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Music Theory for Programmers

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Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#181

Post by simonask »

HexDecOctBin wrote: post #167
strenholme wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say 2/1, 3/2, 4/3, 5/4, and 6/5 are intervals which sound pleasant to the human ear. [1] Once that is established, as per the linked article, 12-tone equal temperament makes a lot of sense (but isn’t universal, obviously) because it’s resulting tuning gives us a really close 3/2 and 4/3, and having a simple 12-tone scale reasonably in tune everyone can agree on makes sense. We can t…

West Asian maqam has 24 notes, Indian classical has 22 notes, Indonesian gamelan has 5 or 7 notes. What would be the ratios that sound pleasurable now? What is or isn't pleasurable is a matter of cultural training, and treating them as absolute facts is what I found frustrating in the books that I was complaining about.

All of those systems you mention also include those so-called "pleasant" ratios.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#182

Post by bonzini »

iainctduncan wrote: post #164
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it confuse people? There is "western music theory" ala Schenker, voice leading, serialism etc (to mention a couple of names that some people might have heard of) but that describes things to do once you've got a scale and chord system. This is "12T music theory", describing how you might get to a scale and chord system. I don't see how it is confusing. You can spend a lot of time doing "western music theory"…

"Music theory" has a near universally accepted meaning. This article is not about that, it's about what we all call in music academia acoustics and digital synthesis (which of course I know you know as I know your work). The derivation of scales from acoustic principles is not in theory books; it's in acoustics books. I've taken numerous theory courses and also taken university acoustics courses and digital synthesis…

Are Peano's axioms number theory? No one really uses them directly (other than induction) when working on practical number theory problems, but they are considered part of it.

Scales and chords build the fundamental basic blocks for Western music (I would introduce equal temperament third but that's only a matter of ordering). They are taken for granted in musical practice, I agree, but only because musical practice concerns itself about how/what to play and why. If somebody comes from the point of view that clefs and stems (which are undoubtedly musical tools) are gatekeeping and all you need is a piano roll, this article explains from first principles enough musical building blocks to tell them why they're wrong.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#183

Post by iainctduncan »

bonzini wrote: post #182
iainctduncan wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Music theory" has a near universally accepted meaning. This article is not about that, it's about what we all call in music academia acoustics and digital synthesis (which of course I know you know as I know your work). The derivation of scales from acoustic principles is not in theory books; it's in acoustics books. I've taken numerous theory courses and also taken university acoustics courses and digital synthesis…

Are Peano's axioms number theory? No one really uses them directly (other than induction) when working on practical number theory problems, but they are considered part of it. Scales and chords build the fundamental basic blocks for Western music (I would introduce equal temperament third but that's only a matter of ordering). They are taken for granted in musical practice, I agree, but only because musical practice…

Sure, but none of that changes the fact that is someone reads that article and says "wow I like music theory!" and orders the best theory books or signs up for a course or lessons, they are going to be PISSED. They will get some books that don't cover what they think music theory is at all and that touch on basically nothing in this article.

On the other hand, if the author had said something like "Intro to the acoustics behind musical scales", then they might go on to order great books like Kyle Gann's or Gareth Loy's and be off to the races.

Redefining normal terms just makes people sound like they have no clue, and that is, 100%, a serious disservice to the reader/student.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#184

Post by bonsai_bar »

strenholme wrote: post #109
alew1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

“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.” What the article is trying to explain here is that A=440 is just a convention. This is probably where the article should have had a discussion about perfect pitch vs. relative pitch. I would have written it like this: “Since this note is 440 hertz, in Western music, because o…

What does "break" mean here? What does "at this level there are no notes yet, just a number" mean?

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#185

Post by hn993302 »

The tension and resolution thing always surprised me. Every major scale has a minor scale with the same exact notes but played in a different order, and other ones like Dorian. It's like oh, you started with this note 8 bars ago, so now it sounds melancholy. Everyone (including this site) just says it feels that way but doesn't explain why.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#186

Post by hn993302 »

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…

I tried making things like a 7-TET keyboard in JS at some point and concluded that they probably picked 12 because there are a lot of factors and it's a manageable number. Almost no two notes sounded harmonious on my 7-TET. I know plenty of cultures use other scales too.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#187

Post by hn993302 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #143
dyzone wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 d…

I grew up with Western music, and now Arabic music is one of my favorites. I really don't think Westerners hear semitones differently. Also, a lot of Arabic music is 12-tone, and even if it weren't, they probably appreciate Bach the same way.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#188

Post by Pannoniae »

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…

Being decent at music has definitely made me a worse programmer because I just do many things - software design, structure, names, you name it - on the vibes instead of sticking to the rules to the chagrin of others :D

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#189

Post by alwa »

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…

Thank you for sharing this (and your other reactions downthread) with such depth and care.

Setting your off-the-cuff comment alongside TFA’s Claudish muddle reminds me—as if I needed reminding—about the hazardous parts of self-education, particularly when that education is, as it seems maybe to have been in the author’s case, led by LLM…

I appreciate a programmer hacking on sound and music—that’s awesome, and I’m really grateful the author did so and shared his experience. The trouble comes from the unearned air of authority.

When I worry about the broader question of subtle truths getting lost in the slop cycle, it feels reassuring when authentic expertise like yours still stands out clearly. I’ll take what optimism I can find!

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#190

Post by HexDecOctBin »

simonask wrote: post #181
HexDecOctBin wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

West Asian maqam has 24 notes, Indian classical has 22 notes, Indonesian gamelan has 5 or 7 notes. What would be the ratios that sound pleasurable now? What is or isn't pleasurable is a matter of cultural training, and treating them as absolute facts is what I found frustrating in the books that I was complaining about.

All of those systems you mention also include those so-called "pleasant" ratios.

How would you divide 22 in small ratios, considering that 11 is a prime number?
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