Talk:Berklee method

Bias

This page seems at least a bit biased against the system. Yes, it's an unorthodox system and it's not widely accepted, but that doesn't mean its bad. Also, it seems to be comparing the system to common practice harmony - entirely irrelevant. The "Berklee method" doesn't attempt to explain common practice music and common practice harmony doesn't attempt to explain jazz. It's like saying "hmm, trying to find 12 tone rows in the work of J.S. Bach doesn't always work". What would you expect? This could be a noteworthy article, but as of now it just seems like a complaint against Berklee's harmony system. Glassbreaker5791 (talk) 04:13, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

What are you going to do to improve it? At least, what would you suggest be done? Hyacinth (talk) 01:07, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I haven't got the spare time to improve it now - my comment is only meant to call attention to the fact that this article is perhaps either not neutral or otherwise possibly not notable. The latter is of particular concern - being a student at Berklee, I know all the bizarre differences our system has and everything, but I've never once heard or read anything calling it "the Berklee method" until I found this article. Even if one source (in this case Branford Marsalis) has called it as such, is it notable enough to be an article on its own? Perhaps integrating this very small bit of information into the main Berklee article would be more efficient. If the article should stay, then perhaps at some point we should expand it to include particularly notable differences between Berklee's system and the common practice system (although, as I stated above, that's going to be pretty exhausting considering that they attempt to explain two entirely different aesthetics).

(As a p.s., please don't give me the often-overused Wikipedian comment of "if you think it should be changed, change it yourself." I'm not accusing you of this - it's just annoyingly common. Calling attention to an issue an article has is still a contribution to the advancement of that article. It's not as though I'm expecting someone to come around and make the changes "for me".) Glassbreaker5791 (talk) 20:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

That's ridiculous. Find one positive quote about the school. Tah-dah. Hyacinth (talk)02:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be serious dispute over the neutrality of this article. To all editors: Please take the time to resolve the issues and thereafter remove the POV tag. Nominaladversary (talk) 04:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

IMO, the four-voice example doesn't violate common practice voice-leading rules in any way. If this represents "The Berklee Method," there is nothing controversial here whatsoever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuxguys (talk • contribs) 04:57, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

If Bach were looking at the four-voice example, he wouldn't object to the seventh chords, he did things like this all the time. What he would correct are the parallel fifths from the first chord to the second chord, which are easy to fix by simply tying the "A" over the barline before resolving it to the "G". Otherwise, all the dissonances except the very first one are prepared, and even Palestrina would go for that! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.81.188.102 (talk) 04:50, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

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The page does not support the claim that the example violates common practice theory. It just makes the claim, with no supporting reference. The quote from Marsalis is perhaps relevent, but it does not have any supporting reference in any Berklee text, syllabus, etc.. that anything was out-and out considered just "wrong." Just his opinion. Further, the statement about what the basis for his comparison might be is irrelevant. He wasn't comparing Berklee to any other school. He was comparing his opinion of Berklee to his understanding of real-world jazz outside of Berklee. If a class exercise is marked "wrong" in the context of the class, it's not being called universally wrong in the real world, which is what he seems to be claiming. It may be "wrong" according to a specific analysis scheme that's the focus of the class.

It's useful, with any music theory system, to find real-world examples that "violate" the system's "rules", and to examine them closely, to try to understand why they don't work, why they do work, why they violate the "rules", whether they are acceptable under a different set of "rules". This applies to the so-called "Berklee" system, Schenkerian analysis, Gradus Ad Parnassus, Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept, Piston's textbook, or any other system.

Virtually any music theory system will prefers some constructions and avoid others. And teaching the system includes teaching the preferences and avoidances, which can be "right" or "wrong" in the class setting. There is no requirement or expectation that the "rules" need to be followed outside of school. I think Marsalis may misunderstand this point. And, in my observation, many present and former students of Berklee also misunderstand it, in a different way. If a former student's playing is limited to the systems taught in the classroom, long after the course of education is finished, then the student has missed the point. The author of the article, likewise, missed the point by a mile. It's little more than gratuitous Berklee-bashing; criticizing what the author labels as the "Berklee method" without any evidence that he even knows what might be the content of such a method, or it's internally enforces level of rigor.

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