181–190 of 390 posts
Music notation has evolved over several hundred years, it's not arbitrary or random. The author should take some music classes before trying to write about it.
Why is this at the top of HN? While the author is right that western music notation has shortcomings, almost none of the (admittedly poorly understood) reasons they list are a factor in that. > [Key signatures] completely obscure the relationship between the pitches, though. Nope, they exactly allow the notes to show scale degree relationships. Without key signatures, music in any major scale other than C would be ve…
> Why is this at the top of HN? It's catnip for the part of the HN audience who thinks: 1/ I am smart at computers and basic maths, so I must be smart on an absolute scale. 2/ I can't understand this easily, so therefor it is obviously broken. Much like "timezones are hard, therefore wrong", "why should I learn other human languages, they don't work like I expect", "running a society is harder than telling a computer…
Why is this at the top of HN? While the author is right that western music notation has shortcomings, almost none of the (admittedly poorly understood) reasons they list are a factor in that. > [Key signatures] completely obscure the relationship between the pitches, though. Nope, they exactly allow the notes to show scale degree relationships. Without key signatures, music in any major scale other than C would be ve…
> Why is this at the top of HN? It's catnip for the part of the HN audience who thinks: 1/ I am smart at computers and basic maths, so I must be smart on an absolute scale. 2/ I can't understand this easily, so therefor it is obviously broken. Much like "timezones are hard, therefore wrong", "why should I learn other human languages, they don't work like I expect", "running a society is harder than telling a computer…
Music is an interest of mine, but not an active obsession. I've learned songs I want to play only through tabs, because every time I attempted to learn sheet music online, I ran away out of the fear of the heavy fog that exists in most descriptions about sheet music. Not to mention insufferable smugness, much like wine and craft beer snobs, about how sheet music is superior.
This guy, on the other hand, kept my attention, and described it in a way that I honestly found worth my time. I read the whole thing without wanting to switch tabs or multitask.
In case anyone is searching for a really smart, modern method for learning music theory, this is it: https://www.hooktheory.com The author devised his own system for visually representing notes, it makes it much easier to understand things like scale degrees and relative notation (and thus the theory around famous harmonies, melodies, etc). I think music tools are in desperate need for improvement... Starting with no…
No, instruments really don't. The point of conventional instruments is that once you learn them - which takes years - you can instantly express almost any musical idea using all the possible degrees of freedom available on that instrument. With something like Ableton Push, you're one step removed from the sound generation, because you're triggering automata with a very limited expressive repertoire. (With Push, it's…
But they can improve and I am confident they will. When I am learning a brand new instrument I can literally feel my brain knowing exactly what I want to do way before my fingers/mouth/feet are able to perform the task at hand. How is this not an interface problem?
With button controllers the best you'll get is one chord per button with no fine shading of levels, no control over inversions or voicings, and so on.
No way. If you don't have to be memorizing stupid things such as "where is the minor 7th again on this one particular instrument?" maybe you could use your free mental cycles (and fingers, feet, mouth) to control that instead... And who knows, maybe you could now do 4-5 inversions in the same amount of time it would take you to do a single one on a piano. Or maybe you can do inversions way more effortlessly on another instrument and focus on really nailing the vibrato.
It's absolutely fine to make music like this, but it's not fine to demand that all music be made like this.
I never said this, I'm just saying that a lot more can be done with a lot less effort if instrument/controller interfaces improve.
Why is this at the top of HN? While the author is right that western music notation has shortcomings, almost none of the (admittedly poorly understood) reasons they list are a factor in that. > [Key signatures] completely obscure the relationship between the pitches, though. Nope, they exactly allow the notes to show scale degree relationships. Without key signatures, music in any major scale other than C would be ve…
> Why is this at the top of HN? What the ..? Because it's a cool blog post of course! It carefully and clearly explains things the author understands about music (in a much better way than I've seen before), and then clearly and carefully goes on to describe and comment on some things the authors doesn't understand as well. Basically, it's a Julia Evans blog post but about music instead of system programming. I've ne…
It's the same though process used by some politicians and conspiracy theorists
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why is this at the top of HN? It's catnip for the part of the HN audience who thinks: 1/ I am smart at computers and basic maths, so I must be smart on an absolute scale. 2/ I can't understand this easily, so therefor it is obviously broken. Much like "timezones are hard, therefore wrong", "why should I learn other human languages, they don't work like I expect", "running a society is harder than telling a computer…
Or perhaps it is genuinely useful? Music is an interest of mine, but not an active obsession. I've learned songs I want to play only through tabs, because every time I attempted to learn sheet music online, I ran away out of the fear of the heavy fog that exists in most descriptions about sheet music. Not to mention insufferable smugness, much like wine and craft beer snobs, about how sheet music is superior. This gu…
In case anyone is searching for a really smart, modern method for learning music theory, this is it: https://www.hooktheory.com The author devised his own system for visually representing notes, it makes it much easier to understand things like scale degrees and relative notation (and thus the theory around famous harmonies, melodies, etc). I think music tools are in desperate need for improvement... Starting with no…
> I think we also need way better digital instruments... That make it easier to stay on scale (or to modulate, etc -- whatever the mood is), for instance, allowing people to just play away which is what actually matters. I'm not sure what new stuff has come out in the last few years, but Ableton Push is exactly what you're describing. It's a grid where you can select a key, scale, and tone, and then you can apply eff…
This is an interesting piece of software I have used before: http://autotheory.net. It simply translates incoming midi data so you can use whatever controller/instrument you're already familiar with. The creator is nice and responsive, he often attends shows like AES and NAMM.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1. Why do we like pieces when played forward but not backward or inverted? Why do we like text when read forward, but not backward or inverted? There are, of course, works that are palindromic or otherwise written to be read/heard backwards, but most of the time that kind of global transformation tends to ruin the "spelling"/"narrative". > 2. Why do certain sounds evoke certain emotions? Just like text, evoking emo…
Actually, great composers such as Beethoven and Bach and Chopin had very definite ideas about what emotions are evoked by certain keys. They even argued about it with their peers. Music is not something that is reducible to mere quanta and waves and frequency. You all are missing the human part. Sorry, but it's true.
Just like photography. Why is one photograph more meaningful than another? it has nothing to do with photography, per se, it has everything to do with the culture of the person doing the appreciation.
There is a link between the two, between creation and appreciation, and those who understand it generally fare better. But it is not required to be a musician, or a photographer or a poet or anything really.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why is this at the top of HN? It's catnip for the part of the HN audience who thinks: 1/ I am smart at computers and basic maths, so I must be smart on an absolute scale. 2/ I can't understand this easily, so therefor it is obviously broken. Much like "timezones are hard, therefore wrong", "why should I learn other human languages, they don't work like I expect", "running a society is harder than telling a computer…
Or perhaps it is genuinely useful? Music is an interest of mine, but not an active obsession. I've learned songs I want to play only through tabs, because every time I attempted to learn sheet music online, I ran away out of the fear of the heavy fog that exists in most descriptions about sheet music. Not to mention insufferable smugness, much like wine and craft beer snobs, about how sheet music is superior. This gu…
Why is this at the top of HN? While the author is right that western music notation has shortcomings, almost none of the (admittedly poorly understood) reasons they list are a factor in that. > [Key signatures] completely obscure the relationship between the pitches, though. Nope, they exactly allow the notes to show scale degree relationships. Without key signatures, music in any major scale other than C would be ve…
> Why is this at the top of HN? What the ..? Because it's a cool blog post of course! It carefully and clearly explains things the author understands about music (in a much better way than I've seen before), and then clearly and carefully goes on to describe and comment on some things the authors doesn't understand as well. Basically, it's a Julia Evans blog post but about music instead of system programming. I've ne…
The joy of Julia Evans blog posts is her commitment to learn, and to document as she learns, interesting or difficult things until she's mastered them. Not to give them a once over lightly and then snidely dismiss them as broken.