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

251–260 of 261 posts

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#251

Post by mikestew »

polotics wrote: post #43
amingilani wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear). Very clearly. The author constructed a melody from first principles in the article. You can take any song, deconstruct it using the information in there and begin to see why it sounds nice. > This article is trivializing music down to a few not-so-important facts This is a music theory lecture with code examples. Hardly “not-so-important”. > mistakin…

Sure. It is a trope amongst gigging musicians that over-intellectualizing the feels is a massive no-no. Hence the joke about Db being the saddest chord... also Phil Collins said that, he would know :-D... ...and C# being the most evil chord. Hilarious. I persist: "before you can be good, you first have to be bad" is more helpful music theory than that whole JavaScript visuals page.

If I might be allowed some pedantry, it’s Dm that’s the “saddest of all keys”:

https://hub.yamaha.com/brand/creativity/the-saddest-of-all-k...

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#252

Post by chrisjj »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #250
chrisjj wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_note .

Ah, sure, OK. There are "notes as the name of certain pitches", and "notes as things musicians play". The former is a relatively simple concept, the latter much less so. I do see that the vast majority of the wikipedia article is concerned with "notes as the name of certain pitches".

> There are "notes as the name of certain pitches"

The article doesn't say that. If it did, it would be incorrect.

Notes aren't pitched. Notes aren't pitch names.

Notes have pitch.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#253

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

chrisjj wrote: post #252
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, sure, OK. There are "notes as the name of certain pitches", and "notes as things musicians play". The former is a relatively simple concept, the latter much less so. I do see that the vast majority of the wikipedia article is concerned with "notes as the name of certain pitches".

> There are "notes as the name of certain pitches" The article doesn't say that. If it did, it would be incorrect. Notes aren't pitched. Notes aren't pitch names. Notes have pitch.

"A" is the name of a note. So is "Sa" and so is "Ke" (in different traditions). They all denote a specific pitch, though precisely which pitch they denote is not always clear (e.g. among traditions in which all pitch is relative to a root, or in a context where the accepted mapping between frequency and note names is unspecified).

When someone plays an "A" they have more choices than just its pitch, and the result is also a note.

"Dog" is the name of a pet often found among humans. So is "cat" and so is "mouse". They denote a specific pet, though precisely which pet they denote may not be clear.

When someone chooses a "dog", they have many more choices than just it being a dog, but the result is still a dog.

Names of things, and the things themselves are different, but when we write and talk about them, whether we using the name or attempting to describe the thing itself is not always clear. When I say "it was an "A"" to refer to the sound someone made, I may be trying to refer to every aspect of the sound in a rather anemic way, or I may be trying to denote its pitch. In English, the use of "A" to denote a pitch is widely, formally and colloquially, capturing that "there is a note we call A". The fact that the sound itself had other properties besides those captured by this pitch designation doesn't change that. When a teacher tells a student to play an "A", nobody would sensibly quibble and say "I don't know what to play". They would say "my teacher told me to play an A and I did". The fact that the language used by the teacher named only the pitch and did not convey any information about dynamics or articulation wouldn't stop any sensible person from agreeing that the teacher told the student to play "the note we call A".

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#254

Post by chrisjj »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #253
chrisjj wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are "notes as the name of certain pitches" The article doesn't say that. If it did, it would be incorrect. Notes aren't pitched. Notes aren't pitch names. Notes have pitch.

"A" is the name of a note. So is "Sa" and so is "Ke" (in different traditions). They all denote a specific pitch, though precisely which pitch they denote is not always clear (e.g. among traditions in which all pitch is relative to a root, or in a context where the accepted mapping between frequency and note names is unspecified). When someone plays an "A" they have more choices than just its pitch, and the result is…

> "A" is the name of a note. So is "Sa" and so is "Ke" (in different traditions). They all denote a specific pitch

Not true. There are multiple pitches named A. One (or more) per octave, in fact.

That's why A is termed a pitch class.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#255

Post by runarberg »

simonask wrote: post #246
curious_soul wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic, but given your credentials you might be a good person to ask. Any recommendations on how I should go about learning to play piano? I am just starting out. I have no music background except playing some basic self taught guitar in my teenage years. I can't read music fluently yet. I have access to a nice Yamaha with weighted keys.

The tried and true approach is to find a piano teacher in your area, schedule weekly appointments, set aside at least one hour of practice every day between lessons.

I am hoping you can get pretty far by self studying if your study material is made by experts and vetted by peers, and you are diligent in practicing an hour a day using a practice routine recommended by experts.

Personally I am aiming towards becoming a low-intermediate guitar player over the course of a full year by self studying. My biggest fear is that I develop bad habits, but I am hopeful that the bad habits can be trained out of me with a lot of effort during the intermediate phase.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#256

Post by strenholme »

throwaway91827 wrote: post #249
strenholme wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we teach theory without first principles, all we have to do is say “C + E + G make up a major triad”; we may go as far as to explain that, in a major key, the I, IV, and V chords are major chords, the ii, iii, and vi chords are minor chords, and the vii chord is a very dissonant diminished chord. However, first principles explain “why” a major chord sounds the way it does, and “why” a minor chord has more tension.…

Does music come from first principles, or is it a cultural product that's a result of a feedback loop between a listener/practitioner and an ambient culture and technological landscape? Parrotting is exactly how we learn music- we hear, and we reproduce what we hear. What you call "deriving music from first principles", I call, "post-facto justification for arbitrary aesthetic tendencies".

It’s actually an open question of whether “natural” tuning is 3-limit or 5-limit tuning. Five limit tuning, which I discuss above and use to form a major scale, goes back to Ptolemy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy's_intense_diatonic_sca...

Other ancient tuning systems are based on three limit tuning:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi%27er_l%C3%BC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_tuning

Whether the human ear naturally prefers 5/4 (5-limit) over 81/64 (Pythagorean) for the major third, and 6/5 over 32/27 for the minor third, is still something I don’t have solid research on.

As it turns out, the modern western scale is more closely aligned with Pythagorean tuning than with five-limit tuning. In particular, the Pythagorean thirds are closer to modern 12-tone equal tempered thirds than they are to five limit thirds.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#257

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

chrisjj wrote: post #254
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A" is the name of a note. So is "Sa" and so is "Ke" (in different traditions). They all denote a specific pitch, though precisely which pitch they denote is not always clear (e.g. among traditions in which all pitch is relative to a root, or in a context where the accepted mapping between frequency and note names is unspecified). When someone plays an "A" they have more choices than just its pitch, and the result is…

> "A" is the name of a note. So is "Sa" and so is "Ke" (in different traditions). They all denote a specific pitch Not true. There are multiple pitches named A. One (or more) per octave, in fact. That's why A is termed a pitch class .

That's fair ... among music theorists.

Almost nobody else would ever say that "A is a pitch class". Just like nobody would ever say "a Chihuaha is a class of dogs", even though that's just as true. They'd point to a particular Chihuaha and say "that's a Chihuaha".

I'm really done splitting hairs here. I thought that we were discussing important things, not semantic details. Performed notes are more than their pitch, but the names of notes are considered by almost everyone to be notes.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#258

Post by maybewhenthesun »

hn993302 wrote: post #187
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can re-train your ear of course. But on average a lot of people used to western music feel that classical arabic/indian music with half/quarter tones in it sounds 'out of tune'/wrong.

I really like classical arabic music. But when I tried to play the half tones in a tune I studied hard on the syrian guy I was playing with told me to please not attempt those because I was horribly out of tune :-P . Not because I played a half tone, of course. He did play them. But because my half tone was subtly slightly off the right half tone.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#259

Post by chrisjj »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #257
chrisjj wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "A" is the name of a note. So is "Sa" and so is "Ke" (in different traditions). They all denote a specific pitch Not true. There are multiple pitches named A. One (or more) per octave, in fact. That's why A is termed a pitch class .

That's fair ... among music theorists. Almost nobody else would ever say that "A is a pitch class". Just like nobody would ever say "a Chihuaha is a class of dogs", even though that's just as true. They'd point to a particular Chihuaha and say "that's a Chihuaha". I'm really done splitting hairs here. I thought that we were discussing important things, not semantic details. Performed notes are more than their pitch,…

> That's fair ... among music theorists.

This is a music theory article, remember.

> Almost nobody else would ever say that "A is a pitch class". Just like nobody would ever say "a Chihuaha is a class of dogs"

Not like, because pitch doesn't work at all like dogs. Dogs don't come in anythink like octaves or enharmonics e.g. C# Db.

Re: Music Theory for Programmers

#260

Post by strenholme »

strenholme wrote: post #256
throwaway91827 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does music come from first principles, or is it a cultural product that's a result of a feedback loop between a listener/practitioner and an ambient culture and technological landscape? Parrotting is exactly how we learn music- we hear, and we reproduce what we hear. What you call "deriving music from first principles", I call, "post-facto justification for arbitrary aesthetic tendencies".

It’s actually an open question of whether “natural” tuning is 3-limit or 5-limit tuning. Five limit tuning, which I discuss above and use to form a major scale, goes back to Ptolemy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy's_intense_diatonic_sca... Other ancient tuning systems are based on three limit tuning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi%27er_l%C3%BC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_tuning Whether the hum…

Talking to myself, some research here.

https://www.medieval.org/emfaq/harmony/pyth5.html

>>>Around 1300, the English theorist Walter Odington proposes that major and minor thirds (81:64, 32:27) have ratios close to 5:4 and 6:5 respectively, and that singers lean toward these simpler ratios. His observation may reflect the style of much English polyphony of the period, where thirds often have a pervasive role in the texture and may even serve as closing sonorities.https://casfaculty.case.edu/ross-duffin/just-intonation-in-r...

>>>Beginning with Ramos de Pareja in 1482,Fn11 the simple ratios of Just intonation began to be cited by theorists and used in their divisions of the monochord. [...] an octave is 2:1, a fifth is 3:2, a fourth is 4:3, a pure major third is 5:4, a pure minor third is 6:5. These “six-limit” ratios—the senarius, or senario, as Zarlino calls them—are the basic harmonic intervals. Zarlino attributed almost mystical significance to the senariohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gioseffo_Zarlino

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000313131706700215?...

This article is paywalled, but to summarize, it makes the case that the 5:4 and 6:5 ratios are ratios musicians naturally drift towards in polyphonic contexts.

Post reply on HN