Cold theory is one of the most feared things that certain students have to encounter. Yet, theory in science has been the channel through which some of the most amazing discoveries have been made.

There is something thrilling in the way in which an astronomer can sit down in his observatory and figure out the existence of a world so infinitely far away that the strongest glasses are unable to discern it. Practice in the manufacture of telescopes develops and soon a lens is made that makes it possible to photograph the existence of the world that cold theory told the explorer of the heavens must exist.  It was theory that led Columbus to venture across the Atlantic – a theory that made him the laughing stock of all Europe.

The great chemist works for elements that he is certain must exist although no one has ever seen them or known about them. His theory tells them that somewhere in matter such and such a thing is. Therefore, go in search of it. Eventually radium or some other equally amazing substance is encountered.

Every art has a scientific background. In by far the large number of cases the background has been discovered by practice and not by theory. This is peculiarly the case in music. Most of the great musical theorists have been men who have viewed the frontiers of the art and having described their dimensions have then told in orderly fashion what has been done within those dimensions in the past.

In other words, the theorists in music are intelligent classifiers. They are like good librarians who keep the right books on the right shelves, properly coordinated and listed. When they have done that they can do but little more.

Certain clever writers have attempted to show by illustration what composers of the past have done with their musical materials. However, these are merely indicative. The student who would be a composer must take the musical materials down from their theoretical shelves and work with them interminably until new combinations can be effected.  That’s what Beethoven did with his numerous notebooks; that’s what Wagner did; that’s what Brahms did.

All the theorists and theories in the world could not have made these masters although they had to know the theories to understand what had been done in the past. Harmony and counterpoint are indispensable to the student of composition but they are only a beginning. Columbus had his theory but what would it have been if he had never made his voyage?

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