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> It completely obscures the relationship between the pitches, though. It doesn't actually obscure the relationship between the notes -- it makes them clearer.

> 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 easy to use context to pick out which one I need (major, minor, diminished, augmented -- usually one of the first two). If I were supposed to play a C# major triad, though, and the written notes were (C#-F-G#) as opposed to what they should be (C#-E#-G#) then that's confusing because it looks like I should be playing an arpeggiated sus4 of some kind. So the written nature of scales on the staff engenders an understanding of the relationship between the notes. Basically we write things the way we do so that the people reading the music can more efficiently pattern-match. > C major is identical to A minor, and I don’t understand why we need both. They're not identical. C major and A minor have the same notes in their respective scales. But we say that a piece is in the key of C major when it resolves to the a C major chord at the end, and we say a piece is in the key of A minor when it resolves to an A minor chord at the end -- an important concept for reasoning about how a piece is supposed to be performed. > C minor: C D D# F G G# A# C Eb, Ab, and Bb, not D#, G#, and A#. > This has got to be some of the worst jargon and notation for anything, ever. It's really not. Keep practicing. It makes sense, I promise. I hear a lot of people -- usually people who have not been studying music for very long -- insist that the system would be more logical if there were no accidentals and there were 12 notes with distinct names and the staff had a bunch more lines on it. I've never bought it. The notation of music isn't arbitrary, it's informed by experience and it works.

theseoafs 10y ago
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.
- ksml 10y ago
  I don't think the author was necessarily proclaiming that it's absurd, only that it seems absurd from his/her beginner perspective. He/she was very up front about not having much experience, so I think this is totally reasonable (and expected)
- coreyp_1 10y ago
  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.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    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.
- blake8086 10y ago
  If a beginner can't immediately grasp musical notation, isn't that evidence that it is, in fact, absurd?
  - asmdb 10y ago
    I'm curious, did you immediately grasp the syntax of every programming language you've ever learned?
    - UweSchmidt 10y ago
      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.
      - fenomas 10y ago
        In that metaphor, coming up with a new way to encode music is like releasing a new programming language and then asking everyone to write their own compiler for it. Not impossible, but it would have to be a hell of an encoding!
acjohnson55 10y ago
Not to mention that A minor is generally considered to contain two additional notes compared to the A natural minor scale (AKA the A Aeolian mode).
- autarch 10y ago
  Well, two _or_ one. The melodic (two) and harmonic (one) minor scales.
  - acjohnson55 10y ago
    Sort of. They are separate scales, but if you compose (classical-style) music in a minor key, you don't typically pick one of those scales. The chords that appear might include any of those notes, even within individual phrases. In my totally non-expert observation, contemporary music often is more modal, in the sense that it probably would just pick one of those scales (particularly natural minor) and stick to it.
- hamiltonkibbe 10y ago
  In jazz A minor generally implies A Dorian
  - acjohnson55 10y ago
    Yeah, in my reading, it never seems that there was a compelling reason to chose Aeolian vs. Dorian as the definitive "minor". I think it's largely because common practice evolved to much more frequently approach the tonic from below instead of above. That would favor harmonic minor over Dorian. I suspect that this is because it allows for very similar cadences as major keys.
    - hamiltonkibbe 10y ago
      I think a lot of the time (in a jazz context) the chords are approached as almost individual elements or as part of a small "local" progression instead of in the context of the global key of the song, since the key could be changing as often as every couple bars. In the case of a common minor progression: B-E7alt-Am7 the major third of the dominant chord is the same note as the major 7 in the harmonic minor scale of the target minor chord, which would be one option for playing straight through that progression, but you'll often find that players will use either A harmonic minor, diminished, E altered, G# whole tone, etc. over the V7 and resolve to dorian or aeolian or something with a b7. It doesn't make much sense to analyze that progression in a classical context since those chords aren't entirely contained within any single key, and you end up something that looks like a key change, or has B as a secondary dominant implying a key change to the E7, where a jazz player would immediately recognize it as a minor 2-5-1
jahnu 10y ago
> we say that a piece is in the key of C major when it resolves to the a C major chord at the end Can you ELI5 that for me, please? I'm very interested to have a better understanding of that concept.
- jsackmann 10y ago
  Broadly speaking, major chords sound bright and happy. Minor chords sound dark and sad. The C major scale consists of C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. The A-minor scale consists of A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A. Those are the same notes, but if you play each of those patterns on a keyboard, the first one sounds happy, the second one sounds sad. A C-major chord (technically, triad) is made up of C-E-G, the first, third, and fifth notes of the scale. Again, sounds happy. The A-minor triad is A-C-E ... sad. But if you play a melody -- that is, one note at at a time -- it isn't always clear whether it's happy or sad. In most western music, though (including virtually all pre-1900 classical music and the vast majority of modern pop), the piece will end ("resolve") with a clearer "happy" or "sad" type of chord. That final chord is what determines the key. (In a huge amount of classical and popular music, the final chord is the same as the opening chord, but not always. When they're different, the final chord tells you the key.)
  - nicksellen 10y ago
    > the final chord tells you the key That makes it sound like a definitive rule, but it's just a common convention.
    - mkd1964 10y ago
      It is just a convention, not a rule. It is very common in classical music for a piece in a minor key to end on a major chord (called a Picardy 3rd) or in some cases to end on the dominate 5th - which is a major chord. The latter though, isn't usually the absolute end of a piece because it leaves you hanging (rather like ending "Happy Birthday" on the word "to" - and leaving off the "you").
- fenomas 10y ago
  Resolving to a chord just means that the music sounds "complete" when it hits that chord. In other words, it wouldn't sound weird if the song ended right there. For example, if you hear "Happy Birthday" played in C, the final chord is C major, and the song sounds done. If you heard it with the final chord changed to something else, it would sound like it was leading somewhere, and you'd expect another verse or a bridge or something to follow.
deleted 10y ago
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theseoafs 10y ago

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.

ksml 10y ago
I don't think the author was necessarily proclaiming that it's absurd, only that it seems absurd from his/her beginner perspective. He/she was very up front about not having much experience, so I think this is totally reasonable (and expected)
coreyp_1 10y ago
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.
- mjevans 10y ago
  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.
blake8086 10y ago
If a beginner can't immediately grasp musical notation, isn't that evidence that it is, in fact, absurd?
- asmdb 10y ago
  I'm curious, did you immediately grasp the syntax of every programming language you've ever learned?
  - UweSchmidt 10y ago
    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.
    - fenomas 10y ago
      In that metaphor, coming up with a new way to encode music is like releasing a new programming language and then asking everyone to write their own compiler for it. Not impossible, but it would have to be a hell of an encoding!

acjohnson55 10y ago

Not to mention that A minor is generally considered to contain two additional notes compared to the A natural minor scale (AKA the A Aeolian mode).

autarch 10y ago
Well, two _or_ one. The melodic (two) and harmonic (one) minor scales.
- acjohnson55 10y ago
  Sort of. They are separate scales, but if you compose (classical-style) music in a minor key, you don't typically pick one of those scales. The chords that appear might include any of those notes, even within individual phrases. In my totally non-expert observation, contemporary music often is more modal, in the sense that it probably would just pick one of those scales (particularly natural minor) and stick to it.
hamiltonkibbe 10y ago
In jazz A minor generally implies A Dorian
- acjohnson55 10y ago
  Yeah, in my reading, it never seems that there was a compelling reason to chose Aeolian vs. Dorian as the definitive "minor". I think it's largely because common practice evolved to much more frequently approach the tonic from below instead of above. That would favor harmonic minor over Dorian. I suspect that this is because it allows for very similar cadences as major keys.
  - hamiltonkibbe 10y ago
    I think a lot of the time (in a jazz context) the chords are approached as almost individual elements or as part of a small "local" progression instead of in the context of the global key of the song, since the key could be changing as often as every couple bars. In the case of a common minor progression: B-E7alt-Am7 the major third of the dominant chord is the same note as the major 7 in the harmonic minor scale of the target minor chord, which would be one option for playing straight through that progression, but you'll often find that players will use either A harmonic minor, diminished, E altered, G# whole tone, etc. over the V7 and resolve to dorian or aeolian or something with a b7. It doesn't make much sense to analyze that progression in a classical context since those chords aren't entirely contained within any single key, and you end up something that looks like a key change, or has B as a secondary dominant implying a key change to the E7, where a jazz player would immediately recognize it as a minor 2-5-1

jahnu 10y ago

> we say that a piece is in the key of C major when it resolves to the a C major chord at the end Can you ELI5 that for me, please? I'm very interested to have a better understanding of that concept.

jsackmann 10y ago
Broadly speaking, major chords sound bright and happy. Minor chords sound dark and sad. The C major scale consists of C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. The A-minor scale consists of A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A. Those are the same notes, but if you play each of those patterns on a keyboard, the first one sounds happy, the second one sounds sad. A C-major chord (technically, triad) is made up of C-E-G, the first, third, and fifth notes of the scale. Again, sounds happy. The A-minor triad is A-C-E ... sad. But if you play a melody -- that is, one note at at a time -- it isn't always clear whether it's happy or sad. In most western music, though (including virtually all pre-1900 classical music and the vast majority of modern pop), the piece will end ("resolve") with a clearer "happy" or "sad" type of chord. That final chord is what determines the key. (In a huge amount of classical and popular music, the final chord is the same as the opening chord, but not always. When they're different, the final chord tells you the key.)
- nicksellen 10y ago
  > the final chord tells you the key That makes it sound like a definitive rule, but it's just a common convention.
  - mkd1964 10y ago
    It is just a convention, not a rule. It is very common in classical music for a piece in a minor key to end on a major chord (called a Picardy 3rd) or in some cases to end on the dominate 5th - which is a major chord. The latter though, isn't usually the absolute end of a piece because it leaves you hanging (rather like ending "Happy Birthday" on the word "to" - and leaving off the "you").
fenomas 10y ago
Resolving to a chord just means that the music sounds "complete" when it hits that chord. In other words, it wouldn't sound weird if the song ended right there. For example, if you hear "Happy Birthday" played in C, the final chord is C major, and the song sounds done. If you heard it with the final chord changed to something else, it would sound like it was leading somewhere, and you'd expect another verse or a bridge or something to follow.

deleted 10y ago

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