Ep. 177 | Robert O. Gjerdingen: Music Schema Theory Explained

🎥 Recorded using Ecamm Live — my favorite all-in-one Mac app for podcasting, recording, and live streaming. 👉 Try it here (affiliate link): https://bit.ly/4osrvBk In this special Christmas Schema Episode, Professor Robert O. Gjerdingen — author of Music in the Galant Style (2007) and Child Composers: How Orphans Became Elite Musicians (2020) — returns to the HMA Podcast for an in-depth discussion on Music Schema Theory. We explore how schemas function in the human brain, their historical connection to the Neapolitan conservatories and partimento pedagogy, and why schema recognition may hold the key to understanding 18th-century composition and improvisation. Professor Gjerdingen also reflects on Roman numerals vs. schema theory, harmonic function, cognitive science, and the future of music pedagogy. 📘 Topics include: • What is a musical schema? • Schema Theory vs. Partimento • How the brain recognizes musical patterns • The Romanesca, the Monte, and Christmas music • Hugo Riemann, harmonic function, and cognitive science • Why modern harmony teaching fails musicians • New discoveries in schema research and the “coast of Norway” problem • Thoughts on testing, pedagogy, and the revival of partimento This is a profound and festive conversation for anyone interested in the mind behind Music in the Galant Style and the origins of the 21st-century partimento revival. Chapters 0:00 Start 2:02 On cognition of music as cognition of patterns 9:23 "Music in the Galant Style" originally had no mention of partimenti until Gjerdingen saw the manuscripts from Naples 11:51 What is the dictionary definition of music schema theory? 18:34 Didn't you have an analogy of collecting useless data with traffic lights? 21:14 Are schema theory and scale degrees a replacement for roman numeral and harmonic function theory? 30:00 Gjerdingen: "But in truth, the science [of music harmony] was aspirational. It wasn't actual." 37:25 Is the V-I cadence not an example evidence of harmonic function? 39:27 But isn't a V-I cadence almost a universal thing across musical cultures? 41:27 Cadences in Renaissance 43:44 Can you speak on the concept of fundamental bass and chordal inversions? 50:12 Are there new schema's you discovered lately? 53:37 partimenti.org 54:48 What are the best books on counterpoint for partimento enthusiast? 56:57 How can we merge Carl Dahlhaus's book on history of harmonic tonality with schema theory? 58:29 Parallelism between Schenker's theory and schemata theory? 1:02:38 How did rhythmic conventions change moving [from Baroque period] to the Galant period? 1:05:29 Could it be that these schemas contribute to the kinds of prolongations that Schenker later identified in his theories? 1:10:04 Why did music education deviate from a pattern-recognition way of learning? 1:12:50 What are the most interesting unanswered questions in schema theory? 1:15:41 How/What can music practitioners/theorists and cognitive science learn about each other? 1:18:46 Methodological challenges in studying music cognition of historical figures? 1:22:04 What is the difference between schema and structure? 1:26:05 What is the scope of schemas? Universal or stylistic/historic? 1:26:35 How do schemas explain the perceived hierarchical unity of tonality? 1:29:09 Is schema theory a part of another theory's pedagogy, or is it a "standalone" system of theory and pedagogy by itself? 1:31:39 What makes schemas less complicated to understand? 1:33:39 Roman numerals for chord roots vs roman numerals of bass notes? 1:36:54 Can a church organists learn from schemas? 1:38:41 Did the emergence of schemas have any causal relationship with the growing preferences for sequences? 1:41:40 Are chord progressions schemas? 1:45:59 How would partimento change your approach to undergraduate harmony classes? 1:53:27 Partimento in Graded Music Exams