Flexibility-Reflections On The Principles And Laws In The Teaching Of Harmonic

Being an important part of the basic musicological theory, harmonic is widely applied to the practice of musical composition. The related principles and laws have been extracted and generalized by musicians one generation after another and eventually they are boiled down to become the core element of harmonic theory. But on the other hand, those principles and laws are being challenged with the increasing standard of people's musical aesthetic appreciation; meanwhile in musical composition, contradictions loom large between the conventional theories and real practice. Thus, musicological scholars are encouraged to give deep thought to the possible alterations and modifications of functional harmonic.With a literature review to the development of harmonic in the past several centuries, the thesis, while analyzing the definitions, theories and practices of the"Dos"and"Don'ts"in the traditional teaching of harmonic, highlights that"flexibility"should be the guide line and that it shall be developed in line with the practice of musical composition to be better suited to the educational development of modern music. This thesis also contrives to seek the philosophical and aesthetic grounds for the use of"flexibility"in the teaching of harmonic.The theories cited in this thesis come from the authoritative and widely used harmonic textbooks after 1949, while the selected examples are from the classic scores of great masters. Exerting great effort on the contrast and comparison, as well as systematic explanation, the thesis lists quite a few the harmonics that are theoretically inhibited but indeed commonly applied in practice by those great masters. Consequently, with a view to the history and learning rules of harmonic, namely trying to transform the"Don'ts"into"Dos", the thesis studies the necessity and feasibility of the flexible way of teaching harmonic, so as to heighten the learning flexibility and thus help to understand the vicissitude of harmonic both objectively and accurately, and in the end to propel the development of harmonic teaching move in an all round way.