3 ms·

Let us try an experiment shall we: listen to any music you like and try and match the information the article provided to the complexity of what you are hearing

Let us try an experiment shall we: listen to any music you like and try and match the information the article provided to the complexity of what you are hearing. How much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear). This article is trivializing music down to a few not-so-important facts and mistaking some math for anything that would help `programmers` (?) understand music. Maybe start by rewatching "This is Spinal Tap" instead, and consider that https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/59n3pg/remember_how_in_spinal_tap_they_joke_d_is_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/59n3pg/remembe...

amingilani 20d ago
> How much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear). Very clearly. The author constructed a melody from first principles in the article. You can take any song, deconstruct it using the information in there and begin to see why it sounds nice. > This article is trivializing music down to a few not-so-important facts This is a music theory lecture with code examples. Hardly “not-so-important”. > mistaking some math for anything that would help `programmers` (?) understand music. Compared to the lessons on https://www.musictheory.net https://www.musictheory.net this is definitely programmer/engineer friendly. It’s better than my old go-to at https://www.lightnote.co https://www.lightnote.co
- deleted 20d ago
  [deleted]
- polotics 20d ago
  Sure. It is a trope amongst gigging musicians that over-intellectualizing the feels is a massive no-no. Hence the joke about Db being the saddest chord... also Phil Collins said that, he would know :-D... ...and C# being the most evil chord. Hilarious. I persist: "before you can be good, you first have to be bad" is more helpful music theory than that whole JavaScript visuals page.
  - amingilani 20d ago
    I know the trope. My first guitar teacher taught me how to play songs but didn’t know the notes on the fretboard. It’s a bit like being able to drive a car without understand what the clutch and gears actually do. But personally, I couldn’t handle not knowing why the clutch needed to be pressed, or why a chord shapes is the why it is.
    - polotics 19d ago
      I put it to you that seeing a chord: on paper, or in math or in chord notation, (eg. FminSus4) is something you should only master once you are able to hear that chord. Otherwise you are (that's a quote) "dancing about architecture" and hurting your ability to understand sound.
  - mikestew 19d ago
    If I might be allowed some pedantry, it’s Dm that’s the “saddest of all keys”: https://hub.yamaha.com/brand/creativity/the-saddest-of-all-keys/ https://hub.yamaha.com/brand/creativity/the-saddest-of-all-k...
- nprateem 20d ago
  Music theory is just that. Theory. There is no set of laws. Creating melodies by doggedly applying any system is almost guaranteed to feel tired, predictable and boring.
  - amingilani 20d ago
    I like to think about it as an opinionated framework. Once you have the basics, you can take an unpredictable sounding song and deconstruct it to understand why it sounds so good. I don’t really have a problem with systems.
- SwtCyber 20d ago
  For a programmer, deriving intervals and chords and then hearing the code produce them is a pretty effective bridge
huflungdung 20d ago
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chrisjj 20d ago
> Let us try an experiment shall we: listen to any music you like and try and match the information the article provided to the complexity of what you are hearing. Trying now. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. > How much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear). 100%. I tried three more. Same result. How much do you see?
- BigTTYGothGF 20d ago
  > Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. .... 100% That's certainly a revealing example. TTLS is entirely melody, and the article says basically nothing about melody. At a stretch you could say "the article talks about the major scale, TTLS uses notes from a major scale" and if your conclusion is "that's why I like it", then you should feel the same way about any permutation of the notes in TTLS, or indeed anything you get from hitting the white notes on a piano one at a time.
  - chrisjj 20d ago
    > the article says basically nothing about melody Its 13 mentions of melody sufficed for me.
    - BigTTYGothGF 20d ago
      Most of those are variable names. The rest: > Why a melody wants to land where it lands is still mostly opaque to me > A key, its diatonic chords, a progression, those chords broken into an arpeggio one note at a time, and a melody that sticks to the scale > Change the melody array to anything at all and it will still fit The first part of TTLS (in C) is: C C G G A A G F F E E D D C. Let's follow the guidance of this last part and change the "melody array"; for neatness we can alphabetize it: A A C C C D D E E F F G G G. Now that you understand melody, please tell me why even though it "still fit"s it doesn't sound as nice.
- polotics 20d ago
  Haha well it's easy then please send us the MIDI, Openscore, Lylipond, MP3... anything really, of a composition of yours that will be as appealing as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. What else do I see: congruence between melody and lyrics, harmonic depth, dominant half-cadence in the tonic arrival. Also the versions by Mozart add a lot and explain a lot of the endurance of the tune I guess. That has chromatic passing, secondary dominants, even a parallel minor (in the 8th variation) If I may plug here the Berklee College online courses as a satisfied customer I can say if you are ready to put in the effort they are great.
xcf_seetan 20d ago
Try Edgar Varese, Iannis Xenakis or Arnold Schoenberg and tell me how much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear).
SwtCyber 20d ago
I don't think the article needs to get you all the way from A to S to be useful. A Fourier transform doesn't tell you why a song is good either, but understanding harmonics can still improve your mental model of sound. Same with temperament, intervals or why a keyboard is laid out the way it is.

amingilani 20d ago

> How much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear). Very clearly. The author constructed a melody from first principles in the article. You can take any song, deconstruct it using the information in there and begin to see why it sounds nice. > This article is trivializing music down to a few not-so-important facts This is a music theory lecture with code examples. Hardly “not-so-important”. > mistaking some math for anything that would help `programmers` (?) understand music. Compared to the lessons on https://www.musictheory.net https://www.musictheory.net this is definitely programmer/engineer friendly. It’s better than my old go-to at https://www.lightnote.co https://www.lightnote.co

deleted 20d ago
[deleted]
polotics 20d ago
Sure. It is a trope amongst gigging musicians that over-intellectualizing the feels is a massive no-no. Hence the joke about Db being the saddest chord... also Phil Collins said that, he would know :-D... ...and C# being the most evil chord. Hilarious. I persist: "before you can be good, you first have to be bad" is more helpful music theory than that whole JavaScript visuals page.
- amingilani 20d ago
  I know the trope. My first guitar teacher taught me how to play songs but didn’t know the notes on the fretboard. It’s a bit like being able to drive a car without understand what the clutch and gears actually do. But personally, I couldn’t handle not knowing why the clutch needed to be pressed, or why a chord shapes is the why it is.
  - polotics 19d ago
    I put it to you that seeing a chord: on paper, or in math or in chord notation, (eg. FminSus4) is something you should only master once you are able to hear that chord. Otherwise you are (that's a quote) "dancing about architecture" and hurting your ability to understand sound.
- mikestew 19d ago
  If I might be allowed some pedantry, it’s Dm that’s the “saddest of all keys”: https://hub.yamaha.com/brand/creativity/the-saddest-of-all-keys/ https://hub.yamaha.com/brand/creativity/the-saddest-of-all-k...
nprateem 20d ago
Music theory is just that. Theory. There is no set of laws. Creating melodies by doggedly applying any system is almost guaranteed to feel tired, predictable and boring.
- amingilani 20d ago
  I like to think about it as an opinionated framework. Once you have the basics, you can take an unpredictable sounding song and deconstruct it to understand why it sounds so good. I don’t really have a problem with systems.
SwtCyber 20d ago
For a programmer, deriving intervals and chords and then hearing the code produce them is a pretty effective bridge

huflungdung 20d ago

[dead]

chrisjj 20d ago

> Let us try an experiment shall we: listen to any music you like and try and match the information the article provided to the complexity of what you are hearing. Trying now. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. > How much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear). 100%. I tried three more. Same result. How much do you see?

BigTTYGothGF 20d ago
> Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. .... 100% That's certainly a revealing example. TTLS is entirely melody, and the article says basically nothing about melody. At a stretch you could say "the article talks about the major scale, TTLS uses notes from a major scale" and if your conclusion is "that's why I like it", then you should feel the same way about any permutation of the notes in TTLS, or indeed anything you get from hitting the white notes on a piano one at a time.
- chrisjj 20d ago
  > the article says basically nothing about melody Its 13 mentions of melody sufficed for me.
  - BigTTYGothGF 20d ago
    Most of those are variable names. The rest: > Why a melody wants to land where it lands is still mostly opaque to me > A key, its diatonic chords, a progression, those chords broken into an arpeggio one note at a time, and a melody that sticks to the scale > Change the melody array to anything at all and it will still fit The first part of TTLS (in C) is: C C G G A A G F F E E D D C. Let's follow the guidance of this last part and change the "melody array"; for neatness we can alphabetize it: A A C C C D D E E F F G G G. Now that you understand melody, please tell me why even though it "still fit"s it doesn't sound as nice.
polotics 20d ago
Haha well it's easy then please send us the MIDI, Openscore, Lylipond, MP3... anything really, of a composition of yours that will be as appealing as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. What else do I see: congruence between melody and lyrics, harmonic depth, dominant half-cadence in the tonic arrival. Also the versions by Mozart add a lot and explain a lot of the endurance of the tune I guess. That has chromatic passing, secondary dominants, even a parallel minor (in the 8th variation) If I may plug here the Berklee College online courses as a satisfied customer I can say if you are ready to put in the effort they are great.

xcf_seetan 20d ago

Try Edgar Varese, Iannis Xenakis or Arnold Schoenberg and tell me how much do you see a path from A(rticle) to S(ound in your ear).

SwtCyber 20d ago

I don't think the article needs to get you all the way from A to S to be useful. A Fourier transform doesn't tell you why a song is good either, but understanding harmonics can still improve your mental model of sound. Same with temperament, intervals or why a keyboard is laid out the way it is.