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A study of musical scales (2017)

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Re: A study of musical scales (2017)

#11

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

exporectomy wrote: post #3

A bit of a tangent, but what I always found confusing about music theory is which parts are arbitrary historical legacy and which are fundamental to human enjoyment of music. 12 notes in a scale? Their particular frequencies? That whole multiplying and dividing business? Why the letters are in the wrong order. Why have sharps and flats instead of just more letters? I always get stuck wondering how much of this is jus…

It all starts to make sense once you start playing an instrument. Personally I think of music theory as a convenience. If I know music theory, then that makes it easier for me to play with other people who also know music theory, and a lot of musicians know music theory because it's a convention. Of course we can always throw these conventions away and do something completely new, but the problem with that is I'm not talented enough to be able to break away and make something cool like Jazz or microtones.

I really just want to have fun playing music with my friends, and 12 tones is enough to be able to do that.

Re: A study of musical scales (2017)

#12

Post by thenoblesunfish »

We get a post like this every couple of weeks, it seems. Given the audience here, I understand the impulse - it's very fun to see the structure, and it really helps you understand the framework upon which a lot of western music is built. But beware that this is not a way to actually understand what is interesting or compelling about "music", because you'll notice that the first step in all these articles is to reduce "music" to something you can analyze like it's computer code. This was tried in the early 20th century, with Schönberg etc. You get things like "12 tone music". It was tried in the mid 20th century onwards, when you had all kinds of flexibility to use crazy mathematical constructions with electronics and computers - you get things like Karlheinz Stockhausen. That is, things which don't sound any more interesting that any other arbitrary way of generating material with which to compose. These articles are fun, but don't think that they're about "music" any more than an article about the chemistry of a common pigment is an article about "painting".

Re: A study of musical scales (2017)

#14

Post by frankzander »

AareyBaba wrote: post #2

Oddly enough, I just finished watching this video which explains all the scales succinctly. I was struck by all the permutations that are possible. Simple method to organize ALL MUSICAL SCALES of harmonies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq2xt2D3e3E

Thanks ... this clarifies so many

Re: A study of musical scales (2017)

#15

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #12

We get a post like this every couple of weeks, it seems. Given the audience here, I understand the impulse - it's very fun to see the structure, and it really helps you understand the framework upon which a lot of western music is built. But beware that this is not a way to actually understand what is interesting or compelling about "music", because you'll notice that the first step in all these articles is to reduce…

Yes - this is more like stamp collecting than composition.

It can be interesting for generating unfamiliar colours, but that's all. It's certainly not a deep key to harmonic theory.

And it ignores the fact that scales don't necessarily repeat at the octave, scale steps don't have to be equal, and there can be any number of steps in a scale.

Re: A study of musical scales (2017)

#16

Post by [deleted] »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #12

We get a post like this every couple of weeks, it seems. Given the audience here, I understand the impulse - it's very fun to see the structure, and it really helps you understand the framework upon which a lot of western music is built. But beware that this is not a way to actually understand what is interesting or compelling about "music", because you'll notice that the first step in all these articles is to reduce…

[deleted]

Re: A study of musical scales (2017)

#17

Post by john61 »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #12

We get a post like this every couple of weeks, it seems. Given the audience here, I understand the impulse - it's very fun to see the structure, and it really helps you understand the framework upon which a lot of western music is built. But beware that this is not a way to actually understand what is interesting or compelling about "music", because you'll notice that the first step in all these articles is to reduce…

Yes this is so true. It is a sign of our general alienation from nature. We virtualize everything and think the simplified, abstract, intellectual picture is the reality. Nature is much more than a mental model of it. https://publicdelivery.org/magritte-not-a-pipe/

Re: A study of musical scales (2017)

#19

Post by tomca32 »

> You can't play a song in C minor, because that would require three flats. So instead you play the song with A as the root (A B C D E F G). That scale is a mode of the major scale, called the Aeolian Mode.

This paragraph confused me until I realized it's supposed to say "That scale is a mode of the MINOR scale".

Other than that I thoroughly enjoyed this. Never thought of a scale as a bitmask before.

Re: A study of musical scales (2017)

#20

Post by codeulike »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #12

We get a post like this every couple of weeks, it seems. Given the audience here, I understand the impulse - it's very fun to see the structure, and it really helps you understand the framework upon which a lot of western music is built. But beware that this is not a way to actually understand what is interesting or compelling about "music", because you'll notice that the first step in all these articles is to reduce…

Cmon this is hacker news not 'art is ineffable news'.

Yes the point of things like this is to help understand the framework that underlies (edit: most western) music. There's actually a lot of structure to western music that is obfuscated by the completely bonkers terminology. I find articles like this very intersting and useful, and there's no way you'll catch me listeneing to stockhausen.

For example the explanation of modes vs scales in this article is the clearest I've ever seen.

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