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Show HN: Guitar Dashboard – Open source music theory explorer for guitarists

guitardashboard.com

81–90 of 117 posts

Re: Show HN: Guitar Dashboard – Open source music theory explorer for guitarists

#81
post #70

Fantastic work. I've been learning music theory off and on to help with my guitar. I was hoping for a whole lot of interactive applications like yours, but found most lacking for me, though I did find a few on the iPhone: FretTrainer for muscle memory stuff. I figure out what to learn next based on Musicopoulus. Both are fair, each with quarks. I've bookmarked you in my, just created, music "Toby" folder. Speaking of…

Regarding Toby, how confident are you that it is not another case of “you’re the product”?

I still need to dig into their extension code to see how chatty it is, their FAQ doesn’t mention how data is synced to their servers.

Re: Show HN: Guitar Dashboard – Open source music theory explorer for guitarists

#83
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's alright, I've had to relearn my technique after a coma. It's easier the second time around. I really recommend doing legato exercises to strengthen the fretting-hand. Look up any neoclassical shred guitar book and they should have some guitar acrobatic exercise on legato. A good one is the Frank Gambale warmup instructoinal video. Another is a Paganini for guitar book put out by Greg Howe in the 90s if I recal…

Are you familiar with Pat Martino? He has a similar story of having to start again from scratch.

Martino is perhaps my favorite guitar player and musician of all time. Was listening to his new record Formidable just earlier today! I'm familiar with his story although for him it was a brain/memory thing. While I retained all my theory/knowledge I had to train my muscle memory all over again. In his case, he had all the muscle memory but couldn't remember ever knowing how to play at all. I recall that he started learning again by listening to his own records!

Re: Show HN: Guitar Dashboard – Open source music theory explorer for guitarists

#84
post #81
post #70

Fantastic work. I've been learning music theory off and on to help with my guitar. I was hoping for a whole lot of interactive applications like yours, but found most lacking for me, though I did find a few on the iPhone: FretTrainer for muscle memory stuff. I figure out what to learn next based on Musicopoulus. Both are fair, each with quarks. I've bookmarked you in my, just created, music "Toby" folder. Speaking of…

Regarding Toby, how confident are you that it is not another case of “you’re the product”? I still need to dig into their extension code to see how chatty it is, their FAQ doesn’t mention how data is synced to their servers.

Frankly, I'm totally clueless. It might be an interesting exercise to see what they're doing.

Re: Show HN: Guitar Dashboard – Open source music theory explorer for guitarists

#86
post #28

Very interesting and pretty tool! I wonder: on the "scales" dropdown, why didn't you include pentatonic? It's so prevalent across so many styles of music; it seems like a must.

That's a very good question. I had plans to add major and minor pentatonic scales until it became clear that they way they are used, especially in rock and other blues based music is a subset of dorian modes. There's some real insight to be gained, especially with regards to harmony, or more practically, what chords you can play against a major or minor pentatonic. It's a lot more than one would think! So, to answer…

How about an option to overlay the pentatonic scales over other scales, similarly to the way you color the root notes but with a different color? You could use a similar idea to overlay root-third-fifth or other chords. I think this would be useful for those of us who are still trying to build muscle memory, but still present information in a way that minimizes "stuck thinking."

Re: Show HN: Guitar Dashboard – Open source music theory explorer for guitarists

#87

the only problem with all of this is that you must ingest the entirety of the information before becoming unconsciously competent. Do you think skilled guitarists actually think about this while they play? It's a complete flow state; prefrontal activity just shuts it down.

There are different stages of composition in music. By the time you're playing music, you ideally should not think this way.

But it's nice to have a visual way of seeing substitutions that work with your progression as you write music.

Having an enumeration of all of the possible voicings is really nice.

When I looked at this (as a bass player), I didn't even really notice the fret board. This application is applicable to all instruments.

Re: Show HN: Guitar Dashboard – Open source music theory explorer for guitarists

#88

Just a heads up that I also blogged about the making of Guitar Dashboard: http://mikehadlow.blogspot.com/2018/09/what-i-learned-creati...

Can you explain what you mean by this-

> If you choose the frequency 440hz, jump down one 7-semitone step and up 5, you have an A major scale

Also I have one more question about - when making chords using the 3rd and 5th step, for a note on the right boundary of this n 2n interval, I would jump into 2n 4n interval, right? But I'd I were not using chords then is "all" (simplified) music made in only only one x 2x range and it's not crossed?

Another question- why do pianos have different black and white keys? Do you plan on doing a blog post that explains how "your " explanation of music theory fits various instruments? I've always wanted to understand music from a mathematical perspective and your post was eye opening!

I am going to try out your tool once I get hold of a computer.

Re: Show HN: Guitar Dashboard – Open source music theory explorer for guitarists

#90

For those of us scrubs just learning guitar, do you have a guide on how to use this? or a link to a good guide?

While these tools are useful, I recommend oldschool hard copy books to get started properly, if you're relatively serious about it. There are some great books for guitar put out by Berklee, I don't recall the names right now, but I do remember a series that had 4 books from intro to advanced. I spent a lot of years learning guitar technique while not progressing much on the music theory side until I started reading M…

Another perspective: Jazz pianist here. I looked at Mark Levine's book when I was in my early/mid 20s, by then I already knew everything in it - and I'd learnt almost all of it from the music, from the greats. I don't believe in (theory) books, or teachers, really. I don't wish I'd read that book before I knew any of it.

I played classical for years as a kid, then played any songs I could get my hands on - folk songs, pop, Beatles etc. So I learnt basic chords and how they work by playing that stuff a lot. Then when I got into jazz, you learn by listening and transcribing. Transcribing tunes, solos, chord voicings, anything. All different instruments. I've transcribed piano, trumpet, sax, guitar, bass, drums.. and Indian classical, funk, reggae etc. Anything you hear and like but don't know what it is, transcribe it, and learn to play it yourself. (If it's simple enough, you don't need to write it out) You learn a lot of things by doing that. There are books of transcribed solos, I think they're absolutely worthless. Do it yourself. Besides that, books of songs, solos etc always have mistakes, sometimes a few, sometimes thousands. I've written out orchestral scores to play on piano, studied those. I studied/played/sang Debussy's opera for over a year, that felt like a complete musical education, a lot of it is simple combinations of notes. In my 20s I learnt a lot about what pianos can do by playing a lot of piano pieces by Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninov etc. Also playing other instruments is good - I've spent a fair bit of time playing drums, bass, guitar, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, etc. Also learning who the great musicians are is invaluable, so you can find who appeals to you most. Check out a lot of different stuff. Study, analyze, learn from the music you listen to and love. All that is so much easier since the internet! (I started in the 80s) It should all be a great joy. I enjoyed every minute of it.

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