When teaching music theory, I'm often asked about the role of music theory in music composition. Students want to know if a composer sits down and uses music theory to compose a musical work. While it's certainly possible to construct a practical work using the guidelines from music theory, master composers tend to compose more intuitively. Quoting Arnold Schoenberg from his Theory of Harmony text: "To hell with all these theories, if they always serve only to block the evolution of art and if their positive achievement consists in nothing more than helping those who will compose badly anyway to learn it quickly." Schoenberg's music is often performed poorly and misunderstood and is seen as overly formulaic. The procedure of 12-tone is not something Schoenberg invented; he discovered it through his own process of composing and analyzing his works. His texts on the process of composition are not intended to teach composers how to compose but instead offer models
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