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> If that means "learn your scales like every other grown-up musician" then yes I will be kind of harsh about it. That's the barrier to entry, because no one wa
by thomastjeffery 6y ago
> If that means "learn your scales like every other grown-up musician" then yes I will be kind of harsh about it. That's the barrier to entry, because no one wants to hear a musician who doesn't know what they're doing.
Jimi Hendrix. Elton John. David Bowie. The list goes on.
Just because you are happy with an arbitrary barrier to entry does not mean that everyone around you must be.
Music is a wonderful thing. Anyone can learn to make it. Telling someone they need to learn their scales first is just condescending.
> As efficient as theoretically possible, ever, for the rest of time? Probably not. As efficient as is practicable by today's professional musicians? Yes for sure.
> But improvements are always welcome.
Hah. You have already proved this statement wrong. You do not welcome changes. You approach the very idea of progress with condescending skepticism.
Need more examples? How about the article we are discussing? The fact is that it is prohibitively difficult to market a piano with slightly smaller keys. Getting something like the Janko keyboard to get traction in this industry is practically impossible, and not because Janko's design lacks merit.
Look: Nowhere did I say that musicians shouldn't learn scales. That's absurd. Neither did I complain that, "I don't want to learn scales, because it's too hard." On the contrary, I have learned scales. I have been playing music since childhood, and am quite proficient.
My point is that learning scales is arbitrarily difficult, by nature of the way we write them and talk about them. We have Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. We call Ionian "Major", and Aeolian "Minor". When we write anything that isn't Ionian, we use "accidentals". It's a mess. We can do better. We can make learning scales a simpler process. We can make better abstractions for them, which will make it easier to talk about more complicated theory.
Instead, people like you insist we all stick with 17th century western notation for eternity, because that's what we've got, and it's good enough. People like you insist that new players must be motivated to learn overtly unnecessary skills, for no reason other than "that's how piano keyboards are shaped". In doing so, you turn away intelligent people who are more interested in music than slogging through the centuries of cruft that traditional western music theory is made of.
- sporkologist 6y ago> Nowhere did I say that musicians shouldn't learn scales. That's absurd. Yes you absolutely did. Your whole point is that 11/12ths of musicians' muscle memory is needlessly redundant. Let's see what you got that is better than this. You use a fully transposing MIDI keyboard and play everything on the white keys, am I right?
- thomastjeffery 6y agoYou are so desperate to argue with me, you aren't even bothering to comprehend what I have to say. Get over yourself. Or not. I don't care.
- sporkologist 6y agoSo far all you've done is say "I already showed you" for everything, instead of showing me anything. Except that accordion nightmare keyboard. You keep making assertions then when called on it resort to personal attacks. I specifically retorted to your muscle-memory quote with your own quote about the 11/12ths of effort, and apparently you didn't appreciate what you had to say for yourself. Your rhetoric is much better than your grasp of facts.
- sporkologist 6y ago> Music is a wonderful thing. Anyone can learn to make it. Telling someone they need to learn their scales first is just condescending. You want to be a poet? You need to learn your language first. Same with any art form. Is it condescending to tell someone they need to know their craft well to be a professional? I guess it is these days but it just delays the inevitable practice needed to become a professional.
- sporkologist 6y agoYou are still obsessing over the complexity of the major scale modes. The major scale modes. That's just the beginning for a pro player. Once you learn the modes and scales and arpeggios and pentatonics, then you have to learn (gasp!) songs and stuff, then you have to know your genre very well. You can get by with a MIDI transposing Ionian keyboard, but frankly that will look to everyone else like a crutch or enabling device for the less-abled. Unless you can make great music on it, in which case you will be in demand as a player.
- sporkologist 6y ago> Just because you are happy with an arbitrary barrier to entry does not mean that everyone around you must be. Charlie Parker was on the stage as a young lad, just learning, and didn't know all his tunes that well. At a jazz jam session, Elvin Jones, the drummer, hearing Bird's lack of tune knowledge, was not amused and proceeded to throw a cymbal at him on stage and told him to get lost. Parker then went on to practice 12 hours a day until he mastered the literature, and he's become somewhat famous since then. Parker could have whined about how unfair the pro players were towards him, but he didn't, he went home and did his homework and came back and kicked everyone's ass. Not saying you need this level of determination, but a level of open mindedness would be a good start.
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- sporkologist 6y ago> Getting something like the Janko keyboard to get traction in this industry is practically impossible, and not because Janko's design lacks merit. Yeah it does lack merit. It's hideous. Why don't you do a tiny bit of research into the costs of such a thing, and also factor in that it's been around for 140 years and never caught on.
- sporkologist 6y ago> > If that means "learn your scales like every other grown-up musician" then yes I will be kind of harsh about it. That's the barrier to entry, because no one wants to hear a musician who doesn't know what they're doing. > Jimi Hendrix. Elton John. David Bowie. The list goes on. Are you somehow implying that these musical icons don't know their scales? Please tell me that's not what you're doing.
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- sporkologist 6y ago> Instead, people like you insist we all stick with 17th century western notation for eternity Not that good of a reader, I avoid sheet music when I can
- sporkologist 6y ago> You do not welcome changes. You approach the very idea of progress with condescending skepticism. You sure have me figured out. Progress is overrated; everyone should be playing harpsichord only. And no parallel 5ths, and also the tritone is the interval of the devil.