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Why 13th Chords

jtauber.com

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Re: Why 13th Chords

#71

Post by davedx »

Jgrubb wrote: post #39

...And this is what I love about Hacker News. As a 33 year old musician who got the programming/entrepreneurial bug only more recently, it brings me great hope to see things like this on this board. It brings me hope because a lot of times I feel like such a late comer to the party, surrounded by folks younger than me with many more years of experience in the programming realm having conversations about others' techn…

33 year old programmer just getting into music again here! I too love these posts as I'm just starting to find my way around music theory :)

Re: Why 13th Chords

#72

Post by jtauber »

cliffbean wrote: post #47
splat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These chords progress in units of 2. So you start with your triad (1st, 3rd, 5th). For the 7th chord you add the 7th, naturally enough. The next chord is then a 9th chord, so you add a 9th interval, but it wraps around modulo 8, so it's really a 2nd interval (since intervals are 1-indexed). Next it's an 11th chord, but the interval is really a 4th, and so on. The idea is to think of them spread out though, as success…

This has always bothered me. In what's typically called a 13th chord, the 11th is almost always omitted because it either clashes, or it changes the chord into something completely different. Stacking 3rds doesn't actually explain how jazz chords work. And it tends to produce corny voicings. To make an analogy with computers, it feels like the classical notation is an abstraction layer which has been extended beyond…

that was sort of the realization I had that led to the post; it isn't about stacking 3rds and that's what misled me for all those years.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#74

Post by robocop »

robocop wrote: post #63
jtauber wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm assuming by convention that the 7th is flattened, as the notation "C7" does.

I think the convention for chord notation is different to the convention for scale degrees. The 7th note in C major is B, but a C7 has a Bb.

TBH I think you should delete this post. I think I would have been confused had I read it when I was learning harmony theory. Please see http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#75

Post by mirkules »

jtheory wrote: post #32
autarch wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there really isn't a better way. All the rules behind music theory are based on what sounds good, not the other way around. What you can do, however, is push yourself to try out new harmonic structures. You can make your chords more complex, you can delay resolution much longer, you can shift keys. There are also other musical idioms like polytonality, alternate scales, etc. that you can use to expand you horizon…

Definitely agreed that theory follows practice, not the other way around. BUT it's still good to work on a better grasp of the theory -- if you try chord progressions at random until you hit something that sounds good... yes, there's a better way. The whole point of documenting lots of rules around "what sounds good" is that you can refer to the rules and save a hell of a lot of time in your experimentation.

"if you try chord progressions at random until you hit something that sounds good... yes, there's a better way."

This is definitely what I meant, and it's what I currently do. My grasp on music theory is shaky at best, and I'm not exactly sure where to start to fill in the gaps in my knowledge (this may be true of any self-taught skill).

Re: Why 13th Chords

#76

Post by mirkules »

davedx wrote: post #71
Jgrubb wrote: post #39

...And this is what I love about Hacker News. As a 33 year old musician who got the programming/entrepreneurial bug only more recently, it brings me great hope to see things like this on this board. It brings me hope because a lot of times I feel like such a late comer to the party, surrounded by folks younger than me with many more years of experience in the programming realm having conversations about others' techn…

33 year old programmer just getting into music again here! I too love these posts as I'm just starting to find my way around music theory :)

Ditto. 31 yo programmer as well, just bought my first Gibson Les Paul after 15 years of playing. I feel great because it's forcing me to learn new things so I don't have the feeling I am letting the LP go to waste.

I would love to see more music-related posts. Math and music are so closely related, I really think it switches on a creative part of the brain that is used in math/programming too.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#77

Post by dextorious »

sudoscience wrote: post #64
dextorious wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's a perfectly succinct and easy notation. Not many musicians have a "hard time" getting it, except for those that never cared to study it. In fact, in the history of jazz piss poor black kids that never went to school managed to master music theory just fine. And an enormous amount of people all around the world. The particular example you mention (chord naming) has something like 1/100 the difficulty of…

I disagree. I was a professional musician at one time and regular expressions are far easier than music theory, in my opinion.

I was comparing regexes to chord naming (which was the OP topic), not music theory in general.

If you want a comparison for music theory, try compiler theory (or just type theory).

Music theory is dead easy in comparison, no?

Re: Why 13th Chords

#80

Post by _mayo »

robocop wrote: post #63
jtauber wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm assuming by convention that the 7th is flattened, as the notation "C7" does.

I think the convention for chord notation is different to the convention for scale degrees. The 7th note in C major is B, but a C7 has a Bb.

Major 7 chords are explicitly written as such. So in the case of a C chord with a major 7, it would be noted as Cmaj7.
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