is the Stabat Mater Prinner Schema?
53:38 Anecdote about an advanced music theory seminar where music professors were all in disagreement
1:04:34 How should we test partimento in music education?
1:07:24 Can't Roman Numerals be useful in analyzing large, harmonic, abstract forms?
1:10:57 Would Schema then be useful in analyzing large scale harmonic analysis?
1:14:15 What do you think of Glenn Gould's criticisms of Mozart's use of patterns, does memorizing patterns and numerous cliches hurt musical creativity in the long term?
1:21:36 Wrapping Up

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Awesome interview.

[@grocheo1]

Great interview; very precious content and a fantastic speaker. What a gift! Thanks.

[@brandonacker]

This is great, thank you! I took a class with Robert in my masters and it was fantastic.
One correction: the idea of lead sheet style chord symbols is much earlier than ukulele playing. It comes from alfabeto notation for baroque guitar in the 17th century.

[@backtoschool1611]

Awesome!

[@killphil45]

Great interview! I always love your interviews with Gjerdingen!

[@uhoh007]

A preface to the entire series of your partimenti interviews. "Schema" as he first encountered it. A reconciling with roman numerals and inversions. Unfortunately you stopped him from explaining the first steps in polyphony, but maybe we already have that. The stories about academic infighting are priceless. Bob's first book sounds very interesting!

[@Vextrove]

1:09:15 "There are different ways of hearing"
This is very interesting. I reckon it might be possible to find different ways of listening to sound. I always considered there to be a major difference between active listening and just hearing, there's nothing that says there is only one way to listen to sound, or that it is impossible to get better at these alternative ways of listening! I already have several leads...

[@km6206]

what's the name of the dissertation by James Simmons? I can't find it from a 5 min google search.....

[@robertocornacchionialegre]

Very interesting interview. Personally I think starting practising partimento with 3 voices is the better, although I agree explore it in two and even in block chords simultaneously is very helpful (at least for me it has been nice to practice this way). However I think the 3 voices texture is more historicaly right theoretically and practically - as Corelli was the model - and at the same time doing that m is easy to create beautiful lines with diminutions in a polifonic way. I think the “chordal” approach is late, if you look at rules from the beginning/middle eight century (as Leo, Durante, Scarlatti...) it seems that the rule of the octave was not studied as in Furno or Fenaroli, but in more contrapuntal way, like the cadences.

[@trevorguy63]

I hope you will take this well- I understand your enthusiasm but i find that you frequently interrupt your guests! It would really be nice if they could complete their train of thought and if you have follow up questions or remarks that you're scared you'll forget, you could jot them down and ask them about it immediately after. Thanks in any case for this very interesting interview!

[@SpencerRaybourne]

I wish that when someone says in an interview "My teacher gave me a book on learning Roman Numerals...", that the interviewer would find out what it is and put it in the notes. "If wishes were horses..."

[@NikhilHoganShow]

I’ll ask him and get back to you.

[@boccherinifanatic8356]

Thank you for these wonderful interviews! I’d like to suggest you look into interviewing Andrew Lawrence-King and Therese de Goede.

[@ymaysernameuay1113]

You forgot to ask him about his cows!

[@Vextrove]

This necessitates a follow-up interview.