4 ms·

Maybe, can you give an example that does not fit into this?

Isamu 7y ago
If it is all possibilities of 12 beats and below, then presumably it includes a measure + a partial measure of even 7, 9, 10 and 11-beat measures. But for an example: "Turn it on again" by Genesis is a 13-beat verse. The chorus I think is maybe in 4. You could turn to King Crimson for longer beats.
mathw 7y ago
Anything that uses 9 of the 12 tones in a Western standard equally tempered octave, for starters. So, if it changes key at any point it is very likely to find that it uses 9 tones or more. Anything written in a melodic minor scale will use 10 tones, as the 6th and 7th of the melodic minor scale are sharpened on ascending movement but not sharpened on descending. Assuming it uses every note in the scale of course - not all melodies do. But if you start off saying 8 tones per octave you're probably not making space for sharpened 6ths by ignoring the 4ths. Just about anything written by Schoenberg in accordance with his theory of tone rows and atonality, where the idea is to use all 12 tones as a fundamental component of your melody so that you're not constrained by the notion he didn't like of a tonal centre. Okay so this isn't a popular genre, because it turns out most people who aren't Schoenberg really rather like tonal music. (Yes, that's an oversimplification of his ideas, he did a lot more for music than that). I think the author of the article has exaggerated the claims about "every possible melody", because given the people who did it are musicians themselves they must be well aware that they've ignored a large swathe of music, and that's before we've even considered tuning systems which don't have 12 tones per octave.
dragontamer 7y ago
Though you asked for an example... but maybe its best to show a counter-example instead? Here's the Imperial Death March played in a Major-scale, instead of a minor scale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9MShtCg4fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9MShtCg4fk If everything was in an 8-note (no accidental, transpositions only) measure, they'd sound like "Vader's redemption". To sound sad, you MUST shift to a minor key. A minor key has sharps and flats to create tension. Any "sad sounding" song cannot be properly played in a major key.
- daotoad 7y ago
  And as we all know, sad songs say so much.
- nprateem 7y ago
  Most keys contain sharps and flats so they don't necessarily create tension. It's a note's relationship to the tonic that does that, and what precedes or follows it.
- mjw 7y ago
  > A minor key has sharps and flats to create tension. The natural minor or Aeolian mode doesn't use any notes outside the diatonic scale (probably what you meant by "sharps and flats"). It's very possible to write sad music in the natural minor. REM's "Losing my religion" for example. > To sound sad, you MUST shift to a minor key With sufficient skill you can write sad music in any key or scale, there's no hard and fast rules here. Tonality is only one of the elements you can use to shape the emotion that's conveyed, and it's all quite culturally relative too.
foobarrio 7y ago
You're missing anything that uses notes outside of a typical diatonic scale. Example: The first 2 notes of the popular piano piece Fur Elise. It uses an Eb. The piece is in A-minor/C-major and Eb isn't in that scale. That piece also uses a G#. The addition of the Eb and G# means you need at least 9 tones to represent that melody. Many Spanish songs use what's called the Andalusian Cadence which will use the equivalent of that G# in melodies too as well as the non-sharped note. Any blues singing will use that "blue" note that is off the diatonic scale. A song like Jamiroquai's Picture of My Life has a little color note that feature prominantly in the melody in the opening line "... I can follow through." The note on "through".
- dragontamer 7y ago
  Blues has more than one accidental: https://www.basicmusictheory.com/img/c-blues-scale-on-treble-clef.png https://www.basicmusictheory.com/img/c-blues-scale-on-treble... Blues scale is also 7-notes instead of 8.
  - foobarrio 7y ago
    I play lots of blues guitar, I am familiar. That chart is basing it off the C minor scale which would correspond to the Eb major diatonic scale. If you play an Am blues scale which is, you'll see how the blue note is really just one note (it's a pentatonic scale with note between the 4th and 5th added): it would be A C D (D#/Eb) E G A. That D# is the blue note.
0xff00ffee 7y ago
Anything with a sixteenth note or faster. Anything not in 4/4. Anything not in C major.
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  Duh, but that was not the question. The question was how common that is in practice? Take the key recognizable seconds of top # songs of the last # years. What percentage will or will not fall under this algorithm (possibly after normalizing the key)? Not 100% seems obvious, but is it 90%? 50%? 5%?
  - 0xff00ffee 7y ago
    I went to Billboard's hot 100. I picked the top 10 songs. The Box: Roddy Rich - It's 4/4 and the vocals use triplets and 16ths; basically monotone, very few pitches --> does not fit Life is Good: Featuring Drake - 4/4 with triplet phrasing; basically monotone, very few pitches used --> does not fit Post Malone Circles - 4/4, 16th note vocal phrasing at points, no swing feel, the main melody and chorus are free of accidentals, it uses no swing feel --> does not fit Dance Monkey: Tones and I - 4/4 with swing; accidentals in the chorus (chromatic descent) --> does not fit Don't Start Nau: Dua Lipa - Literally all triplets over 4/4 in verse... --> does not fit : : ugh. I can't listen to any more of these awful (IMHO) songs, but so far 0% fit "4/4, 8th note divisions, no accidentals" that was used to generate the 68B patterns.
tunesmith 7y ago
"Maria, I just met a girl named Maria" in the first two notes; it's Lydian. Or if you pretend it starts on the IV, then the 7th note won't fit for being outside the octave. Yoda's theme from star wars... first three notes of the Simpsons theme... Pretty much any song by Nirvana... like Lithium, major 3rd, flat 6, flat 7 - that's not even a normal mode. "La la la" from Buble's "Everything" for an easy listening example.
abruzzi 7y ago
Shifting meters (Stravinsky's Rite of Spring), quarter tone music (Charles Ives), other alternate scales (check out Okros Ensemble), Take 5 (5/4 meter). The title is absurd because there is virtually an infinite number of melodies.

If it is all possibilities of 12 beats and below, then presumably it includes a measure + a partial measure of even 7, 9, 10 and 11-beat measures. But for an example: "Turn it on again" by Genesis is a 13-beat verse. The chorus I think is maybe in 4. You could turn to King Crimson for longer beats.

mathw 7y ago

Anything that uses 9 of the 12 tones in a Western standard equally tempered octave, for starters. So, if it changes key at any point it is very likely to find that it uses 9 tones or more. Anything written in a melodic minor scale will use 10 tones, as the 6th and 7th of the melodic minor scale are sharpened on ascending movement but not sharpened on descending. Assuming it uses every note in the scale of course - not all melodies do. But if you start off saying 8 tones per octave you're probably not making space for sharpened 6ths by ignoring the 4ths. Just about anything written by Schoenberg in accordance with his theory of tone rows and atonality, where the idea is to use all 12 tones as a fundamental component of your melody so that you're not constrained by the notion he didn't like of a tonal centre. Okay so this isn't a popular genre, because it turns out most people who aren't Schoenberg really rather like tonal music. (Yes, that's an oversimplification of his ideas, he did a lot more for music than that). I think the author of the article has exaggerated the claims about "every possible melody", because given the people who did it are musicians themselves they must be well aware that they've ignored a large swathe of music, and that's before we've even considered tuning systems which don't have 12 tones per octave.

dragontamer 7y ago

Though you asked for an example... but maybe its best to show a counter-example instead? Here's the Imperial Death March played in a Major-scale, instead of a minor scale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9MShtCg4fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9MShtCg4fk If everything was in an 8-note (no accidental, transpositions only) measure, they'd sound like "Vader's redemption". To sound sad, you MUST shift to a minor key. A minor key has sharps and flats to create tension. Any "sad sounding" song cannot be properly played in a major key.

daotoad 7y ago
And as we all know, sad songs say so much.
nprateem 7y ago
Most keys contain sharps and flats so they don't necessarily create tension. It's a note's relationship to the tonic that does that, and what precedes or follows it.
mjw 7y ago
> A minor key has sharps and flats to create tension. The natural minor or Aeolian mode doesn't use any notes outside the diatonic scale (probably what you meant by "sharps and flats"). It's very possible to write sad music in the natural minor. REM's "Losing my religion" for example. > To sound sad, you MUST shift to a minor key With sufficient skill you can write sad music in any key or scale, there's no hard and fast rules here. Tonality is only one of the elements you can use to shape the emotion that's conveyed, and it's all quite culturally relative too.

foobarrio 7y ago

You're missing anything that uses notes outside of a typical diatonic scale. Example: The first 2 notes of the popular piano piece Fur Elise. It uses an Eb. The piece is in A-minor/C-major and Eb isn't in that scale. That piece also uses a G#. The addition of the Eb and G# means you need at least 9 tones to represent that melody. Many Spanish songs use what's called the Andalusian Cadence which will use the equivalent of that G# in melodies too as well as the non-sharped note. Any blues singing will use that "blue" note that is off the diatonic scale. A song like Jamiroquai's Picture of My Life has a little color note that feature prominantly in the melody in the opening line "... I can follow through." The note on "through".

dragontamer 7y ago
Blues has more than one accidental: https://www.basicmusictheory.com/img/c-blues-scale-on-treble-clef.png https://www.basicmusictheory.com/img/c-blues-scale-on-treble... Blues scale is also 7-notes instead of 8.
- foobarrio 7y ago
  I play lots of blues guitar, I am familiar. That chart is basing it off the C minor scale which would correspond to the Eb major diatonic scale. If you play an Am blues scale which is, you'll see how the blue note is really just one note (it's a pentatonic scale with note between the 4th and 5th added): it would be A C D (D#/Eb) E G A. That D# is the blue note.

0xff00ffee 7y ago

Anything with a sixteenth note or faster. Anything not in 4/4. Anything not in C major.

diffeomorphism 7y ago
Duh, but that was not the question. The question was how common that is in practice? Take the key recognizable seconds of top # songs of the last # years. What percentage will or will not fall under this algorithm (possibly after normalizing the key)? Not 100% seems obvious, but is it 90%? 50%? 5%?
- 0xff00ffee 7y ago
  I went to Billboard's hot 100. I picked the top 10 songs. The Box: Roddy Rich - It's 4/4 and the vocals use triplets and 16ths; basically monotone, very few pitches --> does not fit Life is Good: Featuring Drake - 4/4 with triplet phrasing; basically monotone, very few pitches used --> does not fit Post Malone Circles - 4/4, 16th note vocal phrasing at points, no swing feel, the main melody and chorus are free of accidentals, it uses no swing feel --> does not fit Dance Monkey: Tones and I - 4/4 with swing; accidentals in the chorus (chromatic descent) --> does not fit Don't Start Nau: Dua Lipa - Literally all triplets over 4/4 in verse... --> does not fit : : ugh. I can't listen to any more of these awful (IMHO) songs, but so far 0% fit "4/4, 8th note divisions, no accidentals" that was used to generate the 68B patterns.

tunesmith 7y ago

"Maria, I just met a girl named Maria" in the first two notes; it's Lydian. Or if you pretend it starts on the IV, then the 7th note won't fit for being outside the octave. Yoda's theme from star wars... first three notes of the Simpsons theme... Pretty much any song by Nirvana... like Lithium, major 3rd, flat 6, flat 7 - that's not even a normal mode. "La la la" from Buble's "Everything" for an easy listening example.

abruzzi 7y ago

Shifting meters (Stravinsky's Rite of Spring), quarter tone music (Charles Ives), other alternate scales (check out Okros Ensemble), Take 5 (5/4 meter). The title is absurd because there is virtually an infinite number of melodies.