4 ms·

Well, that pretty much explains why people have a hard time "getting" music theory. Gibberish+Goobeltygooksus7

by mml 15y ago

diN0bot 15y ago
Ironically, the situation is very similar to math. It's relatively easy to read music theory notation, so that the Gibberish and Goobeltygookus make sense, similar to learning mathematical notation. (I personally believe this is easier than learning the alphabet, but that's a different story) However, understanding what the abstractions mean is difficult. The difference between memorizing formulas and intuiting patterns. Maybe this is no harder than understanding the abstractions behinds words. Like most "hard" things, the largest reason for difficulty is one of obtaining persistent practice. If it were common to sing piano music using theory words rather than a single "lalala", for example, or if our language made use of specific tonal changes (up a second v down a major third), or if everyone learned the theory at the age where we now learn the alphabet, the gibberish goobeltygook would seem "easy".
- kabdib 15y ago
  The problem I always had with math (when it came to integrals, anyway) was the whole 'dx' notation, where you apparently just had to "go with the flow" and understand what was being expressed. It ain't "d times x", it's this other thing that's syntactically similar to saying "ab" which means "a times b". Someone on HN is going to hammer me. I just muddled through the ambiguity. Then again, what I used to think was the real solution (an exensible grammar -- say, s-expressions -- which would remove the ambiguity) would result in really ugly-looking math. [Don't get me started on denotational semantics. I tried, I really tried to understand the foundation of Standard ML through some DS-based books on the subject, but in the end I just got sick of yet another system of poorly defined heiroglyphics. Maybe I'm just allergic.]
  - juiceandjuice 15y ago
    One thing you learn in math/physics is all the different ways you can denote a derivative. It makes a lot more sense when you get into Lagrangian mechanics, ODEs/PDEs, QM, complex variables, your first analysis class, etc... classes where you learn why they denote operators and variables in certain ways because other ways don't make much sense given the context.
  - agumonkey 15y ago
    About that, one author of SICP build a new physics class based around functions for every physical operator, no more syntactic craze, just functions ( higher order though ). Check SICM on google.
    - WildUtah 15y ago
      This is exactly what I was going to reply when I saw the GP. SICM is a brilliant book I've only started that revolves around putting concrete understanding ahead of notation. Unlike most books of that type, this one is a seriously advanced math/physics work. At world class universities, upper division undergrads in Physics can study Lagrangian Mechanics in their third year if their calculus is good enough. One note from the excellent introduction focused how to learn math (q.v.): "In his book on mathematical pedagogy [15], Hans Freudenthal argues that the reliance on ambiguous, unstated notational conventions in such expressions as f(x) and df(x)/dx makes mathematics, and especially introductory calcu- lus, extremely confusing for beginning students; and he enjoins mathematics educators to use more formal modern notation." Plus, Lisp!
- nandemo 15y ago
  I disagree. Mathematicians care much more about notation than do musicians. Mathematical notation should be precise, concise and consistent. The hard parts of maths are the abstraction and the formalization of stuff we take for granted. In contrast, the essence of music theory is fairly easy (if you have a math background, you could learn it in a few hours!). But music notation a strange mix of time-tested, concise notations with cruft that remains due to backwards compatibility. So we write "𝆮" to mean pedal down, but "𝆯" to mean pedal up. We write C7, Cmaj7 and Cmin7 but the modifiers "maj" and "min" modify different parts of the chord. And so on. And sometimes the notation is there, but people simply don't use it consistently. For instance, the usage of 6th and 13th interchangeably without proper justification (e.g. the post in question).
dextorious 15y ago
Actually it's a perfectly succinct and easy notation. Not many musicians have a "hard time" getting it, except for those that never cared to study it. In fact, in the history of jazz piss poor black kids that never went to school managed to master music theory just fine. And an enormous amount of people all around the world. The particular example you mention (chord naming) has something like 1/100 the difficulty of something like regular expressions. And it's several orders of magnitude easier than actually learning to play your instrument. Which also millions of people manage to do.
- mml 15y ago
  I'm afraid you miss my point. I'm not sure who the article was for, people who already know its contents perhaps? Anyone else would have to have a solid background in theory to understand much of anything in it. "I find not only the 13th chord a great substitute for a 7th now, especially when it's the dominant resolving to the tonic, but I also love the 7th+3rd+13th/6th way of voicing it too."
  - jtauber 15y ago
    It was for people who know music theory but not jazz
  - ericflo 15y ago
    It's no different than an article about some Rails or Node.js technique, which appear on HN frequently. That is, lots of jargon and techinal foundation that the reader is assumed to know, but within that context some instructive text.
  - dextorious 15y ago
    """I'm not sure who the article was for, people who already know its contents perhaps?""" No, just anyone who already knows a bit of music theory. Not even a great deal of it. Something that can be learned in a week, tops. Tons of articles on HN have titles like: Djikstra's algorithm, advanced types in Haskell, currying and memoization in Scala, A Graphical Notation for the Lambda Calculus, and similar content. Is someone expected to understand those without knowing the underlying naming schemes, theory, basic domain knowledge etc? Or do people seeing stuff like "^[ab](foo)^[k])/i complain that: "that pretty much explains why people have a hard time "getting" computer science theory. Gibberish.Goobeltygook$"? There a logic behind regular expressions, and there's a logic behind chord/interval notation. And the second is a lot easier, too, and it's used because it's succint and it works. Urban legends about qwerty keyboards ( http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html ) and railroad gauges ( http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp ) aside, bad solutions don't last 400 years. """Anyone else would have to have a solid background in theory to understand much of anything in it.""" The naming scheme used in the article takes like 10 minutes to grasp --and requires no great background in music theory. 7th, 13th etc are like numeric indexes. As for dominant / tonic, those are are like music theory 101. Similar to knowing what "Objects" and "Interfaces" mean when discussing OO programming.
code_duck 15y ago
It seems pretty straight forward to me. The entire article, and this type of music theory, is about intervals and combinations of notes at different intervals.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

Well, that pretty much explains why people have a hard time "getting" music theory. Gibberish+Goobeltygooksus7

by mml 15y ago

Well, that pretty much explains why people have a hard time "getting" music theory. Gibberish+Goobeltygooksus7

Ironically, the situation is very similar to math. It's relatively easy to read music theory notation, so that the Gibberish and Goobeltygookus make sense, similar to learning mathematical notation. (I personally believe this is easier than learning the alphabet, but that's a different story) However, understanding what the abstractions mean is difficult. The difference between memorizing formulas and intuiting patterns. Maybe this is no harder than understanding the abstractions behinds words. Like most "hard" things, the largest reason for difficulty is one of obtaining persistent practice. If it were common to sing piano music using theory words rather than a single "lalala", for example, or if our language made use of specific tonal changes (up a second v down a major third), or if everyone learned the theory at the age where we now learn the alphabet, the gibberish goobeltygook would seem "easy".

kabdib 15y ago
The problem I always had with math (when it came to integrals, anyway) was the whole 'dx' notation, where you apparently just had to "go with the flow" and understand what was being expressed. It ain't "d times x", it's this other thing that's syntactically similar to saying "ab" which means "a times b". Someone on HN is going to hammer me. I just muddled through the ambiguity. Then again, what I used to think was the real solution (an exensible grammar -- say, s-expressions -- which would remove the ambiguity) would result in really ugly-looking math. [Don't get me started on denotational semantics. I tried, I really tried to understand the foundation of Standard ML through some DS-based books on the subject, but in the end I just got sick of yet another system of poorly defined heiroglyphics. Maybe I'm just allergic.]
- juiceandjuice 15y ago
  One thing you learn in math/physics is all the different ways you can denote a derivative. It makes a lot more sense when you get into Lagrangian mechanics, ODEs/PDEs, QM, complex variables, your first analysis class, etc... classes where you learn why they denote operators and variables in certain ways because other ways don't make much sense given the context.
- agumonkey 15y ago
  About that, one author of SICP build a new physics class based around functions for every physical operator, no more syntactic craze, just functions ( higher order though ). Check SICM on google.
  - WildUtah 15y ago
    This is exactly what I was going to reply when I saw the GP. SICM is a brilliant book I've only started that revolves around putting concrete understanding ahead of notation. Unlike most books of that type, this one is a seriously advanced math/physics work. At world class universities, upper division undergrads in Physics can study Lagrangian Mechanics in their third year if their calculus is good enough. One note from the excellent introduction focused how to learn math (q.v.): "In his book on mathematical pedagogy [15], Hans Freudenthal argues that the reliance on ambiguous, unstated notational conventions in such expressions as f(x) and df(x)/dx makes mathematics, and especially introductory calcu- lus, extremely confusing for beginning students; and he enjoins mathematics educators to use more formal modern notation." Plus, Lisp!
nandemo 15y ago
I disagree. Mathematicians care much more about notation than do musicians. Mathematical notation should be precise, concise and consistent. The hard parts of maths are the abstraction and the formalization of stuff we take for granted. In contrast, the essence of music theory is fairly easy (if you have a math background, you could learn it in a few hours!). But music notation a strange mix of time-tested, concise notations with cruft that remains due to backwards compatibility. So we write "𝆮" to mean pedal down, but "𝆯" to mean pedal up. We write C7, Cmaj7 and Cmin7 but the modifiers "maj" and "min" modify different parts of the chord. And so on. And sometimes the notation is there, but people simply don't use it consistently. For instance, the usage of 6th and 13th interchangeably without proper justification (e.g. the post in question).

dextorious 15y ago

Actually it's a perfectly succinct and easy notation. Not many musicians have a "hard time" getting it, except for those that never cared to study it. In fact, in the history of jazz piss poor black kids that never went to school managed to master music theory just fine. And an enormous amount of people all around the world. The particular example you mention (chord naming) has something like 1/100 the difficulty of something like regular expressions. And it's several orders of magnitude easier than actually learning to play your instrument. Which also millions of people manage to do.

mml 15y ago
I'm afraid you miss my point. I'm not sure who the article was for, people who already know its contents perhaps? Anyone else would have to have a solid background in theory to understand much of anything in it. "I find not only the 13th chord a great substitute for a 7th now, especially when it's the dominant resolving to the tonic, but I also love the 7th+3rd+13th/6th way of voicing it too."
- jtauber 15y ago
  It was for people who know music theory but not jazz
- ericflo 15y ago
  It's no different than an article about some Rails or Node.js technique, which appear on HN frequently. That is, lots of jargon and techinal foundation that the reader is assumed to know, but within that context some instructive text.
- dextorious 15y ago
  """I'm not sure who the article was for, people who already know its contents perhaps?""" No, just anyone who already knows a bit of music theory. Not even a great deal of it. Something that can be learned in a week, tops. Tons of articles on HN have titles like: Djikstra's algorithm, advanced types in Haskell, currying and memoization in Scala, A Graphical Notation for the Lambda Calculus, and similar content. Is someone expected to understand those without knowing the underlying naming schemes, theory, basic domain knowledge etc? Or do people seeing stuff like "^[ab](foo)^[k])/i complain that: "that pretty much explains why people have a hard time "getting" computer science theory. Gibberish.Goobeltygook$"? There a logic behind regular expressions, and there's a logic behind chord/interval notation. And the second is a lot easier, too, and it's used because it's succint and it works. Urban legends about qwerty keyboards ( http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html ) and railroad gauges ( http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp ) aside, bad solutions don't last 400 years. """Anyone else would have to have a solid background in theory to understand much of anything in it.""" The naming scheme used in the article takes like 10 minutes to grasp --and requires no great background in music theory. 7th, 13th etc are like numeric indexes. As for dominant / tonic, those are are like music theory 101. Similar to knowing what "Objects" and "Interfaces" mean when discussing OO programming.

code_duck 15y ago

It seems pretty straight forward to me. The entire article, and this type of music theory, is about intervals and combinations of notes at different intervals.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]