3 ms·

Almost certainly C#. But it's certainly possible to be a Db, the context depends on the previous and next notes of all voices as much as the current set. There

by qppo 6y ago

Almost certainly C#. But it's certainly possible to be a Db, the context depends on the previous and next notes of all voices as much as the current set. There are exactly seven pitches in a tonality [0] (without getting esoteric), each named A-G. Whether a pitch is a C or D depends on whether that pitch is functioning as the C or D variant in the current tonality. The current tonality is not absolute, most interesting harmonies are created by changing it. In major (one possible tonality) it is common to pivot to the parallel minor (another tonality that has the same set of pitches but different root). The baroque/classic way of doing that was by constructing the dominant chord of the destination tonality and pivoting to it. In F major, the parallel minor is D minor, whose dominant is A major, which has a C# as the third. If this is what your intent is in the composition, that pitch is named C#. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonality

jacquesm 6y ago
This is super helpful and explains one reason why different pieces come up with this in different ways. The two examples I have are one baroque piece and one jazz piece. I never figured there might be a historical difference, I always thought - wrong, apparently - that these were settled once and carved in stone. That's very hard to recover from random input though. But it may be possible to figure out if a piece is baroque/classical or more modern.
- qppo 6y ago
  Music theory isn't a set of rules so much as conventions and observations that constantly changes. Pitch naming is one of those that fits both, and it can be subjective. There's some interesting set theoretical approaches to this problem I can think of, but I don't think they'd be of use practically. There's a reason most notation software gets it "wrong" when transcribing MIDI data, because there are multiple interpretations of the same data and a limited set of them can be "correct" and I can think of cases where 3-4 of them are equally correct (by metric) but obviously wrong to a reader. Pedogical example is the "German" augmented 6th chord, which is specifically used as a pivot between tonalities and has four alternative spellings in the same key, and while a theorist will tell you only one is correct in context, in practice one may be chosen over the other (and I'd bet there are scores out there where the same pitch is spelled differently for different instruments). Jazz isn't significantly different than baroque or classical. It's ordered chaos for the most part, and since it derives from blues will often fall into similar variations on familiar patterns harmonically. Notationally though, it can be all over the place, if it's notated at all. For example chord voicings are typically left as an exercise to the reader in Jazz, and early baroque, but left explicit in classical through to about the 1920s in art music where it has since diverged. Deceptively tricky problem. Fun to think about though. If you're tackling it, like it sounds like you are, just remember that all notation is lossy and it's purpose is either to convey information to a reader or performer. If you really want to get into the mind of it, study a bit of four voice harmony, counterpoint, and functional harmony. There's probably a lot on YouTube.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    > Deceptively tricky problem. No kidding. Thank you very much for the thoughtful and concrete answer, I will do as you said, and go study the subject as much as I need to be able to get the bulk of the cases to reverse, I realize now that there won't be perfection but it should be possible to do it 'right' except in ambiguous cases, and there it might be possible to have the software indicate which notes have ambiguous representations in the score and give the user to choose the one they feel is right (to annotate the recovered data). That should eventually cover all cases that are of interest.

by qppo 6y ago

jacquesm 6y ago

This is super helpful and explains one reason why different pieces come up with this in different ways. The two examples I have are one baroque piece and one jazz piece. I never figured there might be a historical difference, I always thought - wrong, apparently - that these were settled once and carved in stone. That's very hard to recover from random input though. But it may be possible to figure out if a piece is baroque/classical or more modern.

qppo 6y ago
Music theory isn't a set of rules so much as conventions and observations that constantly changes. Pitch naming is one of those that fits both, and it can be subjective. There's some interesting set theoretical approaches to this problem I can think of, but I don't think they'd be of use practically. There's a reason most notation software gets it "wrong" when transcribing MIDI data, because there are multiple interpretations of the same data and a limited set of them can be "correct" and I can think of cases where 3-4 of them are equally correct (by metric) but obviously wrong to a reader. Pedogical example is the "German" augmented 6th chord, which is specifically used as a pivot between tonalities and has four alternative spellings in the same key, and while a theorist will tell you only one is correct in context, in practice one may be chosen over the other (and I'd bet there are scores out there where the same pitch is spelled differently for different instruments). Jazz isn't significantly different than baroque or classical. It's ordered chaos for the most part, and since it derives from blues will often fall into similar variations on familiar patterns harmonically. Notationally though, it can be all over the place, if it's notated at all. For example chord voicings are typically left as an exercise to the reader in Jazz, and early baroque, but left explicit in classical through to about the 1920s in art music where it has since diverged. Deceptively tricky problem. Fun to think about though. If you're tackling it, like it sounds like you are, just remember that all notation is lossy and it's purpose is either to convey information to a reader or performer. If you really want to get into the mind of it, study a bit of four voice harmony, counterpoint, and functional harmony. There's probably a lot on YouTube.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  > Deceptively tricky problem. No kidding. Thank you very much for the thoughtful and concrete answer, I will do as you said, and go study the subject as much as I need to be able to get the bulk of the cases to reverse, I realize now that there won't be perfection but it should be possible to do it 'right' except in ambiguous cases, and there it might be possible to have the software indicate which notes have ambiguous representations in the score and give the user to choose the one they feel is right (to annotate the recovered data). That should eventually cover all cases that are of interest.