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Music theory for nerds

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Re: Music theory for nerds

#131

Post by jacobolus »

princeb wrote: post #117
jacobolus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well temperament is not the same as equal temperament. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_temperament The whole point of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier music is that tunes transposed to different keys sounded different, so you needed to compose the music specifically for each key. There’s some ongoing musicological debate about the details, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Tempered_Clavier

>The whole point of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier music is that tunes transposed to different keys sounded different, so you needed to compose the music specifically for each key. that sounds wrong. tranposing a piece into the instrument's natural temperament will make it sound better. TWC doesn't do that, you play a piece of any key without needing to transpose anything, because the piano is equally-tempered and has…

> WTC doesn't do that, you play a piece of any key without needing to transpose anything, because the piano is equally-tempered and has no natural temperament

The Well-Tempered Clavier was not written for an equal-tempered piano.

Playing it on a modern piano gives you a different sound than you’d get on a harpsichord or clavichord or whatever tuned as Bach would tune them (from what I understand it’s not entirely clear what this tuning should be though).

(Caveat: I’m not remotely an authority on this subject, but just some guy on the internet; consult your local musicologist / early music expert for better advice.)

I found this youtube video in a search, which has a kind of interesting theory about the tuning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__tbvLNH6FI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xls6Zzw4GQM (text explanation: http://larips.com) or some of WTC in (I believe) said tuning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoKaDrYS1sw

Re: Music theory for nerds

#132

Post by metaxy2 »

Retra wrote: post #78
robbrown451 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If C was called A, that wouldn't be particularly arbitrary. It would certainly make more sense for people learning music. The C major scale is universally agreed to be the simplest, most basic scale, so wouldn't it make more sense for it to be ABCDEFG, rather than CDEFGAB?

>The C major scale is universally agreed to be the simplest, most basic scale No, it's not. There is no such thing as a "simplest, most basic scale." That depends entirely on your arbitrary choice of notation and conventions.

The key of C is arbitrary (you could rename any of the other keys to C and rotate the whole system, and everything would work the same). But there's a case to be made that the diatonic major scale (Ionian mode) has a certain primacy in modern Western music, certainly more than say, Phrygian or Locrian. Both listeners and composers tend to hear the major scale as the most default, vanilla, un-surprising scale there is. It's one of the things that gives certain tunes like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Happy Birthday" an almost annoyingly predictable quality. Even something pretty tame like Mixolydian sounds a little surprising compared to the major scale.

So it's legitimate to ask, if we're going to letter our notes based on the notes of one key, why not pick the key that sounds the most basic and fundamental? (The answer is that at one time folks heard music in a different way and Ionian didn't have the priority that it does now; see my other comment [1]). It also probably doesn't hurt that Aeolian (natural minor) is arguably the second most natural and "default" sounding mode, so it's not nearly as weird as if we decided to letter the notes off of Locrian or something.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12529437

Re: Music theory for nerds

#133

Post by nicky0 »

SwellJoe wrote: post #118
zeta0134 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can sight read for winds and voice, but not for Piano, despite being able to play Piano relatively well. Thus, this explanation will probably apply mostly to single-voice musicians. 1. Find Do. This is the first note of the Major scale in the key which you are playing. Find it on the page, and burn it into your mind; everything you're about to do centers on the location of Do. In the key of C (white keys on a piano…

"2. Learn your intervals, and learn Solfege. If you're a musician, you already know these things in principal, even if you don't know the words or the terminology. In particular, you should be able to "hear" the distance between Do-Mi-Sol without too much difficulty, because you hear those distances in music a lot." I believe the Solfege named intervals (Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do) are only taught as a historical oddity…

Doesn't everyone learn Do-Re-Mi from "The Sound Of Music"?

Re: Music theory for nerds

#134

Post by asmdb »

blake8086 wrote: post #130
theseoafs wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this over again, it seems like the author's not yet fully wrapped their mind around "big picture" stuff like keys, chords, basic compositional structure, etc. It's an... interesting choice to write a piece proclaiming that musical notation is absurd when you're only a beginner.

If a beginner can't immediately grasp musical notation, isn't that evidence that it is, in fact, absurd?

I'm curious, did you immediately grasp the syntax of every programming language you've ever learned?

Re: Music theory for nerds

#135

Post by mjevans »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #127
theseoafs wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this over again, it seems like the author's not yet fully wrapped their mind around "big picture" stuff like keys, chords, basic compositional structure, etc. It's an... interesting choice to write a piece proclaiming that musical notation is absurd when you're only a beginner.

Yes, it's like some of my students who wonder why I won't let them use a GOTO in their programming assignments. I tell them that, if they are using assembly, then it is fair game.

It can also be worth it, in very specific limited circumstances, when you're emulating constructs not present in the target language.

Emulating a multi-level break statement and error handlers come to mind as examples.

Re: Music theory for nerds

#136

Post by 112233 »

SwellJoe wrote: post #116
analog31 wrote: post #4

This has got to be some of the worst jargon and notation for anything, ever. Indeed. I'm a musician, and something non-musicians often ask (especially techies, it seems) is why we use such an archaic notation system. The reason is simply that a certain number of musicians have developed the skill of sight reading which is the ability to perform a composition directly from a written sheet, with little or no rehearsal.…

It's not merely sight reading that relies on the existing notation, jargon, and theory. Every element of Western music builds on the same building blocks. Western harmony, as taught, relies on understanding chromatic and diatonic harmony; the author did a nice job figuring out and explaining the compromises inherent in equal temperament (without knowing about how ratios and tuning worked before equal temperament; peo…

Very important historical details that are missing completely from all music theory textbooks I have had the misfortune to read. They only give the rules, without explaining the reasons. Also, imagine using notation to write down, say, electonic music. Drums? Maybe, but which notation? Filters, effects? ugh

Re: Music theory for nerds

#137

Post by djaychela »

tsm wrote: post #85

It seems like his questions were serious (not rhetorical), so I'll answer them for real. The answers pretend that the 20th century hasn't happened yet—there's no point explaining the interesting things people like Schoenberg did if you don't understand the mainstream tradition in place before them. 1) Why does notation allow for seven pitches, not 12? Because music is at most built out of 7-note scales, not 12. If so…

Just read through most of the comments on here before posting something... to find that you've covered it brilliantly. Textbook stuff, IMO (as someone who teaches music technology and covers a lot of this when we get to notation).

I've always found the best way to explain why keys end up with the sharps/flats they do in the order they do is to start from C, and establish the TTSTTTS construction, and then "arbitrarily" try it in a new key (G), and show that the seventh note needs to move up to retain the TTSTTTS pattern, and so on - same for flats, starting 'arbitrarily' with F, and showing that the 4th note needs to be flattened, and then in both cases getting the students to think about what's just happened (going up 5 scale steps (to G in the first case), sharpen the 7th of the new scale, or going down 4 scale steps (to F initially), flatten the 4th of the new scale), and using that algorithm to build the other keys. Most of the kids I know have almost no music theory when they come to me, and even those that are studying A level music often take the order of flats or sharps as "just something you accept" - it's interesting watching them switch onto how to build it themselves, and get some understanding of it as a result.

Same goes for minor keys and indeed modes - the author of the article totally misses the point about the context of the notes being what's important - "home" notes as you say, and again, once demonstrated in the right way, it's interesting to see people switch onto that and become able to use it.

Re: Music theory for nerds

#138

Post by theseoafs »

blake8086 wrote: post #130
theseoafs wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this over again, it seems like the author's not yet fully wrapped their mind around "big picture" stuff like keys, chords, basic compositional structure, etc. It's an... interesting choice to write a piece proclaiming that musical notation is absurd when you're only a beginner.

If a beginner can't immediately grasp musical notation, isn't that evidence that it is, in fact, absurd?

A beginner can grasp musical notation; its rules are simple and consistent, and the conventions are well-documented and reasonably straightforward. This blog post should be evidence of that: the beginner who wrote it clearly has the basics of notation down, and there are no inaccuracies at least with regard to the notation.

A beginner can't grasp the motivations behind the design of musical notation, and I don't expect a beginner to grasp the motivations behind the design of any complex system. That does not make the system absurd.

Re: Music theory for nerds

#139

Post by dfabulich »

theseoafs wrote: post #60
theseoafs wrote: post #46

> It completely obscures the relationship between the pitches, though. It doesn't actually obscure the relationship between the notes -- it makes them clearer. For example, I see the notes C, E, and G on some sheet music, maybe with some accidentals on some of those notes. I know that I'm therefore supposed to play a C triad. Now, there are multiple kinds of triads, but once I know I'm supposed to play a triad, it's…

Reading this over again, it seems like the author's not yet fully wrapped their mind around "big picture" stuff like keys, chords, basic compositional structure, etc. It's an... interesting choice to write a piece proclaiming that musical notation is absurd when you're only a beginner.

Is there an article/book/video anyone can recommend that explains the advantages of modern staff notation in terms that beginners can understand?

In particular, I think everyone would agree that it's it's much harder for beginners to hunt and peck sheet music in modern staff notation than it is for a novice typist to type words on a QWERTY keyboard. (At least when the sheet music is written in any key except C major, since the configuration of black/white piano keys corresponds to C major.)

This prompts beginners to ask, "why is this unnecessarily hard?"

The general advice I see (especially in the comment thread here) is to just spend years practicing and then you'll "get it;" you won't just learn how to play, but you'll understand why staff notation is awesome.

Can the beginner's question be answered, except by saying, "uh, trust me, it's great, just keep practicing"?

Re: Music theory for nerds

#140

Post by UweSchmidt »

asmdb wrote: post #134
blake8086 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a beginner can't immediately grasp musical notation, isn't that evidence that it is, in fact, absurd?

I'm curious, did you immediately grasp the syntax of every programming language you've ever learned?

Well, in our programming world new languages seem to come out every week, trying to find better ways to write programs. By this standard a new way to encode music is long overdue.
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