5 ms·

Many musicians much better than me are surprised at how I can play a song just by hearing it on the radio. My breakthrough came from understanding music was rea

by karlb 10y ago

Many musicians much better than me are surprised at how I can play a song just by hearing it on the radio. My breakthrough came from understanding music was realizing that the real “meaning” of a note lies in its position relative to the tonic note (e,g, I-II-II, etc, also written do-re-mi). Suddenly, almost all of the clutter was removed, and the problem became manageable. Let's consider the three-note tune “do, re, mi”. If that tune were played in the key of C, it would become C-D-E. If it were played in G, it would become G-A-B. But in either case, it's the same tune but with each frequency increased by the same percentage. Trying to understand music by understanding the letters is like trying to read in a world where every article has been enciphered into a different “key”: e.g., the word "cab" in “the key of A” (the alphabet we normally use) would be written as "dbc" if the article were written in “the key of B”. In the latter case, you could discern meaning only once you realised that the letter “d” represented the third letter of the alphabet. There's nothing meaningful about a “d” but there is something meaningful about a “4th letter of the alphabet”. Once you start to “decipher” all music into I, II, III, IV, V, etc., the complexity becomes manageable. You can start to learn to recognize the sound of a III note, or of a VI minor chord. After all, there are only eight notes in the major scale.

andrepd 10y ago
The gist is correct, but it's worth noting that, for example, if you played do-re-mi in E it would do E-F#-G#, not E-F-G, to preserve tone/semitone order. That's where the key signature comes in.
- ajuc 10y ago
  And that shows how WTF the musical notation is.
  - andrepd 10y ago
    o.O why so? And what on earth do you propose?
    - ajuc 10y ago
      C is 0. Each half-tone up is +1. If you really want to keep it concise you can write it as base-12 numbers. C1 C1# D1 D1# E1 F1 F1# G1 G1# A1 A1# B1 C2 C2# D2 D2# E2 F2 F2# G2 G2# A2 A2# B2 ... 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0a 0b 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b ... First number is octave. Second number is half-tone in that octave. Translating is just mechanical addition. EDIT: on second thought making it base-12 just to save some space makes no sense, people are good with base-10, just keep the numbers.
      - meggar 10y ago
        What would D Flat be, 0.5? what about D Double flat?
        hiddenkrypt 10y ago
        Db would be 01. Dbb would be 00. (or 11 and 10 for the octave) The point ajuc is making is that the flat-sharp accidentals aren't used or needed at all if you just assign numbers to each tone. There's no concept of flat or sharp, unless you want to deal with microtones.
        meggar 10y ago
        The letters and flats/sharps give you key/value over frequencies, which is better than just a numeric index over a chromatic scale. Working with the keys allows for the same abstractions to be used with all 12 keys at the same time, on the same staff.
        hiddenkrypt 10y ago
        I'm not really arguing one way or the other, just pointing out that they're functionally equivalent. It's two different maps keying to the same set of frequencies. The BASE12 system described above would allow for keys as well, just with a different notation. Instead of flats/sharps marked next to the clef in traditional sheet music, the BASE12 system could start each line with a list of 'prohibited' notes. For example, when indicating that a piece is in the key of Gm, the staff in BASE12 could start with : [01,04,06,08,0b]. This indicates that the majority of the song will be made of the notes 7,9,b,0,2,3, and 5, and serves the same purpose as having two flats next to the treble clef, one on the middle line and one in the top space. Which of these systems would be easier for humans to grok is up for debate. I personally don't think either one is better. Thinking about it, the traditional notation is just mapping to an octal system, with the key accidentals acting as modifiers to the map and the base-8 values being displayed graphically as vertical position on the staff.
ajuc 10y ago
I'm not a good musician by any means, never had music education apart from the primary school which was abysmal. I can't recognise pure tones (just the intervals). I still can play any song I hear on guitar or keyboard "good enough" so that people have fun singing to it. The huge reveal to me was the same - notes doesn't matter - the intervals make the song recognizable. People change notes all the time when singing (jump octaves, start again lower to adjust to others, etc). So on amateur level it's really just starting on random place on keyboard and guessing which note will sound "right" after that. Everybody hear if the next note is higher or lover, so it's just "was that +1, +2, or +3?" Usually you can guess, if not - start again. Very easy and makes playing instruments so fun. I never understood why they bother kids with these complicated drawings and hashes and be-mols, if they could've just wrote all songs as "start at this note, and jump by +2, +3, -5, ...".
- entropy_ 10y ago
  Some notation systems do exactly that. For example, the notation used for byzantine chanting: http://www.byzantinechant.org/notation/Table%20of%20Byzantine%20Notation%20Symbols.pdf http://www.byzantinechant.org/notation/Table%20of%20Byzantin...
shiro 10y ago
I started music with classical piano and only recently started transposing instrument (bamboo flute), and am trying to get used to movable do solfege. I'm still easily confused when key change occurs or borrowed chord appears. (For the latter there are limited patterns so I should remember them, I guess.)
hammock 10y ago
Many (but not all, or even the majority) music classrooms around the world teach students fluency in solfege (do-re-mi), and everyone I've spoken to about it agrees it helps out a lot in the way you describe.
- MereKatMoves 10y ago
  That's interesting from a personal perspective. I was taught music in the UK where that is specifically not used (or at least wasn't when I learnt). I took a year out of my Music degree to attend the Sorbonne. French music education places a heavy emphasis on solfege. When I started going to their undergraduate classes it was immediately apparent that the level was several years behind that of the UK (in classes for composition and orchestration most noticeably). To attend classes dealing with similar material to what I was used to as a UK undergraduate, I was attending Post-grad courses. Having just completed my first year on a UK BMus course it was quite an eye opener to see 19yr olds learning material I had been taught at 16.
  - robert_tweed 10y ago
    I wonder if the UK system is better at sieving natural talent whereas the French system is better at teaching? Personally I hated music (in the UK) because we never seemed to get taught anything, we we largely expected to just know things or magically learn through awkward repetition. Knowing what I know now, I think there are a lot of ways we could have practised music early on that would have helped those of us not born with perfect absolute pitch. Most people have perfect relative pitch (afaik I fall into this group). Perfect absolute pitch and tone-deafness are both quite rare. It sounds like the French system is optimised for the majority, forcing everyone to practise interval differentiation, including those who don't need it (and the small minority who will never be able to do it).
    - MereKatMoves 10y ago
      Without trying to cite what currently happens in the UK, I think it is fair to say that kids are handed instruments like the recorder at a fairly early age, and those that do well are encouraged to progress. That's a sieving process for sure. When they get to secondary school, music as a subject is most often just a minor inconvenience in the curriculum to most pupils, and those who have ability are pushed into learning flute/violin etc (at additional cost to themselves and outside of the timetable). In the course of going through the grades of music (performance exams), kids are taught aural skills and theory (grade 5 theory is required to take higher performance grades). This results in a select group of instrumentalists that have learned intervals, harmony and scales practically. Whether any of those skills are useful to a non musician is debatable, so one could say that it is the most efficient way of getting a rounded skill set into the brain of a musical 15-16 yr old. The French system would, I agree, produce a broader spectrum of musically able people, but in practice it results in a lower level of specific and important knowledge. The UK system produces more complete performers whereas I would say the French system has large gaps which then get filled in at degree level. Perhaps things are greatly different these days. I know for example that studio production is an option for A level music, and there is absolutely no musical theory knowledge required to produce a studio track. I wonder if A level students are even taught basic 4 part harmony any more. Music, to an individual, has always been a matter of ability, discipline and perseverance to practice. In education, the solution to nourishing those qualities is never going to be perfect. I do recall the French students I was with were quite annoyed that my education was years ahead of theirs, but with perspective, I'm sure it didn't really matter then, and it surely doesn't now.
jlu 10y ago
@karb: mind if I shoot some questions about the "decipher” all music into I, II, III, IV, V" part in email? Thanks.
ngneer 10y ago
Indeed, the scales are isomorphic.
mkd1964 10y ago
I'm a very good musician and have never thought about it exactly that way before but I have to say, that's a very good explanation and way of thinking about it. I think it's a bit abstract for someone trying to learn to read music, but it's absolutely correct.

by karlb 10y ago

andrepd 10y ago

The gist is correct, but it's worth noting that, for example, if you played do-re-mi in E it would do E-F#-G#, not E-F-G, to preserve tone/semitone order. That's where the key signature comes in.

ajuc 10y ago
And that shows how WTF the musical notation is.
- andrepd 10y ago
  o.O why so? And what on earth do you propose?
  - ajuc 10y ago
    C is 0. Each half-tone up is +1. If you really want to keep it concise you can write it as base-12 numbers. C1 C1# D1 D1# E1 F1 F1# G1 G1# A1 A1# B1 C2 C2# D2 D2# E2 F2 F2# G2 G2# A2 A2# B2 ... 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0a 0b 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b ... First number is octave. Second number is half-tone in that octave. Translating is just mechanical addition. EDIT: on second thought making it base-12 just to save some space makes no sense, people are good with base-10, just keep the numbers.
    - meggar 10y ago
      What would D Flat be, 0.5? what about D Double flat?
      - hiddenkrypt 10y ago
        Db would be 01. Dbb would be 00. (or 11 and 10 for the octave) The point ajuc is making is that the flat-sharp accidentals aren't used or needed at all if you just assign numbers to each tone. There's no concept of flat or sharp, unless you want to deal with microtones.
        meggar 10y ago
        The letters and flats/sharps give you key/value over frequencies, which is better than just a numeric index over a chromatic scale. Working with the keys allows for the same abstractions to be used with all 12 keys at the same time, on the same staff.
        hiddenkrypt 10y ago
        I'm not really arguing one way or the other, just pointing out that they're functionally equivalent. It's two different maps keying to the same set of frequencies. The BASE12 system described above would allow for keys as well, just with a different notation. Instead of flats/sharps marked next to the clef in traditional sheet music, the BASE12 system could start each line with a list of 'prohibited' notes. For example, when indicating that a piece is in the key of Gm, the staff in BASE12 could start with : [01,04,06,08,0b]. This indicates that the majority of the song will be made of the notes 7,9,b,0,2,3, and 5, and serves the same purpose as having two flats next to the treble clef, one on the middle line and one in the top space. Which of these systems would be easier for humans to grok is up for debate. I personally don't think either one is better. Thinking about it, the traditional notation is just mapping to an octal system, with the key accidentals acting as modifiers to the map and the base-8 values being displayed graphically as vertical position on the staff.

ajuc 10y ago

I'm not a good musician by any means, never had music education apart from the primary school which was abysmal. I can't recognise pure tones (just the intervals). I still can play any song I hear on guitar or keyboard "good enough" so that people have fun singing to it. The huge reveal to me was the same - notes doesn't matter - the intervals make the song recognizable. People change notes all the time when singing (jump octaves, start again lower to adjust to others, etc). So on amateur level it's really just starting on random place on keyboard and guessing which note will sound "right" after that. Everybody hear if the next note is higher or lover, so it's just "was that +1, +2, or +3?" Usually you can guess, if not - start again. Very easy and makes playing instruments so fun. I never understood why they bother kids with these complicated drawings and hashes and be-mols, if they could've just wrote all songs as "start at this note, and jump by +2, +3, -5, ...".

entropy_ 10y ago
Some notation systems do exactly that. For example, the notation used for byzantine chanting: http://www.byzantinechant.org/notation/Table%20of%20Byzantine%20Notation%20Symbols.pdf http://www.byzantinechant.org/notation/Table%20of%20Byzantin...

shiro 10y ago

I started music with classical piano and only recently started transposing instrument (bamboo flute), and am trying to get used to movable do solfege. I'm still easily confused when key change occurs or borrowed chord appears. (For the latter there are limited patterns so I should remember them, I guess.)

hammock 10y ago

Many (but not all, or even the majority) music classrooms around the world teach students fluency in solfege (do-re-mi), and everyone I've spoken to about it agrees it helps out a lot in the way you describe.

MereKatMoves 10y ago
That's interesting from a personal perspective. I was taught music in the UK where that is specifically not used (or at least wasn't when I learnt). I took a year out of my Music degree to attend the Sorbonne. French music education places a heavy emphasis on solfege. When I started going to their undergraduate classes it was immediately apparent that the level was several years behind that of the UK (in classes for composition and orchestration most noticeably). To attend classes dealing with similar material to what I was used to as a UK undergraduate, I was attending Post-grad courses. Having just completed my first year on a UK BMus course it was quite an eye opener to see 19yr olds learning material I had been taught at 16.
- robert_tweed 10y ago
  I wonder if the UK system is better at sieving natural talent whereas the French system is better at teaching? Personally I hated music (in the UK) because we never seemed to get taught anything, we we largely expected to just know things or magically learn through awkward repetition. Knowing what I know now, I think there are a lot of ways we could have practised music early on that would have helped those of us not born with perfect absolute pitch. Most people have perfect relative pitch (afaik I fall into this group). Perfect absolute pitch and tone-deafness are both quite rare. It sounds like the French system is optimised for the majority, forcing everyone to practise interval differentiation, including those who don't need it (and the small minority who will never be able to do it).
  - MereKatMoves 10y ago
    Without trying to cite what currently happens in the UK, I think it is fair to say that kids are handed instruments like the recorder at a fairly early age, and those that do well are encouraged to progress. That's a sieving process for sure. When they get to secondary school, music as a subject is most often just a minor inconvenience in the curriculum to most pupils, and those who have ability are pushed into learning flute/violin etc (at additional cost to themselves and outside of the timetable). In the course of going through the grades of music (performance exams), kids are taught aural skills and theory (grade 5 theory is required to take higher performance grades). This results in a select group of instrumentalists that have learned intervals, harmony and scales practically. Whether any of those skills are useful to a non musician is debatable, so one could say that it is the most efficient way of getting a rounded skill set into the brain of a musical 15-16 yr old. The French system would, I agree, produce a broader spectrum of musically able people, but in practice it results in a lower level of specific and important knowledge. The UK system produces more complete performers whereas I would say the French system has large gaps which then get filled in at degree level. Perhaps things are greatly different these days. I know for example that studio production is an option for A level music, and there is absolutely no musical theory knowledge required to produce a studio track. I wonder if A level students are even taught basic 4 part harmony any more. Music, to an individual, has always been a matter of ability, discipline and perseverance to practice. In education, the solution to nourishing those qualities is never going to be perfect. I do recall the French students I was with were quite annoyed that my education was years ahead of theirs, but with perspective, I'm sure it didn't really matter then, and it surely doesn't now.

jlu 10y ago

@karb: mind if I shoot some questions about the "decipher” all music into I, II, III, IV, V" part in email? Thanks.

ngneer 10y ago

Indeed, the scales are isomorphic.

mkd1964 10y ago

I'm a very good musician and have never thought about it exactly that way before but I have to say, that's a very good explanation and way of thinking about it. I think it's a bit abstract for someone trying to learn to read music, but it's absolutely correct.