I would call this article "Songwriting for Beginners" as there is very little discussion of music theory in it.
Music Theory for Beginners
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Re: Music Theory for Beginners
#52One of the music theory things it took me a while to understand is why different major keys matter. In an idealized world, one can start a scale on any frequency and move up in whole and half steps (WWHWWWH) and have a scale. So why talk about the "key of G" vs the "key of C" if all that denotes is the frequency of the note we start on (which can be shifted up or down arbitrarily to suit the range of the instrument o…
If you're really interested in this, I highly recommend checking out the book How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) by Ross Duffin.
Re: Music Theory for Beginners
#53This is great. Can anyone recommend a "DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)" for Windows? Preferably with at least a free trial version. Thanks.
Ableton Live
One really appealing thing about Ableton, if you're just getting into music, is that the UI is simple, slick, and makes sense. The other software has way too much visuals and useless UI pieces. Ableton is direct and to the point. I'm not a musician and have never used "real" hardware, so all that visual overhead in the other programs is just noise.
Re: Music Theory for Beginners
#54One of the music theory things it took me a while to understand is why different major keys matter. In an idealized world, one can start a scale on any frequency and move up in whole and half steps (WWHWWWH) and have a scale. So why talk about the "key of G" vs the "key of C" if all that denotes is the frequency of the note we start on (which can be shifted up or down arbitrarily to suit the range of the instrument o…
Almost every instrument nowdays is tuned in equal temperament. Tuning matters most for old keyboard music, as in, pre-Beethoven.
The reason keys are important is because many instruments have different sound qualities for different notes. Keys close to E minor or G major allow guitarists to get that "twangy" open string sound. You can get a richer sound tuning up, or a thinner "heavy metal" sound tuning down. Keys close to B-flat allow brass players to use more basic tones on their instruments. All singers have certain sound qualities that are only available on certain notes. "Every Breath You Take", for example, would sound different even a semitone off, because Sting's transition from his creepy baritone to his high-pitched whine happens at a very specific part of his range, and the creepy quality of his voice contrasted with the high-pitched pleas for love is one of the most important qualities of the song.
But, yeah, temperament nowdays is almost irrelevant.
Re: Music Theory for Beginners
#55Fascinating read, but definitely not for beginners, at least for people like me, who have difficulty naming the notes (I have to go through "doe a deer..." each time, there are seven of them, right?) My total music illiteracy really annoys me. However, whenever I try to pick up some knowledge I got held back by lots of questions that the usual music student (or teacher for that matter) has never thought about and no…
Modern western music is based on medieval church music, which in turn is based on ancient Greek music. These are two cultures that placed strong value on harmony and mathematical ratios, and it so happens that notes in ratios are harmonious to the ear. Mathematically speaking, the ratios between notes come mostly from low-order ratios in 5-limit tunings: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Limit_%28musi... .
In short, the Western scale is chosen to maximize the harmonic possibilities between different notes while having a reasonably even collection of whole-steps and half-steps between them. The black keys are the "in-between" half steps that do not appear in the C-major scale. The reason the ear likes harmony is probably due to our ears performing a Fourier transform on the incoming sound waves, and our brain blending together collections of multiples of some base frequency into one "note"--this lets us recognize the different characteristics of periodic oscillations from different physical sound sources.
Re: Music Theory for Beginners
#56Fascinating read, but definitely not for beginners, at least for people like me, who have difficulty naming the notes (I have to go through "doe a deer..." each time, there are seven of them, right?) My total music illiteracy really annoys me. However, whenever I try to pick up some knowledge I got held back by lots of questions that the usual music student (or teacher for that matter) has never thought about and no…
Modern western music is based on medieval church music, which in turn is based on ancient Greek music. These are two cultures that placed strong value on harmony and mathematical ratios, and it so happens that notes in ratios are harmonious to the ear. Mathematically speaking, the ratios between notes come mostly from low-order ratios in 5-limit tunings: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Limit_%28musi...…
Thanks for the information. I wonder if there are any "music universals", like the ones for language, i.e. universal grammar. If favoring certain tone ratios is a characteristic of the human auditory system, then there should be.
Re: Music Theory for Beginners
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modern western music is based on medieval church music, which in turn is based on ancient Greek music. These are two cultures that placed strong value on harmony and mathematical ratios, and it so happens that notes in ratios are harmonious to the ear. Mathematically speaking, the ratios between notes come mostly from low-order ratios in 5-limit tunings: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Limit_%28musi...…
Thanks for the information. I wonder if there are any "music universals", like the ones for language, i.e. universal grammar. If favoring certain tone ratios is a characteristic of the human auditory system, then there should be.
Like Chomsky's search for universal grammar, the search for music universals has been a failure. Nevertheless, there are some ideas that pop up surprisingly often. Doing a quick mental search, I believe every musical tradition I've heard that emphasizes accurate pitch, and at least one I've heard that doesn't, utilizes the pentatonic scale: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Pentatonic_sc...
Re: Music Theory for Beginners
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something to note: whole and half steps are not the only available type of steps, you can also move quarter steps. It's not common in Western music (if present at all) but very common in Middle Eastern music. Maqam world ( http://maqamworld.com ) provides a decent index of many Middle Eastern scales, some of them utilizing quarter tones. For instance: http://www.maqamworld.com/maqamat/rast.html http://www.maqamworld.…
There are many ways do divide an octave. Steve Vai created a scale called the Xavian scale wich is dividing the octave by 10. He used in on Deep Down Into The Pain http://www.guitarflame.com/2008/xavian-scale-steve-vais-own-...
I think a big part of music is familiarity which is why you see the overuse of the I, V, vi, IV progression. So to me Xavian sounds like chromatic played out of tune. Nice idea though.
Re: Music Theory for Beginners
#59I teach Music Theory (and piano) for a living-- this is an excellent introduction to the most practical concepts. I was somewhat disappointed that the OP showed us a C Major scale without really explaining what a "major scale" is-- a collection of whole and half steps-- especially since they used a keyboard as an example, which is laid out in exactly the right pattern for teaching the major scale. (Notice that the bl…
The key-agnostic fretboard is a big part of the reason I enjoy playing guitar. It's not a perfect tool for the application at hand because of the necessity of separating the second and third strings by a major third instead of a perfect fifth, which would confuse the issue. However, I think it'd be more convenient to have a graphical representation of the major scale's construction on which a whole step is always cle…
"separating the second and third strings by a major third instead of a perfect fifth"
The other strings on a guitar are separated by a fourth, not fifth (perfect or otherwise).
Re: Music Theory for Beginners
#60This is great. Can anyone recommend a "DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)" for Windows? Preferably with at least a free trial version. Thanks.
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