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> 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

> 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 ago
Or nearly all wind instruments....
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  Or 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 ago
    Well, instruments in just intonation or other tuning systems can surely still play one note at a time!
    - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
      Bagpipes and Hurdy Gurdy physically can't, the drone is always there.
thomasfortes 9y ago
Also know as the guy with the long guitar. Source: I am a bass player
barkingcat 9y ago
Also 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?
- jerf 9y ago
  If you want to get a bit more wild, though, a lot of solo music still contains chords by implication, and can be very easily harmonically analyzed. I don't know how popular solo works are in the 20th century since atonality flung the music locomotive gleefully through the "Bridge Out Ahead" sign and into the canyon [1], but if we discount that it would certainly include almost all Western solo music. [1]: Yes, it's an opinion. Yes, it's an informed opinion, and implying in one way or another that I just must Not Get It will not faze me. I do Get It, and that's why I find it distasteful.
  - acjohnson55 9y ago
    I used to think that, but when I had to study atonal music, it became clear to me how much of an impact it had on film music and how it shows up in fragments in pop music. Then, I took a class on electronic music composition. For my own project in the spirit of the avant garde, I wanted to challenge myself to write something "musical" without resorting to the traditional concepts of pitch-based melody and harmony or quantized rhythm. It turns out, there are many other levers you can play with to create the effect of an musical arc. Not to pat myself on the back, but I think the end result is evocative in a similar sense as tonal music. If I had the time, I would do more. Check it out here, if you like: https://soundcloud.com/acjohnson/wanderers https://soundcloud.com/acjohnson/wanderers
    - jerf 9y ago
      If we want to play "wave the credentials" at each other, I minored in music composition, and my objection is a great deal philosophically deeper than "I don't generally like how atonal music sounds". There's a parallel world where atonal music is still explored but I wouldn't characterize it as "flinging music off a cliff". Atonality was merely when the cliff-jumping occurred. I have neither the time nor the desire to fully explain my point in an HN post, but I would note that the music community itself has been asking questions in this direction in the last decade or so, if you want to follow up on it, as the academic music community asks themselves exactly how they got to where they are now, so disconnected from the rest of the world at large and so utterly irrelevant to almost anything musically occurring today. (Not just pop music; that is structurally inevitably insipid, really, so who cares, but irrelevant to anything other than their own very little world.)
mdesq 9y ago
Or most instruments played in a symphony orchestra.
peterburkimsher 9y ago
Oh! Thank you; I hadn't realised that. I learned this by asking a friend in the CouchSurfing meetup who brings a guitar or a roll-out piano. And as I say, I can't play any instrument myself. Maybe if I want to learn, I should choose an instrument that uses single notes, it might be easier. Regarding singing though, my ex-girlfriend told me to sing more quietly in church because it sounds so bad.
- leejo 9y ago
  > Maybe if I want to learn, I should choose an instrument that uses single notes, it might be easier. It's not just limited to bass/lead guitarists either - finger style acoustic guitarists don't play just chords. OK, often the fingerings are chord patterns, or arpeggiated chords, but that's not always the case. Checkout the title track from Bensusan's album, "Intuite", that is mostly just a single note melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di1qQsGcaIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di1qQsGcaIc (it would appear the ending is cut off this track here, but it gives you the idea).
- Joeboy 9y ago
  > I should choose an instrument that uses single notes, it might be easier. I'd say the easiest / most immediately rewarding way is to pick up a guitar or similar (banjo / uke / banjolele / mandolin etc) and learn a few chords. Although people who can do that aren't exactly in demand so there's a case for learning the onde martineau or glass harmonica or something - that way if you get decent at it you can actually get paid to do it.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  That's nuts. That's like asking a beginning programmer to stop coding because their code is garbage. The only way to be a great singer is to be a bad singer first.
bambax 9y ago
Also, most wind instruments (that are played with the mouth -- organs excluded) are monophonic: trumpets, clarinets, saxophones, oboes, flutes, etc.
cup-of-tea 9y ago
Or any solo player including a singer. It's a ridiculous statement.

> 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 ago

Or nearly all wind instruments....

SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
Or 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 ago
  Well, instruments in just intonation or other tuning systems can surely still play one note at a time!
  - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
    Bagpipes and Hurdy Gurdy physically can't, the drone is always there.

thomasfortes 9y ago

Also know as the guy with the long guitar. Source: I am a bass player

barkingcat 9y ago

Also 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?

jerf 9y ago
If you want to get a bit more wild, though, a lot of solo music still contains chords by implication, and can be very easily harmonically analyzed. I don't know how popular solo works are in the 20th century since atonality flung the music locomotive gleefully through the "Bridge Out Ahead" sign and into the canyon [1], but if we discount that it would certainly include almost all Western solo music. [1]: Yes, it's an opinion. Yes, it's an informed opinion, and implying in one way or another that I just must Not Get It will not faze me. I do Get It, and that's why I find it distasteful.
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  I used to think that, but when I had to study atonal music, it became clear to me how much of an impact it had on film music and how it shows up in fragments in pop music. Then, I took a class on electronic music composition. For my own project in the spirit of the avant garde, I wanted to challenge myself to write something "musical" without resorting to the traditional concepts of pitch-based melody and harmony or quantized rhythm. It turns out, there are many other levers you can play with to create the effect of an musical arc. Not to pat myself on the back, but I think the end result is evocative in a similar sense as tonal music. If I had the time, I would do more. Check it out here, if you like: https://soundcloud.com/acjohnson/wanderers https://soundcloud.com/acjohnson/wanderers
  - jerf 9y ago
    If we want to play "wave the credentials" at each other, I minored in music composition, and my objection is a great deal philosophically deeper than "I don't generally like how atonal music sounds". There's a parallel world where atonal music is still explored but I wouldn't characterize it as "flinging music off a cliff". Atonality was merely when the cliff-jumping occurred. I have neither the time nor the desire to fully explain my point in an HN post, but I would note that the music community itself has been asking questions in this direction in the last decade or so, if you want to follow up on it, as the academic music community asks themselves exactly how they got to where they are now, so disconnected from the rest of the world at large and so utterly irrelevant to almost anything musically occurring today. (Not just pop music; that is structurally inevitably insipid, really, so who cares, but irrelevant to anything other than their own very little world.)

mdesq 9y ago

Or most instruments played in a symphony orchestra.

peterburkimsher 9y ago

Oh! Thank you; I hadn't realised that. I learned this by asking a friend in the CouchSurfing meetup who brings a guitar or a roll-out piano. And as I say, I can't play any instrument myself. Maybe if I want to learn, I should choose an instrument that uses single notes, it might be easier. Regarding singing though, my ex-girlfriend told me to sing more quietly in church because it sounds so bad.

leejo 9y ago
> Maybe if I want to learn, I should choose an instrument that uses single notes, it might be easier. It's not just limited to bass/lead guitarists either - finger style acoustic guitarists don't play just chords. OK, often the fingerings are chord patterns, or arpeggiated chords, but that's not always the case. Checkout the title track from Bensusan's album, "Intuite", that is mostly just a single note melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di1qQsGcaIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di1qQsGcaIc (it would appear the ending is cut off this track here, but it gives you the idea).
Joeboy 9y ago
> I should choose an instrument that uses single notes, it might be easier. I'd say the easiest / most immediately rewarding way is to pick up a guitar or similar (banjo / uke / banjolele / mandolin etc) and learn a few chords. Although people who can do that aren't exactly in demand so there's a case for learning the onde martineau or glass harmonica or something - that way if you get decent at it you can actually get paid to do it.
brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
That's nuts. That's like asking a beginning programmer to stop coding because their code is garbage. The only way to be a great singer is to be a bad singer first.

bambax 9y ago

Also, most wind instruments (that are played with the mouth -- organs excluded) are monophonic: trumpets, clarinets, saxophones, oboes, flutes, etc.

cup-of-tea 9y ago

Or any solo player including a singer. It's a ridiculous statement.