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THANK YOU for the difficult work you do working on a DAW. I have enormous respect for your domain, you are "doing god's work" (or noodles' work, or whatever flo

THANK YOU for the difficult work you do working on a DAW. I have enormous respect for your domain, you are "doing god's work" (or noodles' work, or whatever floats your boat) for sure! I think it's a common mistake, especially in classical music, to think about musical traditions as "rooted in clear rules and numerical relationships." It's analogous to thinking that language is rooted in clear rules and structures. The truth is just the reverse, the rules, numbers, and structures are rooted in music. They exist to describe an organic, emergent cultural mechanism that is continuously changing. Ask yourself: which came first, music or theory? Language or grammar? There are plenty of musical styles with no formalized structure or numeric relationships, just as there are plenty of languages with no formalized structure or even spelling. Grammar and music theory/notation are fingers pointing at the moon, and we are looking at the finger. And when we try to engineer systems to help people point at the moon, we should be focused on the finger. Musical structure and numeric relationships are the way people communicate about music, and the tools should speak their language. Unfortunately they have to grapple with the painful inconsistencies in that language and those structures. Computer music comprehension has problems analogous to computer language comprehension - emergent complexity so high it took neural nets to finally achieve real utility. PS - it's true that Western music has, near the bottom, some relationships that were mathematically derived by none other than Pythagoras, among others. Relationships of fourths, fifths, octaves, and equal temperment all had numeric justification... But that justification was still only there to describe the practice which had already become common, an explanation of "why this sounds harmonious" as well as a proscription for "how to sound harmonious". That some rules are internalized by some generations and broken by others illustrates exactly the problem with the system.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
Thanks for your thanks. However, I disagree quite a lot with what you've written above. Not really as a matter of historiography - yes, of course, I agree that the history of musical cultures is not the same as the history of mathematics. I agree that musical practice is not rooted in an understanding of numerical relationships. I also agree that the higher level elements of musical composition/improvisation/performance are not sensibly described with math. However, one half of what defines music as a sensory experience (melody and harmony, the other half being timbre and rhythm/time) is totally, fundamentally, absolutely embedded in the nature of the intervals between pitches. The intervals we use (regardless of any actual absolute pitch selection) and how we use them seem to me to be almost indisputably rooted in the physics/mathematics of the harmonic series even if the development of the musical practice surrounding intervals had been done in complete ignorance of this. Western musical culture uses a set of terminology and even concepts that obscure the fundamental importance of intervals. The use of scale degrees rather than intervalic terminology means that there is a lack of consistency in naming that isn't necessary (it's really a historical accident), but also a lack of focus on the most important concept for understanding the nature of melody and harmony. I was really impressed to discover last year that Byzantine musical culture doesn't notate pitch, only intervals. Song melodies are remembered and notated as a series of intervals between the pitches, so that you can start from any note and play something that almost every human being alive will recognize as the same melody (they also do not have octave equivalence, but that's a nother story), even though the actual pitches are totally different. Of course, western musicians can do this too, but consider how much more cognitive load there is in understanding the process when you consider a melody to be made up of specific set of pitches, or a specific set of scale degrees, rather than just a set of intervals. > But that justification was still only there to describe the practice which had already become common, an explanation of "why this sounds harmonious" Yes, I agree that the historical ordering is as you describe. We do, however, change our terminology and practice in many other fields as we gain new insight or come to understand better ways of approaching things. I would argue that we could learn from both other musical cultures, and from the numerical/physical understanding of intervals to get to much more rational, consistent terminology and practice when it comes to melody and harmony.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

Thanks for your thanks. However, I disagree quite a lot with what you've written above. Not really as a matter of historiography - yes, of course, I agree that the history of musical cultures is not the same as the history of mathematics. I agree that musical practice is not rooted in an understanding of numerical relationships. I also agree that the higher level elements of musical composition/improvisation/performance are not sensibly described with math. However, one half of what defines music as a sensory experience (melody and harmony, the other half being timbre and rhythm/time) is totally, fundamentally, absolutely embedded in the nature of the intervals between pitches. The intervals we use (regardless of any actual absolute pitch selection) and how we use them seem to me to be almost indisputably rooted in the physics/mathematics of the harmonic series even if the development of the musical practice surrounding intervals had been done in complete ignorance of this. Western musical culture uses a set of terminology and even concepts that obscure the fundamental importance of intervals. The use of scale degrees rather than intervalic terminology means that there is a lack of consistency in naming that isn't necessary (it's really a historical accident), but also a lack of focus on the most important concept for understanding the nature of melody and harmony. I was really impressed to discover last year that Byzantine musical culture doesn't notate pitch, only intervals. Song melodies are remembered and notated as a series of intervals between the pitches, so that you can start from any note and play something that almost every human being alive will recognize as the same melody (they also do not have octave equivalence, but that's a nother story), even though the actual pitches are totally different. Of course, western musicians can do this too, but consider how much more cognitive load there is in understanding the process when you consider a melody to be made up of specific set of pitches, or a specific set of scale degrees, rather than just a set of intervals. > But that justification was still only there to describe the practice which had already become common, an explanation of "why this sounds harmonious" Yes, I agree that the historical ordering is as you describe. We do, however, change our terminology and practice in many other fields as we gain new insight or come to understand better ways of approaching things. I would argue that we could learn from both other musical cultures, and from the numerical/physical understanding of intervals to get to much more rational, consistent terminology and practice when it comes to melody and harmony.