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There are maybe three aspects to music theory: (1) Theory of how things sound like: Tones, melodies, scales, chords, based on the frequencies of individual sou
by sampo 6y ago
There are maybe three aspects to music theory:
(1) Theory of how things sound like: Tones, melodies, scales, chords, based on the frequencies of individual sounds.
(2) How to name things.
(3) How to handle the mess of naming things in Western music theory, where things have 12 different names, depending on which note you choose as the base.
This post seems to focus on 3.
- 867-5309 6y agomost disciplines, music included, have theory and practice. how things sound is an element of the latter, whereas why things sound the former. this article as the title atates is about music theory and does a pretty decent job IMO I would be delighted to see a follow up article that explores frequencies and harmonics while sticking with the code demonstrations and incorporating a simple tone generator for the practice side of things
- max_ 6y agoI once listened to a podcast where fourier transforms were used to generate sounds that otherwise don't exist.
- Jenz 6y ago> sounds that otherwise don’t exist. hmmm
- tobr 6y agoCould you maybe share which podcast? Generating “sounds that otherwise don’t exist” does not sound particularly remarkable taken at face value. It’s basically what any synthesizer or audio processor does, and Fourier transforms are also a very commonly used in audio processing.
- max_ 6y agoThis podcast. The episode of Joseph Fourier. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00srz5b/episodes/downloads https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00srz5b/episodes/downloads What I meant by "sounds that otherwise don’t exist" are sounds that are too complex to be created by physical music instruments its easier to simulate them by computer.
- DavidPiper 6y agoHere I was expecting you to say: (1) Melody (2) Harmony (3) Rhythm :-)
- twelvechairs 6y agoReally all of these are shorthand for something much more fundamental around ratios and how these are experienced by the human body at different frequencies. Harmony is shorthand for ratios at audible frequencies (~20-20,000 Hz) as they are quite directly picked up in the ear. Rhythm is shorthand for ratios expressed at much lower frequencies (~0.1-10Hz) which the body interprets with relation to its own functions (heartbeat, walking, dancing, speech). Melody is a combination of harmonic and rhythmic ratios in a way the human body has been trained to hear as a 'voice'.
- andrepd 6y ago> How to handle the mess of naming things in Western music theory, where things have 12 different names, depending on which note you choose as the base. You are missing the point.
- analog31 6y agoIt would be interesting to go through a modern college level music theory textbook and break it down into which of those 3 things each concept falls into. I can't imagine getting past maybe the first chapter.
- billfruit 6y agoWhy is that mess necessary? Cant a semantically rich notation be devised to avoid that mess?.
- reikonomusha 6y agoTo me, that’s like asking “why are inconsistencies in English necessary? can’t we all just learn Esperanto?” There’s hundreds of years worth of written music, hundreds of years worth of pedagogical material, and millions of people who simply will not “un-learn” the current tradition. Just like English, over the centuries, music notation evolves, but only just does that, evolves.