Schillinger System
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The Schillinger System is a method of musical composition is based on a mathematical process which primary areas include the theory of rhythm, theory of harmony. It is broken down into diatonic (a scale) and extended to symmetric (equal sub-divisions of the octave). The Schillinger System further includes theory of melody, counterpoint, form and semantics (emotional meaning as in movie music). The Schillinger process was named after Joseph Schillinger, a Russian musician.
Schillinger was a professor at The New School in New York City and taught such celebrated composers as George Gershwin and Glenn Miller. His books were published after his death and his theory has grown to cult status, although it is still controversial in traditional circles. There are a limited number of Certified Schillinger Teachers of this system in the world.
The Forgotten Guru
In The Glenn Miller Story, there is a short scene in which Glenn (played by James Stewart) is hard at work composing his famous Moonlight Serenade. As he completes the score, he shouts excitedly to his wife,
- "I must show this to Schillinger!"
Joseph Schillinger was a Russian-born composer and teacher, active in New York in the 1930s. Today his name is all but forgotten and his books are not widely read. Schillinger had been a student of the St Petersburg Imperial Conservatory of Music. Unlike more famous contemporaries, Schillinger was a natural teacher and communicated his musical knowledge in the form of a precise written theory, using mathematical expressions to describe art, architecture, design and (most insistently, and with most detail and success) music.
In New York, Schillinger flourished, becoming famous as the advisor to many of America's leading popular musicians and concert music composers. These number, inter alia, George Gershwin, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Paul Lavalle, Oscar Levant, Tommy Dorsey and Carmine Coppolla. Gershwin spent four years studying with Schillinger. During this period, he composed Porgy and Bess and consulted Schillinger on matters concerning the opera, particularly its orchestration. In the field of electronic music, Schillinger collaborated with Léon Theremin, inventor of the Theremin, an early electronic musical instrument.
His postal tuition courses were so successful he was able to rent a twelve-room apartment on Fifth Avenue. Schillinger accredited a small group of students as qualified teachers of the System and after his death, one of them, Lawrence Berk, founded a music school in Boston to continue the dissemination of the System. Schillinger House opened in 1945 and later became the Berklee College of Music where the System survived in the curriculum until the 1960's.
Decline
The reasons for the decline in awareness of Schillinger's work are complicated. During his life, he had been criticised by the concert music establishment as a promoter of mechanised creativity. His work was radical, speaking directly to musicians involved in popular music, which fed largely on jazz energy, and was in conflict with an avant-garde who looked to Europe, and to certain ascendant figures, such as Schaeffer and Stockhausen.
Schillinger's celebrity status must have made him suspect, and caused his ideas to be treated with greater skepticism than they deserved. On the other hand, he became notorious for his arrogant style, ridiculing well-known critics and establishment figures. His flamboyant manner is evident in his published writings and one can only wonder at some of his extreme assertions.
- "These procedures were performed crudely by even well reputed composers. For example L. Van Beethoven…"
It is easy to make Schillinger sound like a trickster, but his pupils in the USA included some of the most distinguished Jazz musicians, interested in immediate practical use.
Following Schillinger's sudden death in 1943, three voluminous tomes were published based on Schillinger's own notes: but difficult for the uninitiated. The Schillinger estate resisted efforts by others to interpret and explain his theory, and consequently by the 1960s it was generally forgotten.
Science
The thesis underlying Schillinger’s research into the properties and behaviour of music can be summarised as follows: music is a form of movement. Any physical action or process has its equivalent form of expression in music. Both movement and music are understandable with our existing knowledge of science.
Schillinger's major contribution was intuitively recognising how to apply everyday mathematics to the making of music. He expressed the belief that certain mathematically derived patterns were universal, and common to both music and the very structure of our nervous system .
Beyond style
Although Schillinger’s work is forward looking, couched in an apparently modern form, it also clarifies traditional music theory by debunking misconceptions from the past. He was clear that his methods allowed any style of composition to be undertaken more effectively.
"My system does not circumscribe the composer's freedom, but merely points out the methodological way to arrive at a decision. Any decision, which results in a harmonic relation, is fully acceptable. We are opposed only to vagueness and haphazard speculation."
Music theory had become mired in tradition and in the 19th century attraction towards the cult of the inspired genius. Music education based on the observance of stylistic habits would quickly create pedagogical dogma. For example, the tendency of the leading note of a scale to ascend, or the dominant seventh chord to resolve are not universal laws but features of historical trends only true in certain cases and not in others. By revealing the underlying principles of the organisation of sound through scientific analysis, Schillinger hoped to free the composer from the shackles of tradition.
Many of the concepts contained in the System have already penetrated modern compositional practice. Schillinger's techniques are tools for the imagination. By themselves, they do not compose music but merely assist the composer to realise his or her vision through facilitating the planning and execution of large musical structures. The numerous techniques described by Schillinger in the field of rhythm offer a unique and attractive approach to the composer and to some extent compensate for an imbalance in composition literature, largely dominated by considerations of pitch.
Conclusion
Schillinger’s System of Musical Composition is an attempt to create a comprehensive and definitive treatise on music and number. This has the disadvantage of resulting in a treatise of great length and elaborate nomenclature, but which ultimately succeeds because it is able to satisfy various conditions-
- All existing music is accommodated.
- Techniques do not prohibit creative freedom.
- Results are practical and effective.
Schillinger’s style can induce a resistance in the reader being at times relentlessly dry, favouring algebra and music notation above words. Occasionally, in an attempt to shake the reader out of complacent thinking, the text is deliberately provocative. Schillinger’s uncompromising tone is due partly to the culture, from which he emerged. During the 1930’s, he was amongst those who called for science to sweep away outdated practices. Some contemporaneous commentators, like the philosopher Adorno, linked this movement with the aggressive agenda of capitalism but Schillinger is by comparison politically naïve, simply a worshiper of science and apparently unaware of any negative consequences when he predicts, accurately as it turns out, a musical culture driven by technology and at the service of industrialisation. And yet for all its rigour, repetition and challenge, the System was enjoyed and apparently used with great success for many years after its author’s death. Schillinger’s influence lingers on in the work of celebrated musicians as well as those who produced countless forgotten film scores and television theme tunes. Composers whose work is considered unique and non-commercial have also publicly endorsed its methods,.
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