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Music Theory for Programmers

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Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#61

Post by rcxdude »

alew1 wrote: post #28
yiren wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

When you read something like this > Change it to 300 and run it again. You get a different pitch and nothing breaks, because at this level there are no notes yet, just a number. does it make sense? Or perhaps it just seems like something easy enough to skim past without worrying about whether it makes sense? Before LMs, I would have assumed that a person intentionally wrote that sentence, and perhaps spent some time…

It's a very idiosyncratic (and often irritating) style, but I don't find it particularly difficult to understand. It's not meaningless, just weirdly phrased.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#63

Post by Rochus »

dyzone wrote: post #53
seanhunter wrote: post #31

This is (mostly) not music theory and what is music theory is mostly wrong or incomplete to the point of being wildly misleading. Source: have degree and postgrad in music, was a professional musician until RSI put paid to that career, wife is a professional musician and teaches to postgrad level at 2 conservertoires, most of our friends are professional musicians, have a house full of scores and music books. If you…

What is your opinion of open music theory v2? People on reddit think very highly of it. https://viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory/

Doesn't look like really a "v2" to me, rather v1 a bit re-arranged. A true "theory" able to explain present music (or even Jazz from the seventies) and also support its creation is still widely lacking, or just a naive variation of what was used for classical music. Tymoczko & co go a bit in a more general/useful direction where the theory eventually can also be used to define algorithms which can "compose" credible contemporary music, but still a long way to go. The latter is like the "litmus test" from my humble point of view whether a theory is indeed useful.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#64

Post by pprotas »

seanhunter wrote: post #56
ripharamberip wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that the article isn't music theory but don't bother to say why.

It's a fun webpage about a programmer dipping their toes in the very most basic elements of music and documenting some of their current understanding.Imagine I wrote an article called "Programming for musicians" that was mostly about how to turn your computer on and install homebrew[1] and finished by showing you step by step how to cut and paste "hello world" in javascript from stack overflow. You might rightly say…

The author admits that this article applies to only a specific flavor of music theory, and says that it only covers a small part of it. The article even mentions at the end it does not cover some of the topics you think are missing.

The article is not a comprehensive syllabus of all elementary music theory, and it does not claim to be. I believe you are being too harsh, as this approach to understanding music feels much more intuitive to some (like the author, and myself), compared to traditional music education.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#65

Post by dosisking »

ripharamberip wrote: post #45
seanhunter wrote: post #31

This is (mostly) not music theory and what is music theory is mostly wrong or incomplete to the point of being wildly misleading. Source: have degree and postgrad in music, was a professional musician until RSI put paid to that career, wife is a professional musician and teaches to postgrad level at 2 conservertoires, most of our friends are professional musicians, have a house full of scores and music books. If you…

You say that the article isn't music theory but don't bother to say why.

> You say that the article isn't music theory but don't bother to say why.

His response sounded kind of gatekeep-y to me. Kind of like an academic with theoretical knowledge, but no practical experience.

Many great musicians never learned proper music theory. Innovation comes from outside, not from inside the establishment.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#66

Post by pythonRon »

I was interested in reading the article but, like so many I find online these days, the white text on black makes my eyes throb to the point of giving me a headache if I don't stop after a few seconds. so I have to give it a miss. I've read that white text on a black background is easier on the eyes, but it's obviously not universal.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#67

Post by yladiz »

pythonRon wrote: post #66

I was interested in reading the article but, like so many I find online these days, the white text on black makes my eyes throb to the point of giving me a headache if I don't stop after a few seconds. so I have to give it a miss. I've read that white text on a black background is easier on the eyes, but it's obviously not universal.

It’s not perfect but I’ve just tested and reader mode does work for this website.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#68

Post by gentooflux »

dosisking wrote: post #65
ripharamberip wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that the article isn't music theory but don't bother to say why.

> You say that the article isn't music theory but don't bother to say why. His response sounded kind of gatekeep-y to me. Kind of like an academic with theoretical knowledge, but no practical experience. Many great musicians never learned proper music theory. Innovation comes from outside, not from inside the establishment.

Music theory is a way of describing that cool thing you played, not the other way around

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#69

Post by seba_dos1 »

maybewhenthesun wrote: post #26

> Which is a strange way to teach a system that essentially comes out of physics and arithmetic. There are twelve notes for a reason. There is of course a lot of physics involved. But there is at least as much convention at play. So imho this is a very one sided way of looking at it. There is a physical reason the 12 notes are those 12 notes (though the exact frequencies assigned are influenced by culture as well), b…

It took me a while to realize that "because that is the convention" was the answer to a big chunk of my confusion about music notation. A weirdly helpful answer, but so often nobody bothers to even tell you that, so you just assume you must be missing something when you can't see where these things are coming from!

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#70

Post by analog31 »

dosisking wrote: post #65
ripharamberip wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that the article isn't music theory but don't bother to say why.

> You say that the article isn't music theory but don't bother to say why. His response sounded kind of gatekeep-y to me. Kind of like an academic with theoretical knowledge, but no practical experience. Many great musicians never learned proper music theory. Innovation comes from outside, not from inside the establishment.

Retiring from music due to RSI suggests practical experience.

Disclosure: Musician

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