Music theory for nerds • Hacker News Board

Re: Music theory for nerds

#311

Post by lmm » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #288

lmm wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever you play three notes in sequence, no? I'll read a passage and think "tonic, up a third, up a fifth so that puts me up to the tonic again... nope."

Huh. That's interesting. In a "people's brains think surprisingly differently sometimes and we rarely think about those differences when the resulting behaviors look the same" kinda way. I mean, I guess that's not so foreign...But, I tend to think of it as pulling out the notes I need from the scale, and not actually counting up to them. e.g. in my brain I'm grabbing the third and the octave (well 7th, if you've got…

The main context I was thinking of was learning a new piece, particularly the initial read-through of something I haven't heard - I sometimes try to think what it "should" sound like ahead of playing it.

Re: Music theory for nerds

#312

Post by lohankin » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

Manishearth wrote: post #126

lohankin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea indeed. I need to think about it. Edit after thinking: still, it doesn't explain the number 12 IMO. It could be 17 or something else. Probably, it's a long chain of coincidences at play: Western music settled on 7-note scales long time ago (long before equal temperament was invented), and we should start looking for explanations from here. Another edit: one of the important coincidences is that numbe…

If you start off from assuming that the Do-Sol (fifth, 3:2) harmony is a "pleasing" one, and also the Do-Mi (third, 5:4) one, you can create new "mostly pleasing" harmonies by for example taking the fifth of a fifth (9:4, which can be transposed an octave to get 9:8, which is Re or a second), and doing similar things (you can also do things like finding the note whose fifth is Do, which is 2:3, or 4:3, a fourth or Fa…

A bit better modification of the argument: continue cycle of 5th. After 12 steps, you get (3/2)^12=129.7, which is really close to 128=2^7 (whole number of octaves). That's where 12 steps come from!

And from here, the natural idea follows: what if we take not exactly 3/2 for fifth, but value x such that x^12 is exactly equal to 128? This leads to equal temperament.

Yeah, that might be it! (Not sure that it's true historically though).

Re: Music theory for nerds

#313

Post by abruzzi » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #174

I'd like to elaborate a bit, in the same "for nerds" manner, on where Eevee seems to get lost a bit with scales and notation. He (she? not sure) calls the A minor and C major scales the same, because they contain the same notes. That's not an odd thought, but it's like calling sine and cosine the same because both functions contain the same set of values, in the same order. The difference is phase. Basically, scales…

Even though the key signature for a major and its relative minor are the same, that is only part of the story.

When you see that A Minor has the same key signature as C Major, what you are seeing is the "natural minor" scale. This is simply the notes implied by the key signature, and so is identical (but down a third) from the relative major. If you play purely in the natural minor, you are really closer to the Aeolian mode than a minor key.

There is also the "harmonic minor" and "melodic minor" which, in common practice period, are much more commonly used than natural minor. Harmonic minor has a raised seventh. This makes the dominant (V) triad a major triad which increases its need to resolve to the tonic (I). It is used for harmonies (obviously based on the name) for this reason, but it makes the step from 6 to 7 an augmented second (i.e. minor third) so its isn't used melodically very often. Which is why there is also a Melodic Minor.

Melodic minor is tricky because it varies depending on whether the melody is ascending or descending. Descending is easy, it is identical to natural minor. Ascending is similar to the harmonic minor with its raised seventh (creating what is known as a leading tone, i.e. a half step below the tonic that wants to resolve up to the tonic.) But the ascending scale also has a raised sixth, which eliminates the augmented second between 6 and 7.

Re: Music theory for nerds

#314

Post by MereKatMoves » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

robert_tweed wrote: post #305

MereKatMoves wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting from a personal perspective. I was taught music in the UK where that is specifically not used (or at least wasn't when I learnt). I took a year out of my Music degree to attend the Sorbonne. French music education places a heavy emphasis on solfege. When I started going to their undergraduate classes it was immediately apparent that the level was several years behind that of the UK (in classes for…

I wonder if the UK system is better at sieving natural talent whereas the French system is better at teaching ? Personally I hated music (in the UK) because we never seemed to get taught anything, we we largely expected to just know things or magically learn through awkward repetition. Knowing what I know now, I think there are a lot of ways we could have practised music early on that would have helped those of us no…

Without trying to cite what currently happens in the UK, I think it is fair to say that kids are handed instruments like the recorder at a fairly early age, and those that do well are encouraged to progress. That's a sieving process for sure.

When they get to secondary school, music as a subject is most often just a minor inconvenience in the curriculum to most pupils, and those who have ability are pushed into learning flute/violin etc (at additional cost to themselves and outside of the timetable). In the course of going through the grades of music (performance exams), kids are taught aural skills and theory (grade 5 theory is required to take higher performance grades). This results in a select group of instrumentalists that have learned intervals, harmony and scales practically. Whether any of those skills are useful to a non musician is debatable, so one could say that it is the most efficient way of getting a rounded skill set into the brain of a musical 15-16 yr old.

The French system would, I agree, produce a broader spectrum of musically able people, but in practice it results in a lower level of specific and important knowledge. The UK system produces more complete performers whereas I would say the French system has large gaps which then get filled in at degree level.

Perhaps things are greatly different these days. I know for example that studio production is an option for A level music, and there is absolutely no musical theory knowledge required to produce a studio track. I wonder if A level students are even taught basic 4 part harmony any more.

Music, to an individual, has always been a matter of ability, discipline and perseverance to practice. In education, the solution to nourishing those qualities is never going to be perfect. I do recall the French students I was with were quite annoyed that my education was years ahead of theirs, but with perspective, I'm sure it didn't really matter then, and it surely doesn't now.

Re: Music theory for nerds

#315

Post by kd0amg » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

debrisapron wrote: post #303

skrebbel wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice question, I think I can answer (although you'll soon notice that my understanding of this subject is limited as well) First of all, this is a mathematically undecidable problem, as in that there exist tunes that could be in multiple scales. The extreme example is a melody that consists of only a single note. Ridiculous, but as a fellow nerd I'm sure you can see how I could call a single note a melody. So we have…

> The extreme example is a melody that consists of only a single note. Ridiculous, but as a fellow nerd I'm sure you can see how I could call a single note a melody. I got your single note melody right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQfKFwa-jEY

I was half expecting the One Note Samba (which is sort of the pathological case for the key-finding heuristic skrebbel describes).

Re: Music theory for nerds

#316

Post by SamBam » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #174

I'd like to elaborate a bit, in the same "for nerds" manner, on where Eevee seems to get lost a bit with scales and notation. He (she? not sure) calls the A minor and C major scales the same, because they contain the same notes. That's not an odd thought, but it's like calling sine and cosine the same because both functions contain the same set of values, in the same order. The difference is phase. Basically, scales…

> they also have a starting point

Indeed. For anyone that is not sure about that, take a piano (like this virtual one[1]) and play a scale of all the white notes starting with C.

The play a scale of all those same white notes, but starting with A.

You should immediately notice that the second version is in a minor key (sounds "sadder").

1: http://virtualpianos.info/

Re: Music theory for nerds

#317

Post by taco_emoji » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #309

efnx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try writing hummingbird notation by hand though!

Their pages claims: "It’s quick and easy enough to write with an unsharpened pencil. You can scrawl it on a napkin in a pinch." I don't know if it's true or not, as I view Hummingbird to be fixing things that aren't broken (is the difference between a whole note and a half that hard to suss?) and doesn't fix the things that are.

I think the more difficult part writing by hand would be the redundancies -- not only do I have to know which line to put the note on, I have to know which symbol to draw. Which could be tough, as it forces the composer to be consciously aware that e.g. "this note is D#" rather than "this note should be two steps above the previous note in the current key".

Re: Music theory for nerds

#318

Post by robert_tweed » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 5:18 PM UTC

MereKatMoves wrote: post #314

robert_tweed wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the UK system is better at sieving natural talent whereas the French system is better at teaching ? Personally I hated music (in the UK) because we never seemed to get taught anything, we we largely expected to just know things or magically learn through awkward repetition. Knowing what I know now, I think there are a lot of ways we could have practised music early on that would have helped those of us no…

Without trying to cite what currently happens in the UK, I think it is fair to say that kids are handed instruments like the recorder at a fairly early age, and those that do well are encouraged to progress. That's a sieving process for sure. When they get to secondary school, music as a subject is most often just a minor inconvenience in the curriculum to most pupils, and those who have ability are pushed into learn…

It's also interesting to compare and contrast the apparent results. The UK has a fairly long history of producing a far above average number of world-class musicians. France on the other hand seems to have a broader musical culture, or at least, so it seems in Paris during the Fête de la Musique.

Re: Music theory for nerds

#319

Post by zeta0134 » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #118

zeta0134 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can sight read for winds and voice, but not for Piano, despite being able to play Piano relatively well. Thus, this explanation will probably apply mostly to single-voice musicians. 1. Find Do. This is the first note of the Major scale in the key which you are playing. Find it on the page, and burn it into your mind; everything you're about to do centers on the location of Do. In the key of C (white keys on a piano…

"2. Learn your intervals, and learn Solfege. If you're a musician, you already know these things in principal, even if you don't know the words or the terminology. In particular, you should be able to "hear" the distance between Do-Mi-Sol without too much difficulty, because you hear those distances in music a lot." I believe the Solfege named intervals (Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do) are only taught as a historical oddity…

I was taught in the US, and Solfege was used prominently in my voice classes, but rarely in my theory and piano classes. I think it's a system that works well when you don't have to think about the actual note name that you're singing, as it describes intervals very well, but relates somewhat poorly to pitch.

I grew up attending a Church of Christ, which used full congregational singing with four part harmony. Our songbooks used a variation on music notation that used shape notes, and the shapes corresponded to Solfege. If you knew your musical intervals, you could completley ignore the key signature, because a Do was always drawn as a triangle, a Sol was a circle, a La was a square, etc etc. This was especially handy because the song leaders were always men, and could not always sing as high as the written music required. They picked whatever key they could sing comfortably, and the congregation adjusted to them. Drove the music majors in the audience nuts. :D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_note

Growing up with that system meant that Solfege was simply the easiest system I had to understand music. To this day, I struggle with pieces in unusual modes, and with passages that modulate their key and make use of unusual progressions, because it breaks down my innate understanding of music and requires me to think in a different way.

Re: Music theory for nerds

#320

Post by taco_emoji » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 5:28 PM UTC

0xCMP wrote: post #94

PeCaN wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it would be really hard to change all the millions of documents written with QWERTY.

It'd still probably be hard to convert thousands of existing computer keyboards to anything else. Every keyboard at every school, office, home, etc.

And it'd be harder still to convert billions of existing people to another layout. Inertia's hard to overcome, even if another keyboard layout or music notation system had ever been convincingly proven superior than the respective dominant ones.