Modern approach to music theory

Post date: 2021-06-17 07:50:29

Is there a curriculum that teaches music theory starting with something like serialism or the 12 tone scale, then goes back to classical Western music as a special case? I want to learn assuming that dividing an octave into 12 frequencies is the basis of Western music and then treats things like scales and keys as special cases.

I'm taking Coursera's intro to music theory course. I don't play any instruments, nor do I sing, nor do I make music. I do have a better-than-average musical appreciation education though, including college level listening / criticism courses on 20th century classical music and jazz. I also have a very strong math and computer science background and I keep thinking "but this is all simple algorithms: why does music theory have to be so complicated?"

The Coursera course teaches things the way I suspect is standard. "This is the major scale. It's composed of intervals of tone, tone, semitone, ...." But it doesn't explain why it's that way. It's Just So and you need to learn it. And so then you get to confusing things like "is this note called A-sharp or B-flat?" and I just throw my hands up in exasperation.

My impression is that normal music theory is taught from a sort of historical construction, taking the codified music of Bach's era as the basis of Western m usic and only later moving to the gradual use of dissonance, atonal scales, jazz harmony, etc. That's great for people who play music or come from a basic historical background of music.

But I think I'd understand it better from an inverted perspective. Start with fundamental physical realities, like frequency ratios and harmonics and the key role of dividing an octave up into 12 (nearly) equal parts. Then introduce things like picking 7 notes from the 12 as a scale or the names we give things or why the piano keys are colored the way they are. As historical artifacts or conveniences, not the basis of music theory that only later got complicated by the 20th century weirdos.

Does what I'm asking for make sense? Does anyone have a book or course like that?

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