7 ms·
Mostly good info in there, but I see a few problems: > There is also no E#. It just doesn't exist. Get used to it. Those are the 12 notes. Technically not tru
by vinylkey 9y ago
Mostly good info in there, but I see a few problems:
> There is also no E#. It just doesn't exist. Get used to it. Those are the 12 notes.
Technically not true. There is an E#, it's called F. If you are playing in F# major[1], the scale has an E# in it.
> Musicians never play notes one at a time. They always use chords.
Most lead guitar parts are not chords. Typically playing in a band context will create a chord from multiple instruments, but that isn't always the case.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-sharp_major https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-sharp_major
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jimmaswell 9y ago> Musicians never play notes one at a time. They always use chords. What kind of weird statement even is that? What about the first few notes of Fur Elise?
- colordrops 9y agoOr wind instruments for that matter.
- mtpn 9y agoThere are several statements you could pick out like that in this article. Like > There is a chord called "C major", but it's totally different to the note called "C". ... the E and G of the C major chord are prominent overtones of the note.
- jcelerier 9y ago> ... the E and G of the C major chord are prominent overtones of the note. depends on the instrument. A pure sine wave at the frequency of C does not have any overtone.
- mtpn 9y agoThat’s a fair point. But still, the relationship between the root, 5th, and major third are very much connected to the fact that they are specific multiples of that root frequency, and are the loudest overtones typically audible when the note is played. The root is not totally different from chords built on it. I meant to add more to my top comment. I think the author does fairly well at their mission despite potential nit picks like that. It is really cool to see somebody learning and being excited about putting all the pieces together. The beautiful thing about music is you can go deeper and deeper as much as you want, and there are various competing ideas about what it is and how to talk about. Programming has a similar kind of depth to it.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y agoplus one to this!
- perfecot0r 9y agothere are no pure sine waves without resonance, though
- lwhalen 9y ago> Musicians never play notes one at a time. They always use chords. This guy has also obviously never met the strange and rare creature known as a 'bass player'.
- baddox 9y agoOr nearly all wind instruments....
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoOr any instrument that isn't tuned to 12-tone equal temperament. In just intonation there are no enharmonic notes, for just one example. C# isn't always the same thing as Db! And that's without mentioning oddities like most varieties of bagpipes or the hurdy-gurdy, where a constant drone is present. It doesn't exactly form chords with the other notes, but it's still more than one note being played at a time!
- baddox 9y agoWell, instruments in just intonation or other tuning systems can surely still play one note at a time!
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoBagpipes and Hurdy Gurdy physically can't, the drone is always there.
- thomasfortes 9y agoAlso know as the guy with the long guitar. Source: I am a bass player
- barkingcat 9y agoAlso violin/string players (when not playing double stops) Singers who are not overtone singers (pretty much everyone). What kind of weird musician is this person limited to?
- ML_MS 9y agoYeah. Some of the stuff said in this is stated very poorly. > A machine learning program is also called a "neural net". A neural net is just one example of a machine learning model.
- xkcd-sucks 9y ago> There is also no E#. It just doesn't exist. Get used to it. Those are the 12 notes. Whoa... Plus, they're identical only in equal temprament
- fenomas 9y agoThere are plenty of not-quite-correct things in this article, but I think both lines you quoted were meant to be more or less tongue-in-cheek.
- peterburkimsher 9y agoThank you. That's exactly right. Indeed, those lines are dramatically oversimplifying, but it makes the comments section more exciting and the article shorter. Perhaps it'll scare off people who were planning to do machine learning audio analysis. But at least they'll get an idea of how complicated it can be.
- dizzystar 9y agoIt goes along with this line... "For some reason I don't totally understand, some have 2 names (e.g. C#=Db, D#=Eb, F#=Gb, A#=Bb)." It would probably blow the authors mind to know that some scales have sharps and flats, including the ones
- rainbowmverse 9y agoI get the feeling this mistake was out of ignorance...not accidental. sorry
- peterburkimsher 9y agoYes, the mistake was out of ignorance. It was not an "accidental" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_(music) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_(music)
- xxpor 9y agoAnd he didn't mention the obvious corollary... B# (aka C). (and Cb, Fb) The dude's mind is going to be blown when he learns about double sharps and flats.
- peterburkimsher 9y agoI got really confused by that at first, because I saw Abb in a note table. When I looked it up, I saw that it's just another name for G. https://www.basicmusictheory.com/a-double-flat-note https://www.basicmusictheory.com/a-double-flat-note The fact that the same thing has 2 names, but then the same name (e.g. C) can mean 3 different things (note, chord, key) really confuses me. I'm a beginner (can't play any instrument), so this is just about trying to cover the basics and generate a machine learning dataset. If I weren't so confused already, I might try to learn an instrument. It seems to be really time-consuming to practice though, and I'd need a teacher to listen and correct my mistakes. I wouldn't notice when I get it wrong if I try to teach myself.
- toddkazakov 9y agoJust try playing any instrument - you'll soon realize that we're quite good at figuring out what sounds good and what not.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoI'd suggest starting with the tin whistle. They're very cheap, very easy (you can learn the basics in a day or two, a week at most to get your first tune down), and any Irish session will either have someone willing to teach or someone who knows where you can get a teacher. The Session[1] is an excellent resource for it. As for which whistle to buy, get one in the key of D. A Walton's little black should be about $6, one of their slightly better brass whistles around $11, and a Generation nickel D is about $12. If you really want to splurge Susato makes a very nice high D for $50 (their Kildare S series), but it's quite loud and more for if you are playing before an audience. The most expensive whistles around are probably Burke's, at $230 for a high D. So even if you end up collecting Burke whistles obsessively and getting one in every key he makes you'll still be out less money than buying some high-end guitars! The one disadvantage is that they're diatonic instruments. That means you can play in one key, and only one key, without cross-fingering the whistle. For tuning, I recommend either an electronic tuner or the program Flutini[2], assuming you get a tunable whistle (the cheap ones aren't and it probably won't matter much). [1] https://thesession.org/ https://thesession.org/ [2] http://www.novasession.org/Flutini/ http://www.novasession.org/Flutini/
- LeonB 9y agoAnd if you're going to say there's no E# you'd want to also pretend there's no B#. Otherwise it sounds like E is totally exceptional. Down with E exceptionalism.
- jwfxpr 9y agoManifest destin-E.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y agoactually, there is an E#. It's called E#! There is also a Cflat! F is the enharmonic spelling of E# and B is the enharmonic spelling of Cflat.