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

guitardashboard.com

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

#111

Post by sampo »

chuchana wrote: post #110
sampo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The music tradition sees the notes rather as intervals between two notes. C to the same C is "unison" (You may need to instruments to play two identical C notes at the same time.) C to C#/Db (this note has two names) is "small second" C to D is "large second". And so on. C to the next higher C is "perfect octave". So if we take the C major scale, it has 7 different notes. But if we also include the next higher up C,…

> C to the same C is "unison" (You may need to instruments to play two identical C notes at the same time.) > C to C#/Db (this note has two names) is "small second" While C# and Db are the same note (in equal temperament [1]), the intervals C/C# and C/Db have different names: C# is called 'augmented unison' [2]. For the name, you start from the basic interval (e.g. C/C) and apply the accidentals (# or b) [3]. [1] htt…

This is an example of why the traditional approach to music theory can be cryptic for a beginner. After the Western music moved to well and equally tempered scales (starting from the early 1700's), the context in which there is a difference between C# and Db has disappeared. But we still use terminology and notation from 500-800 years ago.

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

#112

Post by supernovae »

mikehadlow wrote: post #44
throwaway8879 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd agree. For beginners, Guitar Dashboard is probably overkill. I really wrote it for people like me, who'd been playing guitar for a while and know all the basic chords, but want to get deeper into the underlying theory.

To be honest, i'm glad i took the weekend to learn it. Chords make sense to me now because of this.

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

#113

Post by jjkmk »

djaychela wrote: post #106
jjkmk wrote: post #68

The Modes should be in order, Ionian - I Dorian - ii Phrygian - iii Lydian - IV Mixolydian - V Aeolian - vi Locrian - vii Otherwise its a really useful tool, great job.

I don't agree - the modes are presented here in the order of change from the major scale, which I've found is often the best way to get people to understand how they work. One man's method, etc...

The Major scale is Ionian (the first mode).

What do you mean order of change from Major scale, wouldn't it start from Ionian (I)?

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

#114

Post by Theo59 »

Years ago I went to a talk on Neo-Riemannian theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Riemannian_theory is a bit lacking of a simple explanation, but the basic idea is that chord groups (e.g. Minor chords) are represented as a algebra (e.g. x, x+5, x+7)

and then the chords can all be mapped on a big torus (donut) to represent transposition, and each chord connects with 2 others that just so happen to correspond with 'complimentary' chords from traditional music theory. And there are also different ways to connect to other chord groups.

Beethoven's 9th Symphony famously traces 19 of the 24 possible chords of the torus, and remember that he was partially deaf so relied on vibrations.

More interesting that all this however is a new instrument called the 'Fluid Piano' which doesn't restrict itself to Western tuning (multiples of 440Hz etc.) Check it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Cq3pbcMkI

Music from the country Georgia can't be represented using on traditional musical staves. I'd be fascinated to understand how so different musical cultures developed, particularly in relationship to how our brains might have evolved over the year to regard certain frequencies and melodies as delightful, eerie, etc.

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

#116

Post by donorman »

jMyles wrote: 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.

Here's another interactive tool including the pentatonic and more https://www.fretflip.com/023177548424, also a short tutorial on pentatonics https://www.fretflip.com/minor-pentatonic

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

#117

Post by uglycoyote »

Very cool. I've also had a side-project developing something similar for a while: http://sonicpines.com/fretboard

I keep being surprised at people having the same idea e.g., see also Grunfy's post from a few months ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17272516 He has some very nice stuff there.

My work-in-progress is also derived from "first principles", although I haven't bothered to try adding alternate tunings yet.

Mostly my focus has been on using it to aid learning improvisation, so one feature i added to my little app was the ability to set up a particular chord pattern on the fretboard and "save" it, so that you can have several different diagrams on the screen at once, e.g., one for each of the three chords in a 3-chord song.

Like you, I also have been using Typescript and SVG, but not D3 (just drawing SVG elements directly using React seems to work well enough for my purposes)

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