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Music Theory for Programmers

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Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#171

Post by handsome_jack_ »

tessierashpool wrote: post #9
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...

yeah, this is robot garbage. the post says: I wanted to start from scratch and learn music from first principles, and I began that journey by writing code. but we know that's not true. you began that journey in Claude Code, or Codex, or ChatGPT, or whatever. you just want to demo your startup that embeds JavaScript in web pages.

It’s LLM slop by a JavaScript script kiddie. What did you expect?

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#172

Post by odyssey7 »

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…

+1 on recommending Schoenberg. Harmonielehre is a philosophical work as much as it is a music theory treatise.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#173

Post by simonask »

strenholme wrote: post #112
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sound design theory, not music theory. They're not the same thing. Music theory is about chords, scales, rhythm, and - most importantly and elusively - how to fit them together to say something interesting. Entry-level trad Western Theory gives you the concept of a basic grammar as a first introduction, but once you have that you can extend it fairly painlessly to jazz/funk/metal/pop/whatever. Advanced classic…

For people with the mind of a programmer, explaining the mathematical basis of equal temperament and then the major scale (the article doesn’t explain the major scale well, but simply says “it sounds better than a chromatic scale”) allows a programmer to understand not just the how but the why for the basics of western music. For people that just want the how, one would start with “here is a pentatonic scale” followe…

It's also a really strong example of "missing the forest for the trees".

Deriving Western music traditions from first principles does not help you to understand why, what, and how any of it actually works.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#174

Post by simonask »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #157
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am missing the part where TFA said that the goal was to help with "basic song writing". And what is "distracting level of nerdery" to someone can be the key that helps unlock a deeper level of understanding to someone else. I thought we understood neurodivergence a little better these days. The western theory stuff you describe has almost no relevance at all when considered non-western musical cultures. The content…

> The western theory stuff you describe has almost no relevance at all when considered non-western musical cultures. Say it louder for those at the back. People keep forgetting that western theory was unable to explain why the blues (the American music form by excellence) worked at all. And arguably, a lot of the western music theory is more akin to a codification of existing musical practices in the western world ra…

You're confusing some tenses here. At the time when Blues became widely known, "Western music theory" covered Beethoven. That's about it.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#175

Post by simonask »

chrisjj wrote: post #133
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sound design theory, not music theory. They're not the same thing. Music theory is about chords, scales, rhythm, and - most importantly and elusively - how to fit them together to say something interesting. Entry-level trad Western Theory gives you the concept of a basic grammar as a first introduction, but once you have that you can extend it fairly painlessly to jazz/funk/metal/pop/whatever. Advanced classic…

> Music theory is about chords, scales, rhythm, and - most importantly and elusively - how to fit them together to say something interesting. That's part of it, but you can make music with none of it. Me, I agree with WP: "Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_theory

> That's part of it, but you can make music with none of it.

Does anybody, though? Would anybody listen to it? Every culture on Earth has music. All of them use chords, scales, and rhythm, in various ways. Definitely not all of them use the Western diatonic system, but that's beside the point.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#176

Post by pierrec »

seanhunter wrote: post #38
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…

Also his physics explanation is not the best, and you can see if you just ask the next “why” question. He talks about the harmonic series giving the basic ratios of the Pythagorean scale but why is that the case? When you solve the equations of motion of any sort of harmonic oscillator (including crucially, strings, vibrating columns of air from a wind instrument etc) you see that you can solve them using a Fourier s…

For metallophones used in Gamelan music, I don't think the key difference is emphasis on higher vs. lower overtones. Rather, their overtones don't follow the harmonic series but are still well-defined. Their tuning goes along with that, and it works given that particular non-harmonic timbre, but wouldn't work with western classical instruments, which tend to approximate the harmonic series in their overtones. In all cases the lower overtones remain the most audible and the most important ones for tuning and finding consonance.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#177

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

chrisjj wrote: post #145
BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Most of those are variable names. The rest: > Why a melody wants to land where it lands is still mostly opaque to me

> A key, its diatonic chords, a progression, those chords broken into an arpeggio one note at a time, and a melody that sticks to the scale

> Change the melody array to anything at all and it will still fit

The first part of TTLS (in C) is: C C G G A A G F F E E D D C. Let's follow the guidance of this last part and change the "melody array"; for neatness we can alphabetize it: A A C C C D D E E F F G G G. Now that you understand melody, please tell me why even though it "still fit"s it doesn't sound as nice.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#178

Post by simonask »

bluGill wrote: post #119
intrikate wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt there is any composer that actually is relying on music theory for their compositions. Would you expect an author to disregard all of the conventions we've discovered and codified through specified language because it's just "more natural" if they let it flow out of them? No, I don't think you would. You'd find it difficult to read and interact with, both as a reader and a fellow writer. Music is the same.…

You have it backward. The conventions were discovered first, music theory came after composers did things. Music's theory describes what we already know works, not how to make things work. No composer I know thinks in the terms of music theory. They often use a chord progression that music theory describes why it works, but they're not thinking of it in terms of music theory. They're thinking in terms of chord progre…

> The conventions were discovered first, music theory came after composers did things.

Broadly completely untrue.

If you're trying to say that humans were making music before we had a theory for it - absolutely. But every advanced musical tradition on the planet (including Western, but also Indian, Chinese, etc.) has developed alongside a system of analyzing that music, and for very good reason: It's a lot easier to teach music when you can actually talk about it.

I promise you, every single competent composer and musician on the planet - from every culture - has a fairly firm grasp on music theory, in whatever flavor is relevant to the form of music they practice. Every Indian musician who plays classical Indian music knows their ragas. Every Western musician can navigate the diatonic scale.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#179

Post by luqtas »

ur-whale wrote: post #161
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…

> 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. I wholeheartedly agree with this. But then, please , don't call it "theory". There is strictly nothing theoretical or indeed, logical, about it.

with good strumming and fretting technique, you can play any of the 10 most used chord progressions in a nylon guitar and impress A LOT of people

most popular songs on charts today aren't on the edge of what's new... music theory is a rule set and to break the rules you need to know them. there's a big difference in an illiterate and a jazz musician improvising something for 10 min., as well a music from the scratch by someone who understand orchestration and your unknown local rock artist

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#180

Post by simonask »

coldtea wrote: post #156
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…

A counter argument to the typical "piss on TFA" HN top voted comment: (musician of many decades) the post IS music theory of the kind it purports to be, it's not misleading in the least, at worst it's incomplete (but never claimed to be complete) and simplified. It's just not conventional music theory (which is just a set of rules thrown at you). But the whole point that the parent missed, is that it is told in a way…

I'm a programmer with a degree in musicology as well.

This ain't it.

I'm reading your comment with a certain disdain for analysis and theory, which I get - a lot of people come out scarred from music theory training, and I'm sorry someone hurt you that way.

But music theory is fundamentally a way to talk about music. Nobody is trying to "sell" you anything, but it does become much easier to work together as musicians when we share a language we can use to talk about the music. "Take it from the candenza", "a bit more ritenuto", etc. is just more efficient and precise than "take it from the place where it goes dun-dun-dunnnn", or "go more slowly-like".

Seriously, you're doing yourself a huge favor as a musician and broadening your conceptual thinking about music by learning this stuff.

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