The “line” and the “texture”: From listening to musical theory and back

The paper describes some teaching units for Music Education, which aim at acquiring a basic knowledge of Music Theory. The proposed method is based on a direct approach towards the sound dimension and is realised in guided listening units, which are intended to enhance the listening ability via a conscious focus on the cognitive appropriation of the structure of musical language. The first part of the paper, written by Stefano Melis, refers to the basic concepts related to the dimension of melodic linearity. On the basis of spatial and kinetic analogies, the proposed examples show how to analyse and graphically represent the global melodic contour. The attention is primarily focused on understanding the dynamic aspects of the melodic line during its temporal development and learning some of the primary factors which determine the phenomenon of directionality in musical structures. Finally, the author focuses on some gestaltic laws (similarity, contrast, figural pregnancy, symmetry, parallelism) and their role in determining the fundamental aspects of the formal and syntactic structure of the melody. The second part, written by Giorgio Pagannone, illustrates the concept of texture (‘ordito’), namely the density and vertical configuration of a sound fabric. Drawing on the concept of ‘sound space’, and making use of some simple graphics, the author explains the three main types of texture: monophony, a single line in relief, without background; homophony, namely the gestaltic principle of figure/background (or even melody/accompaniment); polyphony, namely the intertwining of more melodic lines, or multiple layers of horizontal linearity. The final example shows how the three identified types can dynamically follow each other within the musical discourse, and how this succession can also take a symbolic-semantic value and outline a narrative plot.