Music Has Been Called A “Hearing Art”
Hearing and knowing what you have heard are not the same thing.
Let’s clarify this.
Some of us hear a note or a chord and can tell you what we have heard with 100% accuracy.
Some people need a point of reference of a known note to do this.
Some people hear how perfectly in tune music is or is not.
Some people can hear and define melodic and/or harmonic intervals, voicings of chords and can identify them and even write them down.
The note A440 is vibrating at 440 times per second and whether you know that or not, it is still what we may call ‘A’. If you can hear it and match its pitch, that is far more important than knowing the note name, for the purpose of singing. This also applies to instrumentalists.
For communication or for teaching purposes, the nomenclature (terminology) may be useful, but not vital.
The feeling of a major seventh chord is more important than it being a major seventh chord, particularly if you are a composer. Being able to hear the four tones which comprise a major seventh is useful for a singer, to be in tune with accompaniment. Differentiating between major and minor is also useful. The major seventh has three notes which are major and three notes which are minor, if you pull the chord apart, so to speak. It has qualities of both major and minor, and there is something peculiar within it. In melody, it would be the leading tone of a scale and when combined with the tonic as a chord, the very dissonant minor second, or semitone, or half-step somehow is not found to be offensive by most people.
You could look at a Cmajor7 as an e minor with C in the bass, as a guitarist described it to me, not knowing that a major 7th chord existed as such. With inversions and voicings of chords being a reality, you can spread out the chord from being in root position or change the intervals within it from stacked thirds to whatever you choose. C-E-G-B can be G-B-C-E, which sounds pretty nice and it still is the same cord but in its 2nd inversion. Therefore, C is not always in the bass position and the chord is still the chord. C-E-G is major. E-G-B is minor. This is what was meant by “pulling apart” the chord.
What does this have to do with singing? Musicianship is the most important aspect of singing because without it, no one could sing in tune, sing a melodic line accurately, or perform with other musicians.
You don’t have to know the correct terms of music or music theory to be a great singer and may have been great singers, knowing little to nothing about music theory. Music is a hearing art. Not everyone hears music with a broad all-encompassing perspective, but fortunately, that can be learned.
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