Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People • Hacker News Board

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#41

Post by squeaky-clean » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 10:30 PM UTC

quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

>This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is).

Isn't that how language works though? If everyone calls this music theory aside from a small minority of people, then it is music theory. "Music Theory" as a term is a study on it's own, it's not "the theory of music" and you can't really use the terms interchangeably like that.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#42

Post by kazinator » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 10:34 PM UTC

tobr wrote: post #9

I appreciate the style of presentation, but why do we still pretend this is "music" theory? Most of this is completely useless for anyone who is interested in understanding music that wasn't written by people in powdered wigs. For some actually useful music theory, I can recommend the goldmine that is Ethan Hein's blog: http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/category/music/music-theory/

The blog you linked to is full of conventional music theoretical discussion such as:

"The blues is based around a very different set of harmonic expectations than the ones underlying classical music. In the blues, major and minor tonality are freely intermingled. Dominant seventh chords can function as tonics. Tritones need not resolve."

Although the blues uses devices not commonly found in classical music, the language being used to discuss it is conventional, main stream music theory: "major", "minor", "tonality", "tritone", "dominant", ... No surprises!

Someone looking for basic music theory will not get into this at all.

Secondly, parallel major and minor does occur in classical music. So do dominant sevenths functioning as tonics: at least secondary tonics.

Moreover the people who came up with the blues tradition (and jazz) were not completely isolated from hearing classical music.

Lastly, there is orchestral music that doesn't consist of "powdered wig" scales conforming to cycle of fifths progressions. Let's see what comes to mind: Moussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", or Ravel's Boléro, ...

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#43

Post by ewoodrich » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 10:35 PM UTC

quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

I would certainly consider species counterpoint and harmonic analysis to be "theory", although the first sections are clearly notation and not theory.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#44

Post by kazinator » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 10:37 PM UTC

quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

"music theory" is the widely used and accepted term for "music jargon and notation systems" and their related concepts.

It is not a "scientific theory", as, say, Thomas Kuhn might have used the term.

"Music theory" uses the word "theory" as the colloquial antonym of "practice".

As in the adage, "In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they aren't".

Music practice means strumming an axe, blowing a horn, banging a drum or tickling ivories, and so on, whereas music theory is ... any study related to how to do these things, away from the instruments.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#45

Post by squeaky-clean » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 10:47 PM UTC

markvdb wrote: post #22

philbarr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to just learn tablature for the time being, unless you're thinking of doing classical guitar. Not to say don't read them of course; you can read what you like, just that tab is what you'll be using I would have thought.

Guitar professional here. It's good to keep the limitations of tabs in mind. The're really useful, but they don't represent music nearly half as much as conventional music notation. They represent finger movements instead.

Tabs don't have to be just hand-scrawled notes or ASCII text anymore. With decent notation software, you can mix the notations. I don't think there's much that can be written in conventional music notation that can't be displayed in Guitar Pro (or Tux Guitar for an OSS alternative). Especially since it allows you to toggle between the two forms, or view them on top of each other.[1] You can also add rhythm and articulation notation to just tabs to make it more clear what they mean as well.[2]

I think it's a great way to begin learning guitar without needing to take a lot of time to learn how to read sheet music first, as that really scares away a lot of new players, or people who are considering learning guitar. Notation for rhythm, slurs, accents, are all pretty clear and can be learned very easily. Unless there's more that I'm not understanding about the differences between the two, I'd like to learn what it is.

There's one last benefit that really makes me prefer digital tabs over conventional notation. There are a lot of songs/riffs/etc that are very dependent on the effects being used. This is more a benefit of software than tabs, because you could do this with any instrument or notation, but support for it is more common in guitar software. Being able to add effects, and mark things such as the rhythm of a wah-pedal can be very helpful as well. An example I can remember is Searching by Joe Satriani. He rocks a whammy pedal back and forth while playing an arpeggio, and I had no idea how to mimic that sound until I saw both the notes written out, and the whammy bends on the same track as well.

[1]http://www.zwodnik.com/media/images/tuxguitar_os-x.png

[2]http://screenshots.s32cdn.com/34/336924/1_47.png

edit: I still think it's useful to learn theory, tabs or not. But I don't think sheet music and theory need to go hand-in-hand anymore.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#46

Post by baddox » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 10:50 PM UTC

quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

> A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon.

That's equivocation. Nearly everything in this document is widely considered to be part of music theory.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#47

Post by kansface » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 10:52 PM UTC

markvdb wrote: post #22

philbarr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to just learn tablature for the time being, unless you're thinking of doing classical guitar. Not to say don't read them of course; you can read what you like, just that tab is what you'll be using I would have thought.

Guitar professional here. It's good to keep the limitations of tabs in mind. The're really useful, but they don't represent music nearly half as much as conventional music notation. They represent finger movements instead.

The funny thing is that standard notation is quite poor for the guitar because it has no notion of finger movements- all sorts of annotations are dumped into scores - numbers for fingers, circled numbers for strings, roman numerals for frets, empty noteheads for natural harmonics, and who knows what for artificial harmonics and friends.

I don't think its possible to reproduce a piece from only tabs (without having heard it) while standard notation makes sight reading unnecessarily hard.

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#48

Post by zeroxfe » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 10:53 PM UTC

quadrangle wrote: post #28

This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A theory is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation. I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent , high-quality overview of this non-theory…

I'm not sure how parent became the top comment, but "music theory" is absolutely appropriate here. This terminology is commonly accepted by musicians, educators, and practitioners. OP's link could say "western music theory", but that seems unnecessary given the audience.

Secondly, why would you call this junk? This is actually very useful for people learning to play, and for those who want to understand the basics of harmony and rhythm.

What you are talking about is typically called "music perception theory", "music cognition", or "music psychology".

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#49

Post by dbalatero » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 11:38 PM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #45

markvdb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guitar professional here. It's good to keep the limitations of tabs in mind. The're really useful, but they don't represent music nearly half as much as conventional music notation. They represent finger movements instead.

Tabs don't have to be just hand-scrawled notes or ASCII text anymore. With decent notation software, you can mix the notations. I don't think there's much that can be written in conventional music notation that can't be displayed in Guitar Pro (or Tux Guitar for an OSS alternative). Especially since it allows you to toggle between the two forms, or view them on top of each other.[1] You can also add rhythm and articu…

Tabs imply a certain fingering, which may or may not be optimal for the music - is there any way around that issue with those programs?

Re: Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People

#50

Post by mdisraeli » Fri, Oct 17, 2014, 11:41 PM UTC

I recall once seeing a link on HN for music theory for physicists and engineers, but I didn't bookmark the URI at the time - anyone recall this, and how to find it?