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A professor taught us genre is defined by how you resolve dissonance... And dissonance has cultural and physiological components... And other traditions focus

by diydsp 2mo ago

A professor taught us genre is defined by how you resolve dissonance... And dissonance has cultural and physiological components... And other traditions focus on rhythm over harmony... That said this looks like a good introduction.

PaulDavisThe1st 2mo ago
That's a great line from the professor. Really great. Also, other traditions focus on melody over harmony (e.g. Carnatic and Hindustani), although they have to consider harmony as a by-product of polyphonic music (i.e. more than 1 instrument).
- otabdeveloper4 2mo ago
  > Also, other traditions focus on melody over harmony Like Western electronic music written after 1960, for example. :) (And electronic music is, like, basically all we have today.)
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2mo ago
    This is really not true. Firstly, "western electronic music" covers an enormous range, from still, wall-of-sound ambient to four-on-the-floor EDM to music that sounds like any other but is generated using electronic/digital instruments. Secondly, I could give you tons of examples of western electronic music that is almost entirely about harmony and not melody. The first one that springs to mind is any of Steve Roach's "immersion" series, or even more so "Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces". But basically anything that might get played on SomaFM's "Drone Zone" channel is in the same category. So, I suspect you have a much more specific idea of what you actually meant by "western electronic music", and you should likely lay it out more precisely.
    - otabdeveloper4 2mo ago
      "Western electronic music" is anything that uses an instrument with a filter cutoff knob. Filter knobs and polyphony don't play together well. That's why they gravitate towards "leads" or "pads" over a separate bass or percussion track. Unlike normal Western polyphony you want the two to NOT form chords or counterpoint.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 2mo ago
        This just isn't true. Try listening to any deep ambient, and you'll be hearing (a) instruments with filter cutoffs in use (b) chords (c) no percussion (d) no lead. Again, Roach's "Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces" is as good a place to start as any. What is true in ambient is that you frequently do not want the third in the chords, because it makes the chords "too obvious". A lot of drone music involves a variety of chords with the third omitted.
        otabdeveloper4 2mo ago
        IMO "chords" is the wrong word to use here, because chords are a fingering technique for polyphonic instruments. (So, guitar, piano, accordion, and ... that's it?) What I mean is voice leading and counterpoint - once you have a filter sweep as an instrument you now need to deliberately avoid all that when composing. People act as if these Western music theory concepts are grand universals, but they're really just useful conventions for the particular music instruments common at the time. They're not even universal for all of Western music; when the instruments evolved so did the conventions and the "theory".
        PaulDavisThe1st 2mo ago
        "Chords" is definitely the wrong word to use if you mean "voice leading and counterpoint" or more generally, western tonal music theory. And yes, that theory is highly localized in both time and space.

by diydsp 2mo ago

PaulDavisThe1st 2mo ago

That's a great line from the professor. Really great. Also, other traditions focus on melody over harmony (e.g. Carnatic and Hindustani), although they have to consider harmony as a by-product of polyphonic music (i.e. more than 1 instrument).

otabdeveloper4 2mo ago
> Also, other traditions focus on melody over harmony Like Western electronic music written after 1960, for example. :) (And electronic music is, like, basically all we have today.)
- PaulDavisThe1st 2mo ago
  This is really not true. Firstly, "western electronic music" covers an enormous range, from still, wall-of-sound ambient to four-on-the-floor EDM to music that sounds like any other but is generated using electronic/digital instruments. Secondly, I could give you tons of examples of western electronic music that is almost entirely about harmony and not melody. The first one that springs to mind is any of Steve Roach's "immersion" series, or even more so "Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces". But basically anything that might get played on SomaFM's "Drone Zone" channel is in the same category. So, I suspect you have a much more specific idea of what you actually meant by "western electronic music", and you should likely lay it out more precisely.
  - otabdeveloper4 2mo ago
    "Western electronic music" is anything that uses an instrument with a filter cutoff knob. Filter knobs and polyphony don't play together well. That's why they gravitate towards "leads" or "pads" over a separate bass or percussion track. Unlike normal Western polyphony you want the two to NOT form chords or counterpoint.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2mo ago
      This just isn't true. Try listening to any deep ambient, and you'll be hearing (a) instruments with filter cutoffs in use (b) chords (c) no percussion (d) no lead. Again, Roach's "Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces" is as good a place to start as any. What is true in ambient is that you frequently do not want the third in the chords, because it makes the chords "too obvious". A lot of drone music involves a variety of chords with the third omitted.
      - otabdeveloper4 2mo ago
        IMO "chords" is the wrong word to use here, because chords are a fingering technique for polyphonic instruments. (So, guitar, piano, accordion, and ... that's it?) What I mean is voice leading and counterpoint - once you have a filter sweep as an instrument you now need to deliberately avoid all that when composing. People act as if these Western music theory concepts are grand universals, but they're really just useful conventions for the particular music instruments common at the time. They're not even universal for all of Western music; when the instruments evolved so did the conventions and the "theory".
        PaulDavisThe1st 2mo ago
        "Chords" is definitely the wrong word to use if you mean "voice leading and counterpoint" or more generally, western tonal music theory. And yes, that theory is highly localized in both time and space.