4 ms·

<deleted>

by belshikun 2y ago

xoac 2y ago
Bad analogy since timbre has been part of the compositional process for decades now.
- Rochus 2y ago
  It's actually a good analogy. It doesn't mention "timbre" and doesn't claim that timpre is not part of the compositional process. A classical composer can indeed specify timbre to a certain degree, and modern composers created new kinds of scores which offered more specification means for many features related to "timbre", but there is still a difference between composing music, playing music or building instruments in formal musical education.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - gnulinux 2y ago
    No you're simply wrong. This is how a "classical Western" musician thinks of music, but this is not necessarily what music is. Timbre is the main expressive content in many cultures. Check my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gnulinux#42368137 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gnulinux#42368137
    - Rochus 2y ago
      Maybe there is a difference how formally trained musicians and computer scientists see it. But actually I don't see a contradition of your statement to what I've written. And don't forget that also Miller Puckette comes from the Western musical tradition and developed important works at IRCAM.
      - gnulinux 2y ago
        The difference is in the model. The same way you can model mechanics with Newtonian mechanics, or statistical mechanics, or quantum mechanics and each of them can be useful in different scenarios, and irrelevant in others. If you're making Western classical music in classicist, romanticist or modernist style, the model of music you have will carry a lot of information about harmony and the application of harmonic techniques throughout the piece. Given a core musical idea you can then apply peripheral techniques (such as orchestration) to build a full piece. E.g. when people study counterpoint, the model of music originates from vertical harmony of notes and when they can be used with respect to each other. The assumption is that orchestration is something that'll be separately developed "skinning" the composition. E.g. a common technique in this tradition is composing a piece for piano four hands and then orchestrating it (e.g. Holst's "The Planets" symphony was composed this way). However, this stops being a useful model once you step into other musical traditions. In some cultures harmony would be like how Western music treats orchestration, peripheral to composition (like how extreme speed is irrelevant to Newtonian mechanics because it was never designed for near lightspeed motion). So you'd first design timbres, and have an idea about how timbres interact, timbres change, transform to each. You may have a theory of counterpoint of timbres. Once you have this, you can apply any standard "harmony skin" on the composition and you have a piece. This is not even restricted to non-Western music. If you look at the postmodernism in Western music you'll find instances of it. Easy example: a lot of people say that Philip Glass "makes the same music" again and again, what is being missed is the point he's trying to convey is that even if you pick the exact same 4 chords you can still create variation in music via other means. It just won't be different from the traditional harmony-centric Western musical model. By the way, I studied CS and my full-time job is a Software Engineer. So I doubt our disagreement comes from my background in computer science.
        Rochus 2y ago
        You seem to be hell-bent on a disagreement. Let's invest our time better, for example, making music. Do you have any musical works that can be listened to?
        archagon 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
gnulinux 2y ago
This is exactly what I'm talking about. In Western music timbre is akin to fonts. You have a composition for piano, you play it, record it in MIDI, and reskin it with some other timbre in studio. This is an extremely Western way of looking at music. There are countless cultures where timbre is the "main" part of the music where the harmony and/or rhythm would be like fonts/reskins and timbre is the main juice composers and improvisers try to squeeze out. This type of distorted view on music is rooted in 18th/19th century beliefs of non-Western art being "primitive" art even though every single culture that's known to humanity have a unique musical tradition. This is an extremely anti-humanistic look at music.

xoac 2y ago

Bad analogy since timbre has been part of the compositional process for decades now.

Rochus 2y ago
It's actually a good analogy. It doesn't mention "timbre" and doesn't claim that timpre is not part of the compositional process. A classical composer can indeed specify timbre to a certain degree, and modern composers created new kinds of scores which offered more specification means for many features related to "timbre", but there is still a difference between composing music, playing music or building instruments in formal musical education.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- gnulinux 2y ago
  No you're simply wrong. This is how a "classical Western" musician thinks of music, but this is not necessarily what music is. Timbre is the main expressive content in many cultures. Check my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gnulinux#42368137 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gnulinux#42368137
  - Rochus 2y ago
    Maybe there is a difference how formally trained musicians and computer scientists see it. But actually I don't see a contradition of your statement to what I've written. And don't forget that also Miller Puckette comes from the Western musical tradition and developed important works at IRCAM.
    - gnulinux 2y ago
      The difference is in the model. The same way you can model mechanics with Newtonian mechanics, or statistical mechanics, or quantum mechanics and each of them can be useful in different scenarios, and irrelevant in others. If you're making Western classical music in classicist, romanticist or modernist style, the model of music you have will carry a lot of information about harmony and the application of harmonic techniques throughout the piece. Given a core musical idea you can then apply peripheral techniques (such as orchestration) to build a full piece. E.g. when people study counterpoint, the model of music originates from vertical harmony of notes and when they can be used with respect to each other. The assumption is that orchestration is something that'll be separately developed "skinning" the composition. E.g. a common technique in this tradition is composing a piece for piano four hands and then orchestrating it (e.g. Holst's "The Planets" symphony was composed this way). However, this stops being a useful model once you step into other musical traditions. In some cultures harmony would be like how Western music treats orchestration, peripheral to composition (like how extreme speed is irrelevant to Newtonian mechanics because it was never designed for near lightspeed motion). So you'd first design timbres, and have an idea about how timbres interact, timbres change, transform to each. You may have a theory of counterpoint of timbres. Once you have this, you can apply any standard "harmony skin" on the composition and you have a piece. This is not even restricted to non-Western music. If you look at the postmodernism in Western music you'll find instances of it. Easy example: a lot of people say that Philip Glass "makes the same music" again and again, what is being missed is the point he's trying to convey is that even if you pick the exact same 4 chords you can still create variation in music via other means. It just won't be different from the traditional harmony-centric Western musical model. By the way, I studied CS and my full-time job is a Software Engineer. So I doubt our disagreement comes from my background in computer science.
      - Rochus 2y ago
        You seem to be hell-bent on a disagreement. Let's invest our time better, for example, making music. Do you have any musical works that can be listened to?
      - archagon 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

gnulinux 2y ago

This is exactly what I'm talking about. In Western music timbre is akin to fonts. You have a composition for piano, you play it, record it in MIDI, and reskin it with some other timbre in studio. This is an extremely Western way of looking at music. There are countless cultures where timbre is the "main" part of the music where the harmony and/or rhythm would be like fonts/reskins and timbre is the main juice composers and improvisers try to squeeze out. This type of distorted view on music is rooted in 18th/19th century beliefs of non-Western art being "primitive" art even though every single culture that's known to humanity have a unique musical tradition. This is an extremely anti-humanistic look at music.