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I agree that the math connection is pretty... loose, although it always impresses me when a good musician (like my guitar instructor) can transpose on the fly.

I agree that the math connection is pretty... loose, although it always impresses me when a good musician (like my guitar instructor) can transpose on the fly. "Oh, I wonder what this would sound like in A Major instead of C Minor?" The same guitar instructor re-introduced me to Radiohead, and some of the most joy I've ever had as an aspiring musician was hearing some of those chords come together in unexpected and beautiful ways.

gnaritas 15y ago
Transposing on a guitar is trivial, it's not like piano where changing keys changes fingering. On a guitar, you can just move to a new position and play the same fingerings, bam new key.
- MartinCron 15y ago
  That doesn't work if you're going to do a minor/major change, though, and it also doesn't work if any of your chords have open strings in them. Not all chords are "moveable" chords.
  - gnaritas 15y ago
    Not all chord phrasings are movable, but all chords are. Name any chord, there's a movable version of it.
- jtheory 15y ago
  Guitar or piano, it's still just patterns that are generally well burned-in. Study any instrument seriously and you'll play scales enough that they're quite natural "forms" that you just lay on the keyboard/fretboard in your imagination. Playing a melody through a different scale pattern (as long as they have the same number of notes... whole tone etc. are off-limits here) is fairly easy. Something with chords, or multiple melodies, and especially if it doesn't stick to its starting key, takes a little more planning ahead (assuming you can't just move up/down the guitar neck, or add a capo... that's of course trivial), but is still mostly applying the same technique - laying the same notes into a slightly different (but very familiar) pattern. This is a really fun singing exercise, BTW, that many people can try (with minimal music training, though you'll need to know how to sing a minor scale first): take a really simple melody in a major key (most children's songs), and sing it in a minor key. Start with something like Row row row your boat or twinkle twinkle, then something like Happy Birthday -- which doesn't start on the first note of the scale -- is more challenging. :)
  - gnaritas 15y ago
    > Guitar or piano, it's still just patterns that are generally well burned-in. Sure, but it takes much less effort to play something in different keys on a guitar than on a piano because the fingers don't change just because the key did. It takes more practice on a piano to play a song you already know in another key, not really so for the guitar if you're using movable forms.
    - jtheory 15y ago
      Yup, I agreed with that already, I think, though it's a special case. If you're switching major/minor, for example, it's about equal... for some pieces slightly easier on piano because the scales are horizontally laid out more obviously, whereas some guitar fingerings won't easily convert by just shifting over a few notes of the scale -- you're limited by the way your fingers can bend.
      - gnaritas 15y ago
        Agreed.

gnaritas 15y ago

Transposing on a guitar is trivial, it's not like piano where changing keys changes fingering. On a guitar, you can just move to a new position and play the same fingerings, bam new key.

MartinCron 15y ago
That doesn't work if you're going to do a minor/major change, though, and it also doesn't work if any of your chords have open strings in them. Not all chords are "moveable" chords.
- gnaritas 15y ago
  Not all chord phrasings are movable, but all chords are. Name any chord, there's a movable version of it.
jtheory 15y ago
Guitar or piano, it's still just patterns that are generally well burned-in. Study any instrument seriously and you'll play scales enough that they're quite natural "forms" that you just lay on the keyboard/fretboard in your imagination. Playing a melody through a different scale pattern (as long as they have the same number of notes... whole tone etc. are off-limits here) is fairly easy. Something with chords, or multiple melodies, and especially if it doesn't stick to its starting key, takes a little more planning ahead (assuming you can't just move up/down the guitar neck, or add a capo... that's of course trivial), but is still mostly applying the same technique - laying the same notes into a slightly different (but very familiar) pattern. This is a really fun singing exercise, BTW, that many people can try (with minimal music training, though you'll need to know how to sing a minor scale first): take a really simple melody in a major key (most children's songs), and sing it in a minor key. Start with something like Row row row your boat or twinkle twinkle, then something like Happy Birthday -- which doesn't start on the first note of the scale -- is more challenging. :)
- gnaritas 15y ago
  > Guitar or piano, it's still just patterns that are generally well burned-in. Sure, but it takes much less effort to play something in different keys on a guitar than on a piano because the fingers don't change just because the key did. It takes more practice on a piano to play a song you already know in another key, not really so for the guitar if you're using movable forms.
  - jtheory 15y ago
    Yup, I agreed with that already, I think, though it's a special case. If you're switching major/minor, for example, it's about equal... for some pieces slightly easier on piano because the scales are horizontally laid out more obviously, whereas some guitar fingerings won't easily convert by just shifting over a few notes of the scale -- you're limited by the way your fingers can bend.
    - gnaritas 15y ago
      Agreed.