Does Music Have Rules?
Does music theory have rules? A simple question without a straightforward answer. If you’re asking “can I go to the International Library of Music Theory and pull a book off the shelf with all of the laws that govern music?” No. Music theorists aren’t some kind of Congress passing musical laws. Nor are they a judiciary panel, reviewing every piece of music for its legality. Are there rules? Kinda. And those rules can be ranked with a range of rigidity.
RULES
On one side of the spectrum we have the unflinching rules. They are largely immutable - loopholes notwithstanding.
First there are rules of limitations. Some highlights include:
Instruments don’t have that note:
Humans must breathe:
and Fingers don’t work that way:
We’ve also got rules of Physics. Some things are constant because the universe says so. You can’t decide the second partial in your harmonic series is a major 9th.
Less rigid than the rules of Physics and limitations, we have the rules of Style. Certain styles of music aim to attain a certain aesthetic, and it uses rules to achieve it. Counterpoint has rules. Quite a few of them. No parallel fifths. Don’t double the leading tone. A lot of these are commonly thrown around as “rules” of music theory. But they are actually rules of a specific style. But…you can still break them. JS Bach used at least 17 parallel fifths during his career. No one is going to mark you off for breaking the rules of counterpoint. Except my counterpoint professor. He had no problems taking points off.
COMPLETELY SUBJECTIVE
On the other side of the spectrum, we have the completely subjective. This category includes any emotion words…happy, sad, terrifying, as well as any vague descriptive words…muddy, warm, burgundy. These are largely a matter of opinion to a particular listener. What I call shrill, you might find shimmering. Quite an unbelievable amount of factors contribute to your subjective feelings about music. I want to write a sad piece - there are no rules for how to do it. Sadness is subjective to me as a person. Furthermore, emotions - as a color - have an infinite number of shades. But. I can hear you saying: A good number of people though, would say that Minor is definitely sad. That’s because this is a common convention.
CONVENTIONS
Conventions. And I mean like a practice, or a custom. Not like ComicCon. These are things that are so common, it’s like they’re a rule, but they aren’t. Like the order of the alphabet, or maps pointing north. Within music, conventions have a few species of their own. Even the idea of what makes a song or a piece good or bad is typically based on convention - and that convention varies wildly depending on time, place, location, day of the week…and probably the Spotify Algorithm.
Conventions of Style/Genre
First up, we’ve got conventions of style or genre. If I say “rock band”, a certain set of instruments come to mind. It is not conventional for a rock band to include a banjo - that’s conventionally a bluegrass instrument. No rule against it - it’s just not convention. If something is done a lot, it can become a convention. It was not conventional for a rock band to have a trombone, and then ska happened.
It’s not just instrumentation. Chord progressions are largely a result of style conventions. Baroque chord sequences were more of progressions, having a start and end points. Modern chord sequences are largely made of loops. Neither are rules. Both are conventions. If I wanted to write a piece that sounded Baroque, I can’t use a bunch of jazz chords. I would need to follow Baroque conventions to achieve my goal.
Tendency Tones
You’ll hear people say things like “this note wants to go here”. No, it doesn’t. It’s a chord. It wants nothing. It’s inanimate. What we actually mean by that is “this note tends to go here”, it’s aptly called a tendency tone. So, does the leading tone usually go to the tonic? Yep. Does it have to? No. And going against the tendency can be refreshing. That’s why it’s nice to know these conventions. Conventions create expectation, and subverting expectation can create a memorable effect.
What we call things
What we call things is also a convention. All the terminology is made up, and then commonly agreed upon. It doesn’t have to be called a major chord, we could have called it whatever we wanted. But, if I kept referring to it as a flibbertygibbet chord, no one would have any clue what I meant. It’s very helpful to have a common nomenclature to communicate with each other. Naming is a convention, not a rule. What we call things can change over time. What we call the notes has changed a few times over years. And I mean their actual names, not their solmization names, because that’s a can of worms we don’t have time to open.
GOOD IDEAS
Finally, right in the middle of the spectrum, we have good ideas. It’s a really good idea to not make your sopranos sing pianissimo on that sustained high C. If you want your oboes and flutes to be heard, don’t give them a middle c when the whole orchestra is playing together. There’s no one stopping you from using a shrieking goat in your piece, but I have found their attendance habits unreliable at best.
Oh, and it’s a good idea to not give your trombones this passage:
CONCLUSION
The point of this entire spectrum: Theory has no rules, and even when there are rules, you can break them. No one can tell you how to write your piece. Sometimes theorists will try to grade music based on some imagined rubric. Even worse is when they discredit entire genres by using music theory as a weapon to quote “prove” it. But when music theory is functioning properly, it approaches each piece of music on its own terms. There is no hierarchy. There is no spectrum from “primitive to high art”.
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