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Music Theory for Programmers

runjs.app

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Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#11

Post by sjrd »

dyzone wrote: post #7
jemmyw wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny though how different people respond to learning music theory differently. I started on guitar when I was 19. I played for a long time at campfire level. When my kids started learning music I also learnt a lot, and now I know scale shapes and modes on guitar, so I can reasonably play to a song I'm hearing for the first time, then figure it out by ear. But I just cannot make the leap to knowing the notes at…

Your kid might have absolute pitch. Only a few percent of people have it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Cb1qwCUvI

Perfect pitch is not correlated with the ability to see written notes and immediately know how to play them on any instrument. It is only barely correlated with the same but for singing the note.

I do not have perfect pitch, but I could always do what GP's kid does. I am now a pretty good amateur singer.

What matters for this is learning to read the music notation and developing a sense (mostly subconscious) of scales and harmony. Perfect pitch does not help either of those things.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#14

Post by youoy »

ergonaught wrote: post #8

I want to read it, because it’s interesting. And yet. https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/09/05/the-revolt-of-the-re...

It looks good at the begining, but at some point it starts saying "half truths", or stating facts/conclusions with confidence as if that was the main reason, but its just half of it (and maybe not the most important half)...

I wanted to read it because I like the topic, but i somehow felt it was folluting my brain. I think i will also start joining the club of AI;dr to protect myself from pollution, even though i may miss some iteresting articles.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#15

Post by yiren »

ergonaught wrote: post #8

I want to read it, because it’s interesting. And yet. https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/09/05/the-revolt-of-the-re...

I did read it, found it mildly informative/interesting, then saw your comment, read the link, and pasted in two paragraphs into Pangram 4... ouch! I guess I'm not LLM-weary enough?

https://www.pangram.com/history/25773627-adfa-4efb-8c10-f4fd...

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#16

Post by polotics »

Let us try an experiment shall we: listen to any music you like and try and match the information the article provided to the complexity of what you are hearing. How much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear).

This article is trivializing music down to a few not-so-important facts and mistaking some math for anything that would help `programmers` (?) understand music.

Maybe start by rewatching "This is Spinal Tap" instead, and consider that https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/59n3pg/remembe...

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#17

Post by raincole »

theanonymousone wrote: post #12

How come the same article has been posted four times in the past 18 days? https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=runjs.app Doesn't HN have a temporal deduplication system?

When I tried to post a duplicated link HN will just redirect me to the existing one, but somehow everyone else seems to be able to post the same link multiple times.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#18

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

altmanaltman wrote: post #4

I learned to play guitar by my own when I was around 12. You don't really even need to know music theory to play guitar, as long as you understand the shapes etc. Over time, I developed shorthands for understanding theory like i can easily look at a fretboard and know which note it is. But what bugged me is that you seem to imply the reason why you couldn't learn a instrument was because you did not understand the wh…

Re: not knowing how to play because author doesn’t get the why

Quite a lot of people learn by imitation without knowing the underlying theory. Some people need a theoretical framework so that they have a mental model with which to understand everything else.

Fundamentally, you’re arguing against learning theory. Not everyone learns the same way. If you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with a basic fact of life.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#19

Post by altmanaltman »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #18
altmanaltman wrote: post #4

I learned to play guitar by my own when I was around 12. You don't really even need to know music theory to play guitar, as long as you understand the shapes etc. Over time, I developed shorthands for understanding theory like i can easily look at a fretboard and know which note it is. But what bugged me is that you seem to imply the reason why you couldn't learn a instrument was because you did not understand the wh…

Re: not knowing how to play because author doesn’t get the why Quite a lot of people learn by imitation without knowing the underlying theory. Some people need a theoretical framework so that they have a mental model with which to understand everything else. Fundamentally, you’re arguing against learning theory. Not everyone learns the same way. If you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with a basic fa…

No I don't have a "problem with that". And yes, people learn by imitation, which is what I meant by practice. Playing the guitar is a fundamentally different activity than knowing music theory. Becoming good at one doesn't make you good at the other naturally (since you are practicing two different things) and I am worried some people think its the same thing.

Furthermore, in real life, I have seen the same approach actually be detremental to learning guitar. Its a bit like football - there is a physical skill level to the sport which you can practice and then there is a theoritical part (tactics and formation) that help you understand the game and play better.

But if you just want to start by kicking a ball and you know everything about Pep Guardiola's new counterattacking system. Yet when you are kicking the ball and practicing the basic skills, you are not thinking woah am i a midfield playing the right side and looking for a pass? That type of thinking is not useful when you are learning how to kick a ball.

Ideally you should do the two together and work really hard on practice first if you actually want to be a footballer is my point. If you say oh no everyone is different, some people just like tactics, I don't think I say anything against it.

Theory first is not a good way to learn an instrument is my qualified statement. Not that theory is not important or doesnt matter or everyone should follow the same way of learning.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#20

Post by theanonymousone »

raincole wrote: post #17
theanonymousone wrote: post #12

How come the same article has been posted four times in the past 18 days? https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=runjs.app Doesn't HN have a temporal deduplication system?

When I tried to post a duplicated link HN will just redirect me to the existing one, but somehow everyone else seems to be able to post the same link multiple times.

Same. (but of course, you don't see the duplicates when they do accept your post)

You can also see duplicates e.g. here: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=semianalysis.com

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