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As an introduction to formal systems[1], it's great. For a musician, it totally falls apart in the "Bach" section. The idea that the circle of fifths[2] (or any
by braindongle 7y ago
As an introduction to formal systems[1], it's great. For a musician, it totally falls apart in the "Bach" section. The idea that the circle of fifths[2] (or any progression that ends where it started) is a "strange loop" is just silly. There's nothing strange about it. Traverse a sequence of (usually 12) integers that slice up the octave by using any integer for step size and bang! You eventually land back at the beginning of the sequence.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_system
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths
- lidHanteyk 7y agoThere's at least one strange thing about it: there's no perfect tuning for evenly-spaced chromatic-tone pitch systems. Whether you pick 12 or any other number of tones, the resulting circle of fifths (combined with analogous octaves) will witness the fact that it's not possible to tune the system perfectly. As a musician, I found a lot of interesting things in GEB, even if it did not advance my music career.