Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Music Theory for Programmers

runjs.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 259 posts

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#141

Post by odyssey7 »

Crabber wrote: post #136

I think music is a good "test" for logically thinking people because it requires you to put away your logical brain and just accept that music sounds good because "it just does" and music theory is the way it is because "it just is". I don't think you can get good at an instrument or enjoy music if you keep trying to force it to make logical sense in your brain all the time. The fact that the author admits straight o…

Fair enough. Models tend to be imperfect, and music theory is definitely no exception to that rule, and we attempt to model music because we care about the underlying phenomenon (music).

As someone who enjoys listening to music, creating music, and music theory, I'd characterize the latter as providing a specialized vocabulary; an approach to listening, since words in the vocabulary represent concepts that you can hear; and a toolbox of concepts you can draw from.

It's a model, you can use it as much or as little as you like. And there's more than one model, and sometimes the different models overlap more or less, and you can choose any of them or none of them and still make and enjoy music.

The other thing it provides is a wildly complex logical system with fascinating philosophical connections. Some people enjoy exploring that more than making music with it, and that's also okay. I've certainly gotten a lot of enjoyment out of that. It's made me a better thinker. In math, formulas can be elegant. In music theory, different constructions induce different experiences.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#142

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

HexDecOctBin wrote: post #44
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…

As a non-musician non-Western programmer, the only music book that is making sense to me (still reading) is Robert Snyder's Music and Memory[1]. It's the first book that doesn't trick me by trying to pass cultural artefacts (notes, scales, raga, etc.) as some universal truth, or douse me in medieval pseudo-science (Pythagorean small ratios, etc.) I am not an expert, so maybe this book has its own shortcomings which I…

"Music of the Whole Earth" by David Reck is pretty good, too.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#143

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

dyzone wrote: post #132
ludston wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit more circular than that. The music you were raised with sounds good to you, which means you want to understand how to make music like that hence the dominance of 12 tones and major and minor scales in Western music. But also, nobody bothers to talk about this because for beginners without sufficient focus on mastery by copying other people, they're generally not going to be able to do anything notable with…

> The music you were raised with sounds good to you Speaking for myself, the music I was raised with doesn't sound that good to me.

What is meant here is that there are different musical cultures around the world, and if you grew up in one that, for example, prominently uses quarter-tones/microtones (e.g. a lot of music from Arabic and Indian cultures) then we know that you will have a different reaction to, say, Bach, than someone who grew up in a culture that uses strict equal temperament.

It does not mean "my parents played a lot of and that doesn't sound good to me".

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#144

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

teiferer wrote: post #122

>Sound is just air pressure wobbling. Sorry man, if you approach things from that angle then no wonder music is a mystery to you. The issue with "deriving from first principles" is that it very much depends on what you consider "principles" and which you pick. Take two people who want to derive sth "from first principles" and they will arrive at wildly different things. Because they start very differently. That's why…

> It's as if a physics student tries to derive medicine "from first principles" by starting at atoms and thinking hard. It doesn't work and won't fix your appendix

It might not help develop a cure for your appendix, but it does or can help understanding why certain cures work, or why some are preferred over others.

ps. background in biochemistry and biophysics

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#145

Post by chrisjj »

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #108
chrisjj wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Trying now. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. > How much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear). 100%. I tried three more. Same result. How much do you see?

> Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. .... 100% That's certainly a revealing example. TTLS is entirely melody, and the article says basically nothing about melody. At a stretch you could say "the article talks about the major scale, TTLS uses notes from a major scale" and if your conclusion is "that's why I like it", then you should feel the same way about any permutation of the notes in TTLS, or indeed anything you get fro…

> the article says basically nothing about melody

Its 13 mentions of melody sufficed for me.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#146

Post by chrisjj »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #99
chrisjj wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here[2] Is the syllabus for ABRSM Grades 1-5 music theory. I've always thought that's mistitled. Better would be Traditional Western Music Notation Theory. Notice what's absent, e.g. frequency and timbre which are nicely introduced by the current article. Music theory is a lot wider than the ABSRM syllabus. And the current article is a great starting point.

Done on purpose. The assumption here is that this theory is the one and only theory.

Sad but true.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#147

Post by Crabber »

odyssey7 wrote: post #141
Crabber wrote: post #136

I think music is a good "test" for logically thinking people because it requires you to put away your logical brain and just accept that music sounds good because "it just does" and music theory is the way it is because "it just is". I don't think you can get good at an instrument or enjoy music if you keep trying to force it to make logical sense in your brain all the time. The fact that the author admits straight o…

Fair enough. Models tend to be imperfect, and music theory is definitely no exception to that rule, and we attempt to model music because we care about the underlying phenomenon (music). As someone who enjoys listening to music, creating music, and music theory, I'd characterize the latter as providing a specialized vocabulary; an approach to listening, since words in the vocabulary represent concepts that you can he…

Fair points, I should probably disclose that my comment is perhaps one of those "looking like I'm giving advice to other people but really just giving advice to myself" kind of comments :)

I have began learning instruments before and fell into the trap of asking too many "why" questions and then just got lost in music theory that a) didn't make too much logical sense and b) didn't help me actually get better at an instrument in any way.

I think it's very unlike programming where you could start with a hello world program and keep asking "why does it work like that" questions and keep getting deeper and deeper and actually end up with a very good understanding of computers by the end of it that actually would make you a better programmer.

But when you're learning an instrument I think perhaps at the start it's better to just accept that "chords sound good because they just do" rather than going off down a complete rabbit hole.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#148

Post by ta2112 »

Tuning pitches to one another is wildly complicated. The rabbit hole goes unfathomably deeper than this introductory stuff on ratios and equal temperament. High schools physics introduces basic concepts in a way that works in certain situations and can be confirmed somewhat through experimentation. However, when you go deeper into any subject, fluid mechanics and material tolerances come to mind, those simple introductions cease to resemble the complexity of the systems. Music is no exception. I remember being surprised by the many ways this platonic explanation of pitches breaks down when confronted by real instruments in real air heard by real ears. Welcome to beautiful complexity of music!

Example 1: Pianos are tuned with stretch tuning, where the high notes are tuned higher than their theoretical pitches, and vice versa for low notes. That's because of a thing called inharmonicity, where the overtones of short piano strings don't form perfect ratios with the fundamental. Maybe that has something to do with short strings vibrating more like metal cylinders than rods?

Example 2: French horns have a lot of tubing! The valves let you include different lengths of tube into the air column. With a single valve combination, the player can hit the fundamental and all the partials up until their lips can no longer take it. To play a scale or melody, they switch between different horn lengths, choosing the partial that will sound closest to the pitch they're going for. Really, all brass instruments function this way, I just mention French horns because I like them.

Example 3: String quartets tune their chords with each other on the fly. If you listen to a string quartet practice, they'll spend a good amount of time holding and adjusting intonation to each other. So unlike in the equal tempered world of keyboard tuning, strings and most instrumental ensembles are constantly adjusting to make their harmonies sound sweeter. Equal temperament doesn't come into play, unless you add a piano, which sort of forces everybody to uncomfortably conform to the limitations of set it and live with it keyboard tuning.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#149

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

bachbeethovench wrote: post #51

Musical traditions, of which the western is only one, are cultural conventions based on a subset of physical facts about sound. There is also a psychological and psycho-social component involved. This is all to say, while i like the post, i find the approach technocratic and one sided, as it will give a false feeling of truth and an illusion of having ultimately understood music. It's a quest for absolute scientific…

> And these conventions are for example different between western and traditional indian, arabic or chinese music.

TFA does acknowledge that it only really covers western music.

But on top of that, the other musical cultures you mention are in fact remarkably similar to western musical culture at the level TFA is describing.

They differ significantly in terms of what they do with e.g. dividing the octave into 12, but they all make heavy use of the 3/2 ratio and other similar concepts.

If you want to get really different, check out Byzantine musical culture. They have no octave equivalence (!) and their notation is 100% relative (i.e. they write melodies down as sequences of intervals, not sequences of absolute notes). Even so, they still use 12 tones per octave ...

Post reply on HN