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Well, you know what I mean. People intuitively know when they hear good music, so you can make something good entirely by iterating on it and teasing it out.
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Oct 25, 2021 18:46
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Yeah idk who that post was for or what it was supposed to mean honestly. It didn’t seem like he was saying you were wrong Pollyanna? (But then why say it? Idk)
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Oct 25, 2021 20:01
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Hawkperson posted:ehhh, idk if this is what you're saying, but i take issue generally with the idea that music theory is universal and can describe all music. it's very culture bound. and I think the further you go from western classical stuff, the less use it has. it has basically nothing useful to say about microtones for example, and virtually no comment on the relationship of rhythms to pitches/chords/etc. i wonder what you take issue with.. is it "fully diminished 7th chords are a fundamental building block" ? let me put it a different way: There's another way to think (different from what they teach in school) about 12 tone equal-tempered music, where the fully diminished 7th chord is treated like a fundamental building block! anyway I challenge the notion that there should be one thing that counts as music theory, and it should be tied to European classical music -- or that inquiry into microtonal music shouldn't count at music theory! But I would agree if you are saying that "Music Theory" (as it is taught in school) is NOT a complete account of all music, even if it bills itself as such. I guess i take a broader definition of "Music Theory" than you do here. Hawkperson posted:That video was fun though, brought me back to my college jazz piano class. Thanks. I should really go practice my ii V Is again. used to be able to play them in every key but it's been a long time. bet I'd grok more of the video if I brushed up Yeah! You would need to go thru these movements on your keyboard to really get the most out of this.
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Oct 27, 2021 00:05
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Pollyanna posted:Well, you know what I mean. People intuitively know when they hear good music, so you can make something good entirely by iterating on it and teasing it out. your post was on topic, because we were talking about how Pixel (not musically trained) made a pretty long soundtrack that a lot of people liked. "How did he do this without music theory?" I bet he DID have some theory, which he somehow internalized thru trial-and-error. I imagine, over time, it became easier for him to write the tunes, and he had a way to think about this stuff that helped him achieve certain musical goals. But I bet he didn't have a way to articulate that to anyone else! And who's to say he isn't better off like that -- cutting out the middle man, so to speak? It's VERY often more efficient to think without words, not just in music. But I have to say it again, it doesn't hurt you to have more than one way to think about something! And it certainly helps to have a way to explain things to somebody else!
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Oct 27, 2021 00:25
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Yeah I guess in the end our use of language limits us. In school "music theory" is purely western theory, and "ethnomusicology" covers all other notation/theory/etc systems, because well, white supremacy and racism. At the same time though I think no matter how much we are aware of this and try to work past it, our experience/culture/what we are immersed in will always affect how we interpret music. I don't think we can separate our analysis from ourselves. In fact, my understanding is that idea itself - that there's somehow a way to step back and objectively describe music, if we can only find it - is itself a culture bound attitude. I think you were correct to point out that rock is deeply rooted in blues when I started talking about mixolydian and modes in that genre, but I think it's an incomplete picture to acknowledge that and then still try to describe it wholly within "12 tone equal-tempered music," if that makes sense. There's a larger issue here that I struggle to speak to because I have the same issue of being immersed in a culture that uplifts western music theory while ignoring or downplaying other cultures and their influences. That said, an example of why trying to keep everything related to 12 tone equal tempered music is flawed in and of itself is...blues was/is almost certainly played in just intonation, given the typical instrumentation. Winds, fretless strings, and voice are almost always using just intonation instead of equal temperament. There's also more than 12 tones in a lot of blues. Speaking of that b3/major 3 sound, a lot of times the melody in blues is playing neither of those notes, but something in between. I think our music theory tools are miscalibrated to discuss it properly, if that makes sense. They're very effective for the music they were designed for, not so much for other music. It wasn't the dim7 stuff that made me respond like that, it was this: quote:and I dont appreciate the way he says things like "they way they teach mainstream music theory is totally wrong". no, theres more than one way to think about stuff! the way they teach mainstream music theory is totally wrong, because it supposes that there's one way to analyze music and that it's that one way
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Oct 27, 2021 00:32
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Hawkperson posted:Yeah I guess in the end our use of language limits us. In school "music theory" is purely western theory, and "ethnomusicology" covers all other notation/theory/etc systems, because well, white supremacy and racism. At the same time though I think no matter how much we are aware of this and try to work past it, our experience/culture/what we are immersed in will always affect how we interpret music. I don't think we can separate our analysis from ourselves. In fact, my understanding is that idea itself - that there's somehow a way to step back and objectively describe music, if we can only find it - is itself a culture bound attitude. wasn't the guitar important to early blues? i wonder why you mentioned the fretless stringed instruments but not the fretted ones? the guitar is a 12 tone equal tempered instrument (well, close enough most of the time haha), it seems to me (a guitar player) like we ought to try thinking about Blues from that standpoint, and see what we can learn! though i never tried to think about it as just-intonated music before, thats really interesting! I suppose, as a guitar player, its most expedient for me to think about the microtonality as "coming from" 12TET in the form of a bend. I'd like to know more about it if you have more to share. I found this, and it has to do with the vocal side of it: https://emusicology.org/article/view/6316/5180
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Oct 27, 2021 01:07
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Helianthus Annuus posted:wasn't the guitar important to early blues? i wonder why you mentioned the fretless stringed instruments but not the fretted ones? the guitar is a 12 tone equal tempered instrument (well, close enough most of the time haha), it seems to me (a guitar player) like we ought to try thinking about Blues from that standpoint, and see what we can learn! Oh yeah for sure, I said fretless just because I was talking about just intonation. As you said guitar is equal temperament, or at least an approximation like equal temperament lol. Iirc there’s some academic research on how just intonation and equal temperament coexist. I just started grad school (!) so when I get library access maybe I can find some of em. Far as I know the temperament is usually determined by whatever the bass is in the ensemble in a mixed setup. Fretless upright bass was usually used in blues/early jazz so it’s likely it’s in just intonation and piano/guitar tuning is just kind of forgiven as it is in modern ensembles. I am curious if it’s just a singer and guitar, where the tuning goes - but I’d imagine it would match the guitar there. On my phone rn but I’ll check out that link tonight. I can talk your ear off about tuning a just intonation wind ensemble but that’s probably not of interest lol
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Oct 27, 2021 01:23
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My foray into composition continues, and oh poo poo this is hard actually.  The more music theory I learn, the more I can recognize in other (western) music. But that doesn’t exactly translate into composition skills…there’s so much more than just knowing keys and scales and the circle of fifths. Makes for fun videos, though.
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Oct 27, 2021 02:32
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Pollyanna posted:My foray into composition continues, and oh poo poo this is hard actually. a couple of years ago, i was emailing with Video Game Music Composer Disasterpeace. i was asking him about some tune in the Hyper Light Drifter soundtrack, which i couldn't analyze at the time. It turns out it had a chromatic mediant, and i had never heard of such a thing at that time. Anyway, the point i wanted to make: he said he always goes by feel, and only turns to music theory when he gets stuck. So even though he has the language to communicate with me about music, he was essentially doing the same thing that Pixel did for Cave Story: composing without putting his ideas into words. I.e., without using music theory. The difference: Disasterpeace actually went to music school, so he knows all this stuff! He just doesn't always use it when composing, presumably because he has other, non-verbal, ways to think about music that serve him better. Something to consider: if your goal is to be a good video game music composer, music theory might only be useful on the margins. For better or worse, it's your taste, inspiration, and perseverance that determines the quality of your work. Especially perseverance, this stuff can be INCREDIBLY tedious to get sounding the way you want.
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Oct 27, 2021 22:26
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Video game music is just a large chunk of my influence. I didn't necessarily come into this to make video game music, just music in general. Delving into music theory was a way to dip my toes in and wrap my head around exactly what the gently caress was going on, what was likely to sound good, and why I liked the things I liked. For creating, it's helped me think of what to reach for first, but what I end up really proud of has nothing to do with it. It is my hope that by analyzing tracks using music theory, it will become easier to make music, the music I make will improve significantly, that I will become more confident in what I make, and that I will be able to make something I’m truly proud of and that is impressive. I’m looking for a way to actually be good at what I do, and my hope was that music theory would fit for that. That said, yeah, video game music (especially more retro music) doesn't really make a lot of sense from a typical western music theory perspective:  https://vocaroo.com/1eUx44Di6f9W G mixolydian (  ) and a big ol' sus2 for the harmony, and then it becomes A minor. And not a fifth in sight! 
Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Oct 28, 2021 |
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Oct 28, 2021 02:21
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landgrabber posted:after the HVL, i'm gonna read twentieth century harmony and work through that in the same way, because then, either: good luck with 20th century harmony. i've read maybe 100 pages of it, done some of the exercises, and set it down to look at later because it's a lot. poo poo is very very deep. edit: i'm dumb and thought you were referring to schoenberg's Theory of Harmony. 20th century is fairly straightforward and good a.p. dent fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Oct 28, 2021 |
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Oct 28, 2021 20:46
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imo saying music theory involves any judgement at all is a mistake and something we bring to the discipline, not something that's inherent in it. to quote the first paragraph of 20th century harmony. "Any tone can succeed any other tone, any tone can sound simultaneously with any other tone or tones, and any group of tones can be followed by any other group of tones, just as any degree of tension or nuance can occur in any medium under any kind of stress or duration." music theory just gives names to these choices so we can talk about them
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Oct 28, 2021 20:49
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what's funny is that i've never heard a good composition from anyone who beats the "music theory isn't all it's cracked up to be" drum
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Oct 29, 2021 09:51
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I'm watching an 8-Bit Music Theory video on Nier (some of the best soundtracks, ever, both main games, I'll fight you on this) and this cropped up: What does "brightness" mean in this context? I know brightness in terms of synth, which refers to the upper harmonic content of a sound, but that doesn't really make sense here.
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Nov 3, 2021 18:38
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the simple explanation is that major chords sound brighter than minor. here the diatonic Ebm has been changed to Eb major (the Gb, the 6th of Bbm, is raised to G), which sounds brighter. more in depth discussion of brightness: scales and modes can be ranked from bright -> dark sounding. you start at lydian (brightest), then lower tones through the circle of 5ths until you get to locrian (darkest). the major scale is brighter than the natural minor scale, phrygian mode is darker than natural minor because it has a b2, etc. lydian is traditionally thought of as the brightest of the modes due to the raised 4th - there are no more tones left to raise (someone can nitpick this and say that other scales have brighter modes than this, but i'm just talking about major scale modes here). ordering the major scale modes in terms of brightness we get: lydian -> ionian (major) -> mixolydian -> dorian -> aeolian -> phrygian -> locrian the raised 6th of the dorian makes it the brightest of the minor modes. Eb major is a chord borrowed from Bb dorian, so it adds "brightness" to the piece. edit: VVV this is good too. it's just the way some people talk about scales a.p. dent fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Nov 3, 2021 |
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Nov 3, 2021 19:36
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Pollyanna posted:I'm watching an 8-Bit Music Theory video on Nier (some of the best soundtracks, ever, both main games, I'll fight you on this) and this cropped up: "brightness" and "darkness" are not really precise terms -- just an analogy! It's the same analogy that lets us describe a major chord as "brighter sounding" than a minor chord. 8bit is trying to draw your attention to the Eb major chord, which we would expect to be an Eb minor in the key of Bb minor (same notes as Db major). The minor 3rd of that Eb chord is Gb, but we have a G natural, which forms a major 3rd. In the key of Bb minor, the Gb is the 6th scale degree. copy-pasting from my post the other day, compare Dorian and natural minor (aka Aeolian). code:there's a convention, where the more flattened scale degrees you have (compared to the degrees of the major scale), the "darker" it sounds -- which means sharpened scale degrees give a "brighter" sound. If you wanted to order the modes from "brightest" to "darkest", this would be the conventional way to do it: code:
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Nov 3, 2021 19:38
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agree entirely with sun guy and dent. this is a purely subjective thing, but i find "brighter" chords are easier to substitute and use non-diatonically. i'll use m6 chords/dorian sounds and #11/lydian sounds over the tonic all day, they're generally safe and sound nice to my ear because of the consonance they introduce with their alterations. "darker" modes require a bit more thought to resolve, and introduce more tension, but they add a dramatic flair and quality to your sound when you pull them off. there aren't wrong choices when you work with mode subs, you just introduce distinct flavors and have to balance them correctly. major/minor are salt and pepper, locrian is a really strong spice you only use a little of like saffron, and i'd say dorian and lydian are like adding a little sugar to counterbalance salt/pepper.
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Nov 3, 2021 22:03
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creamcorn posted:agree entirely with sun guy and dent. i really dig food and cooking analogies like this! can you give an example of borrowing a darker mode, and pulling it off? curious to know what you mean and why you think its more difficult to do.
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Nov 4, 2021 01:21
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Helianthus Annuus posted:i really dig food and cooking analogies like this! i generally view everything in terms of parallel major or minor w/ alterations, so let's take a dorian sound over i vs a phrygian sound over i. the ♮6 doesn't have half-step pressure to resolve anywhere, so you can easily use it with a variety of phrases and different tones following it, and none of them are necessarily expected. 6 chords are restful but ambigious, especially minor 6s. the ♭2, on the other hand, has a ton of pressure to resolve to the root, so it kinda lives in a more binary realm for me; either it resolves as expected (to the root), or it resolves unexpectedly. it's definitely a cool sound, but i tend to feel the same relationship towards it in my playing i do towards the ♮7 in harmonic or melodic minor. one way i'll get a phrygian sound over i that sidesteps this is playing harmonic or melodic minor while i ascend, and phrygian descending. you can chromatically enclose the root, it tonicizes it incredibly strongly.
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Nov 4, 2021 03:03
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adam neely covered the same question in his latest Q&A, the answer is interesting (timestamped): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njyCxQxR41M&t=358s
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Nov 5, 2021 00:01
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creamcorn posted:i generally view everything in terms of parallel major or minor w/ alterations, so let's take a dorian sound over i vs a phrygian sound over i. thanks for the explanation. theres certainly something to the idea, because i know that playing a picardy 3rd (resolving a dominant chord to a major triad when minor is expected) sounds good, but that it sounds bad (to my ear) resolving to a minor triad when a major is expected.
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Nov 5, 2021 03:07
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a.p. dent posted:adam neely covered the same question in his latest Q&A, the answer is interesting (timestamped): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njyCxQxR41M&t=358s at first, i thought: "this is yet another different sense of brightness and darkness? or is just another way to say the same thing?" Adam is comparing different key centers, but we were discussing scale degrees and chord tones within a key... Let's consider this picture of the circle of fifths (which i stole from a website called "Sound Girls"). I like this one, because it helps noobs (and guitar players, lol) see which keys have which sharps and flats.  so, Adam says the circle of fifths gets darker as you move anti-clockwise from C to F to Bb, and so on. C has no flats. F has Bb. Bb has Eb. And so on. If we thinking about those added flats as scale degrees in the key of C, we get: Bb is the flat 7 (from Mixolydian) Eb is the flat 3 (from Dorian) Ab is the flat 6 (from natural minor) Db is the flat 2 (from Phrygian) Gb is the flat 5 (from Locrian) The circle of fifths gives us the same list in the same order as before... so, if you modulate to one of these keys, but continue to treat C as the tonic, you end up playing modes that are "darker" and "darker" as you go around the circle. cool! I suppose, if there is any difference here, it's that Adam is saying "yes, but it sounds darker even when you don't tonicise C or play modally".
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Nov 5, 2021 04:02
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i was thinking about how you get the C Lydian notes (a "brighter" mode) when you go the other way around the circle, from C to G. But what scale do you get when you go from the notes of G to the notes of D? Now you have F# and C#... It can't be any mode of C, because we have a C# and no C natural... if we try to say "try to use C# as the tonic", we get C# locrian: code:The way i'm thinking about it: The sound becomes too "bright" to be contained in the key of C anymore, and you have no choice but to burst out and modulate to a different key... at least for however long the brightness lasts. But "darkness" doesn't have this property -- you can remain in some mode of C as the sound becomes darker around the circle of fifths.
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Nov 5, 2021 04:28
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Helianthus Annuus posted:i was thinking about how you get the C Lydian notes (a "brighter" mode) when you go the other way around the circle, from C to G. But what scale do you get when you go from the notes of G to the notes of D? yeah, that's interesting! when you're using the circle of 5ths, eventually things get "too bright" and become dark again. i think goodrick might talk about this in advancing guitarist somewhere it is worth asking if we can find a "brighter" scale than lydian by sharpening other scale tones. it (probably) won't be a familiar mode, but who cares? here are the options: #2: sure, you can do this. Lydian #2 is the 6th mode of harmonic minor #3: can't do this because we need a major 3rd #4 is already in the scale #5: sure! Lydian #5, this is the 3rd mode of melodic minor #6: can't really do this as you'll introduce a tritone and the scale will sound dominant/diminished #7: obviously this is just the tonic so your only viable options for brightening past lydian are lydian #2 and lydian #5, both pretty well known jazz modes. i actually agree with adam about borrowing chords from clockwise around the circle sounding "brighter". they may not make a brighter scale / mode as we know it, but if you borrow an A major triad for a song in C, it'll sound "lifted" due to the raised tonic. i expect this would happen for other chords further along like B major or whatnot.
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Nov 5, 2021 13:20
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i love voice leading so much
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Nov 21, 2021 18:20
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voice leading whips. i've been practicing closed voice triads on guitar, on all the different string sets of 3 adjacent strings, by voice leading through a random arrangement of all 48 triads (an exercise from Advancing Guitarist). i've gotten to the point where i can pick any note and build any type of triad with it as the root. it's really worth doing as an exercise, plus, sometimes you find strange progressions that seem to work while not being "in a key" at all. seems hugely important for more complex types of playing, like how 7th chords can be thought of as a triad + bass note.
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Nov 23, 2021 16:12
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Voice leading very good, though I don’t claim to be a master at it or any other construct. I really need to get back to composing, I’m distracted by hardware 
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Nov 23, 2021 18:04
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Ear training question, I think this is the thread for that? I feel like I've hit a brick wall and it's difficult for me to cleanly, always distinguish between inversions of either very simple intervals (P4/P5) or very dissonant ones (M7/m9). i assume this is somewhat reasonable and i should just keep plugging away with it. is it cheating to rely on my instrument too much for ear training? Well, I guess M7 and m9 aren't inversions, but they're "the ones on either side of the octave" to me. i really liked this article on a music theory of blues, it throws out so much of the bunk square-peg-in-round-hole approaches people have taken, and simply approaches the genre from where it is at, great stuff https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2014/blues-tonality/ Tweezer Reprise fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Nov 26, 2021 |
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Nov 26, 2021 20:15
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Tweezer Reprise posted:Ear training question, I think this is the thread for that? I feel like I've hit a brick wall and it's difficult for me to cleanly, always distinguish between inversions of either very simple intervals (P4/P5) or very dissonant ones (M7/m9). i assume this is somewhat reasonable and i should just keep plugging away with it. is it cheating to rely on my instrument too much for ear training? Well, I guess M& and m9 aren't inversions, but they're "the ones on either side of the octave" to me thinking of them on "either side of the octave" is more of a strategy to pass ear training exercises rather than understand them functionally. m9 is an inversion of a step, M7 is an inversion of half a step. try to think of them functionally if you can, that's the important part of intervals
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Nov 26, 2021 20:33
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oh, definitely! weirdly for me, it's often really difficult for me to hear a maj7 chord when i just hear a M7 interval, i suppose the quality of the chord comes more from the M7's relationship with the M3 and P5, forming its own minor triad? music is neat
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Nov 26, 2021 20:39
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thinking of intervals as absolutes instead of inversions has helped me a lot. the subtle difference in relationship adds up as you move to different notes, like how if you change a rocketship's trajectory by an inch, suddenly it compounds over time and ends up in a way different place. to me inversions and being able to calculate them are problem solving tools. if you know you want to end up on this chord, but the relationship doesn't sound quite right, you can try the inverted relationship. i've found that this actually has helped me write chord progressions and stuff on guitar, just because i picked up the same inverted positions everyone uses all the time, and it didn't sound quite right to my ears a good chunk of the time. i thought, just from basic knowledge and having learned a song, that in C, any movement from any C to any E was a third. and that's absolutely not true -- a big part of composition and being able to write poo poo that sounds good is knowing that C3 -> E3 is a major third, and C3 -> E2 is a minor sixth, and those are really different colors. and by understanding them as different things, you can do really cool stuff -- like using the ascending movement one time, then the descending movement another time, and suddenly you're existing a state of actual nuanced melody and harmony that guitar music has been lacking.
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Nov 26, 2021 20:42
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Tweezer Reprise posted:oh, definitely! weirdly for me, it's often really difficult for me to hear a maj7 chord when i just hear a M7 interval, i suppose the quality of the chord comes more from the M7's relationship with the M3 and P5, forming its own minor triad? music is neat i think of it more as the M7 chord's relationships being the two most consonant/stable intervals, instead of one really dissonant one. note that on guitar, that M7 barre chord shape we use all the time, has a major third on top of it, and since the highest pitch note is usually the most notable at any given moment, and the third is super super stable, that voicing of the M7 feels more stable than just ascending on a piano. common guitar form: E4 ----P4 B3 ----m3 G3 ----P5 C3 i don't know if it comes from choral music, but it does bare a similarity to how the soprano in SATB music often is singing thirds, just because it's such a safe move to throw them on top of anything. it's the first thing your ears notice, and it's a super consonant interval, so it kind of lets you know that everything is OK, even if there's some dissonance in the inner notes
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Nov 26, 2021 20:49
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Tweezer Reprise posted:Ear training question, I think this is the thread for that? I feel like I've hit a brick wall and it's difficult for me to cleanly, always distinguish between inversions of either very simple intervals (P4/P5) or very dissonant ones (M7/m9). i assume this is somewhat reasonable and i should just keep plugging away with it. is it cheating to rely on my instrument too much for ear training? Well, I guess M7 and m9 aren't inversions, but they're "the ones on either side of the octave" to me. yeah ear training talk belongs here imo! i think it's common to struggle with P4 / P5 and M7 / b2 if you are using an ear training app that jumps between different key centers. I.e., instead of quizzing you about various tones with respect to C major, it could be any key. Without context, it's not really possible to distinguish them. Is that your situation? If so, i wouldn't sweat it. Tweezer Reprise posted:i really liked this article on a music theory of blues, it throws out so much of the bunk square-peg-in-round-hole approaches people have taken, and simply approaches the genre from where it is at, great stuff nice post, that article is super relevant to a discussion we were having about blues music earlier in this thread! i like the idea of treating the pentatonic scale as primary, instead of treating the major scale as primary. This resonates with me as a self taught guitarist -- i think of the major scale as a pentatonic with extra half-steps (the P4 and M7). thinking of the major scale as primary is also possible, and i do it from time to time. But not usually when i'm playing a melody!
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Nov 27, 2021 00:19
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Tweezer Reprise posted:oh, definitely! weirdly for me, it's often really difficult for me to hear a maj7 chord when i just hear a M7 interval, i suppose the quality of the chord comes more from the M7's relationship with the M3 and P5, forming its own minor triad? music is neat that's right, the inner voices make it what it is! specifically, the 3rd -- you could omit the 5th and it would still sound like a major 7th chord
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Nov 27, 2021 00:20
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Ha! I think of the major pentatonic as major with the tritone tweezered out of it. the only issue i have with treating the pentatonic as fundamental is things perhaps get funky when you deal with modes like lydian, where if you tweeze the tritone out, you lose the root, and dorian, where you lose the ♭3. i think i've seen constructs of a "dorian pentatonic" that does what it says on the tin, but
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Nov 27, 2021 00:24
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Tweezer Reprise posted:Ha! I think of the major pentatonic as major with the tritone tweezered out of it. the only issue i have with treating the pentatonic as fundamental is things perhaps get funky when you deal with modes like lydian, where if you tweeze the tritone out, you lose the root, and dorian, where you lose the ♭3. i think i've seen constructs of a "dorian pentatonic" that does what it says on the tin, but if you want to, you can also think about the pentatonic scale as the 5 "leftovers" after you play the 7 notes in major scale -- and vice versa. 7 major scale tones + 5 pentatonic tones = all 12 tones. this is how i imagine piano players think about the pentatonic: as the Black keys to the major scale White keys. And for what its worth, i find is much easier to find melodies on the piano when thinking pentatonically and using the black keys. my ear tells me when a half-step (P4 or M7) is called for, and it feels somehow "right" to me that those notes should be a different color from the rest of the notes. In other words, there's something special about the P4 and M7 notes in the major scale, and thinking about the pentatonic as a subset of the major scale lets me know why that might be. EDIT: and I should acknowledge what you pointed out: that the P4 and M7 form a tritone, which is also interesting and noteworthy Helianthus Annuus fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Nov 27, 2021 |
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Nov 27, 2021 01:08
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I would say it's fundamental in itself, as it's the diatonic tritone, the tritone that creates the intense direction of the V7 chord back towards the tonic! it's very interesting yes, there's an understanding that half-steps as you describe are almost coextensive with 'color' in scales and modes, and there's some deep connection between that chromatic color (oh hey, etymology!) and the directionality (and also potential peskiness in usage) of the two non-pentatonic diatonic notes. you all were speaking of voice leading and leading tones before, etc. that direction exists so strongly because the notes of the tritone "want" to resolve inwards or outwards by a half-step to a major third or minor sixth Tweezer Reprise fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Nov 27, 2021 |
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Nov 27, 2021 01:12
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Helianthus Annuus posted:yeah ear training talk belongs here imo! don’t call it a b2 you’re gonna gently caress him up
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Nov 27, 2021 01:58
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anyway i got to the bottom of why the “music theory is descriptive not prescriptive” crowd bugs me so much: music is lingual. while there’re no set rules, sure, there ARE patterns that most people follow, that are important to being able to communicate to them and to everyone else, because so many people are used to hearing it. music theory is like syntax. is it the same to every group of people, in every language? no. but you’re probably trying to talk to people near you, into the same movements as you… who speak a certain syntax. this is why it pisses me off when you go “hey how do i resolve this chord” and some guy who thinks he’s being really smart says “go to whatever note you want, you can do anything”. while the sentiment is theoretically correct, what i’m asking is “how do i get this feeling that i’ve heard everywhere, that i now wish to evoke?” and so i’m being told the equivalent of “who gives a poo poo if you’re legible to other people, make whatever phonics you want” and am i trying to say that we should always follow expectations? no, that would be extremely boring. but it’s a lot easier to break expectations _plesantly_ if you _know_ what people are expecting, and that’s what theory is. it’s vocabulary. it’s kind of like how my favorite high school english teacher operated: swear, use slang, do whatever you want — but do it with purpose, know what you’re evoking, make sure it works. and telling people who are just trying to write a 4 chord blink 182 song “lol just use any chord in any key to write a progression” isn’t helping anyone. they want to know how to evoke the sound of I-V-vi-IV progression with power chords in root position, not make songs with constant modal mixture
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Nov 27, 2021 02:12
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That's a great corollary to my thoughts. Ultimately, music, for the vast majority of people, is not just a platonic ideal of self-expression--it is also about communication, and the compromise of getting one's ideas from their head into the heads of others. You could even say that you're also trying to communicate to yourself just as much as you are to others.landgrabber posted:don’t call it a b2 you’re gonna gently caress him up I'm not that green! If anything, I'm just catching up on the application of the theory and trying to make the jump on a lot of fronts from 'deducible' to 'instant recognition and recall'
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Nov 27, 2021 03:13
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