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Why 13th Chords

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Re: Why 13th Chords

#91

Post by MrTortoise »

dextorious wrote: post #17
mml wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid you miss my point. I'm not sure who the article was for, people who already know its contents perhaps? Anyone else would have to have a solid background in theory to understand much of anything in it. "I find not only the 13th chord a great substitute for a 7th now, especially when it's the dominant resolving to the tonic, but I also love the 7th+3rd+13th/6th way of voicing it too."

Actually, the part I found difficult about music theory, is that that there are tons of stuff you're supposed to remember. They are not difficult to understand, and they are even easy to derive from some basic rules. But you do have to remember them, not derive them at will, to be able to think musically and play fluently. I think that's my problem with Chemistry too, as opposed to Physics. There was always tons of s…

Id say by the time you are playing fluently with these ideas you are no longer remembering them ... its further than that you body knows and executes them.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#92

Post by jtheory »

mirkules wrote: post #75
jtheory wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agreed that theory follows practice, not the other way around. BUT it's still good to work on a better grasp of the theory -- if you try chord progressions at random until you hit something that sounds good... yes, there's a better way. The whole point of documenting lots of rules around "what sounds good" is that you can refer to the rules and save a hell of a lot of time in your experimentation.

"if you try chord progressions at random until you hit something that sounds good... yes, there's a better way." This is definitely what I meant, and it's what I currently do. My grasp on music theory is shaky at best, and I'm not exactly sure where to start to fill in the gaps in my knowledge (this may be true of any self-taught skill).

One day I may finish up my website that will guide you in an engaging way through to a good grasp of the useful stuff, but at the moment it's just some practice drills and no guidance at all. :(

Dunno if you'll even see this comment.. but my short-version recommendation is to learn different types of chords, (major, minor, 7th, etc., inversions, different spacings) and chord functions, then figure out what the progressions that "sound good" are doing in those terms. That's a big step up right there, I think.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#93

Post by jtheory »

gruseom wrote: post #67
dextorious wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""Some do end up learning theory but many great musicians don't.""" We're talking about music theory in genres where it is important, i.e where the music is involved and advanced. Three minute fifties rock-n-roll tunes is not where this happens. Little Richards is great, but not in the musically advanced way Charles Mingus, Miles Davies, etc are great. He's great for the raw fun/energy/danceability impact of his mus…

You're making a huge mistake when you say that. This sort of snobbishness is really bad for art. Great art is always connected to the lowly and the popular. Disdain for that which is not "advanced", imagining barriers between high and low, is associated with nothing so much as creative exhaustion. It's the mentality not of the artist but of the critic, and the second-rate critic at that. It's ironic that you would pi…

An awful lot of performance involves skills that are NOT addressed by music theory -- basically everything that distinguishes a mechanical MIDI performance of some piece from an real performance by a professional is not part of foundational music theory.

There's also a great deal of ground that music theory formalizes that long-time musicians will grasp intuitively (but be less able to discuss, of course).

Just some complementary points.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#94

Post by sea6ear »

davesims wrote: post #84
scrozier wrote: post #27

Grew up playing classical and pop music, basically 3-4 chords (maj, min, 7th, etc). Went to the best jazz school in the world (U of North Texas) and woke up to jazz...an order of magnitude more harmonically complex than classical. Will spend the rest of my life learning to play jazz. Why is this on HN? Because there is a giant overlap between hackers and musicians. For those of you interested, but confused, go to a m…

I went to UNT as well (not for music) and I'm still in Denton and work remote from here, not because it's a great tech hub but because of the music scene and culture I want to raise my kids in. A good number of the best coders I work with right now are fantastic musicians, including Chad Fowler who is a phenomenal sax player, and another senior dev on my team who is a superb UNT-trained jass pianist. We talk about th…

Interesting. I'm in Denton also. Went to UNT thinking of studying music but ended up in Math/Physics, two of the guys I work with currently were in the UNT music school before getting into programming/tech.

Also married to a UNT music graduate who I'm hoping to lure into programming :-)

Re: Why 13th Chords

#95

Post by davesims »

sea6ear wrote: post #94
davesims wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to UNT as well (not for music) and I'm still in Denton and work remote from here, not because it's a great tech hub but because of the music scene and culture I want to raise my kids in. A good number of the best coders I work with right now are fantastic musicians, including Chad Fowler who is a phenomenal sax player, and another senior dev on my team who is a superb UNT-trained jass pianist. We talk about th…

Interesting. I'm in Denton also. Went to UNT thinking of studying music but ended up in Math/Physics, two of the guys I work with currently were in the UNT music school before getting into programming/tech. Also married to a UNT music graduate who I'm hoping to lure into programming :-)

Cool. Not sure if you're still watching this thread, but I'm thinking of putting together some kind of tech group for Denton, maybe through meetup. Ping me at davsims at gmail if you want. Do you work out of Denton? I set up @ Jupiter House most days.
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