3 ms·

There are some people, maybe not many, that have a difficult time trying something new unless they have something familiar to form a relationship, even if the r

There are some people, maybe not many, that have a difficult time trying something new unless they have something familiar to form a relationship, even if the relationship is inaccurate and requires iterative improvement. We might say, that finding the Rosetta Stone hindered those who knew Greek trying to learn hieroglyphs. I was deathly afraid to try woodworking until someone showed me how to construct familiar angles on the machines using basic trigonometry. After I had a tiny relationship formed, I was able to experiment on my own (and then adopt woodworking vocabulary, to become entrenched in that community). I think using some arithmetic rules to entice someone who knows arithmetic, but otherwise is awkward around music theory, is an agreeable compromise to get them on the way.

zozbot234 7y ago
> I think using some arithmetic rules to entice someone who knows arithmetic, but otherwise is awkward around music theory The biggest win from that POV would actually be numbering the diatonic scale degrees starting at 0 for the tonic, and the diatonic intervals starting at 0 for the unison. Unfortunately, it heavily conflicts with all sorts of existing notations. But once you think of the third as a "2" interval, the fourth as a "3", the fifth as "4" etc. you can arbitrarily add intervals together and to scale-degrees, without having to constantly correct for the archaic 1-based counting.