Major/Minor ratios

[jancivil]

I had done quite a bit of arranging, and I had a pretty good grasp of what to do using chord progressions coming up with ideas for a song, before I ever looked at roman numbers as a basis. I found it useful according to my own development/as I found I needed it. For four-part writing in the common practice as they say in the trade, it's de rigeur isn't it. I think that is historical, ie., if I felt I didn't need that grounding I could have lived without it. I didn't feel that way. I do not agree that a knowledge of what an interval IS, is something different in quality somehow.

Did my music theory teachers tell me to ignore information? I don't remember it like that. I remember extracurricular things which spurred my imagination: 'stacking P4ths! wow, I always really went for that sound, now I know where to specifically go to for that effect.'

[shankfiddle]

To some mathematically-minded "noobs" physics connections could be useful. Whether they want to be synth programmers or high-and-mighty-songwriters (the supreme goal of all music, naturally)

So although a technical discussion about the physics of sound may be confusing for the average student, brighter ones might actually find that this information helps them understand how those conventional theory rules were derived.

just sayin. not all newbies are created equal.

[wrench45us]

we had an electrical engineer who used these ratios to tune a stepper motor to a major scale, just as a progarmming exercise -- and then he could play music with ethe motor.
That's the only time I know of any use for these ratios

[Loki Fuego]

Demand a refund it's claptrap filler.

I second that! Probably, the most useful comment out of the whole thread.

[Nystul]

To some mathematically-minded "noobs" physics connections could be useful. Whether they want to be synth programmers or high-and-mighty-songwriters (the supreme goal of all music, naturally)

So although a technical discussion about the physics of sound may be confusing for the average student, brighter ones might actually find that this information helps them understand how those conventional theory rules were derived.

just sayin. not all newbies are created equal.

Yeah. I think a well organized introduction to harmonics could be quite handy to aspiring musicians. It is the basis behind so many things. Like why inverting chords or transposing parts at the octave generally don't change the nature of the harmony. Or why the damper pedal makes the timbre brighter. Or how a pipe organ (or fm synth) can sound kinda sorta like a flute or cello. Perhaps even helps to answer the old question about what makes music different from noise (but my snare drum says it's not all about harmonics). Maybe if someone understands the underlying concept, it is easier to understand some of the specific cases without having to memorize a bunch of unrelated rules and take them on faith.

[tapper mike]

What makes things stick is experience coupled with listening skills. Before you can write you have to know how to play. What you play influences how you write. What you like influences what you play.

If you want to be good at performing and/or songwriting the first goal is to determine your musical direction and stick with it.

Lets say, I want to be a folk pianist. Not that I play the piano currently or listen to a lot of folk music. The first thing I do is start listening to folk music. I find folks I like and listen to them more. I find a piano with a folk sound or at least a piano patch. I learn the chords and scales and keys that folk players play in. I work out folk progressions based on popular songs. Great. I now can perform a folk song for myself or for others. I take what I learn and I experiment with what I know. I build on what I know in the physical sense because it strengthens my technique. If I'm not getting it physically I look for help. I both watch and listen to other folk players. Along the way I learn more folk songs and writing techniques. I take cues on how melodies work in folk songs by listening to singers and what the piano player or other instruments are doing. Then I go back to my piano patch and experiment with phrases.

One does not learn folk by studying bebop or trance. Although one can learn influences of folk such as celtic, bluegrass, traditional country, folk rock and the blues to enhance one's own playing and draw upon for the writing process.

No one studies physics in order to ride a bicycle and while some of that experience can be translated to pogo stick some bicycle riding skill simply wont work no matter how hard you try.

Most people learn about things like inversions the same way they should all chords, Practical applications. Here is a song. Here are the chords used in the song and here is how those chords are expressed. Now you try it. Once you have it down it's something you can pull out of your bag of tricks. When working out ideas of your own. Maybe you could use a different rhythm one that you've already studied. As well, since you now have the basic construction down try using this voicing on different chords. Work thru progressions you already know with this new voicing.

Do you know how I learned about stacked 5ths? Message in the Bottle by the Police. I got a song that I could play for myself or others, I got a rhymic pattern that I could apply to different chord progression. I got a technique and a concept that I could expand upon for my own writing.


Now you'll hear 9th chords in blues, jazz, rock, reggae, country and even disco. You might hear them as add9 you might hear them as 79 or 69 or add2 But it's very very uncommon to hear them as stacked 5ths ala "Message in a Bottle or "Every Breath You Take" or Joe Satriani's "Satriani's "Secret Prayer" And the reason is,,,It's not applicable. Not all theory is applicable in all situations. Which brings me back to my original premise. Whether you are learning theory to have a better appreciation of music, Gain skills for performing music, Improvising over music, or writing your own music. You work from what you like the most and apply the theory that supports the style by applying the theory to the style. Be it (I know this sounds crazy) Learning a song or writing a song in that style.

[VitaminD]

Thanks, all. Trying to absorb all of this.

[Aroused by JarJar]

Knowing about Just intonation and ratios used to be common knowledge among trained musicians. Nowadays it is usually choral directors, orchestrators, ethnomusicologists and performers of historical musics such as Baroque who are aware of these things.

I have seen a choral director completely at a loss as to why the pitch of a piece kept dropping, and the better everyone sang, the more clearly it dropped, it was sad. If you insist that voices "blend", they will go into Just intonation (which blends). Unlike equal temperament, this will create "comma shifts" (whole thing moves by a fraction of a tone), and if you try to correct it in a heavy handed manner, "wolves" (intervals will have these movements tacked on, causing things like a fifth being an eight of a tone flat and so on). Good choirs and orchestras get around this by continual artistic pitch adjustments all over the place.

Equal temperament evolved as a compromise which eliminates these problems. It sacrificed the blending quality to do this. Choirs and orchestras that are blending are not playing in strict equal temperament. Equal temperament is more of a notational reference than a physical reality for groups of musicians using instruments of unfixed pitch.

Not knowing these things is simply pointless ignorance- even if you don't know it "scientifically", or even consciously, it's a very basic part of music.

[tapper mike]

I know about just intontation and mean intonation and it doesn't affect my playing or writing one bit. Niether does it affect the playing or writing or arranging of countless others.

Dealing with live orchestration one also has to contend with tuning issues and the individuals ability to always capture the note spot on. Simply because they are trained doesn't mean there are times when they can't find the right note on a fretless stringed instrument or other instrument were the precision of the note is determined by the performer on a per note basis.

The rest of us who are not conducting chorales never expeirence it. All it does is add clutter to the mind which is a distraction from not a benefit to composition.

[Aroused by JarJar]

I know about just intontation and mean intonation and it doesn't affect my playing or writing one bit. Niether does it affect the playing or writing or arranging of countless others.

Dealing with live orchestration one also has to contend with tuning issues and the individuals ability to always capture the note spot on. Simply because they are trained doesn't mean there are times when they can't find the right note on a fretless stringed instrument or other instrument were the precision of the note is determined by the performer on a per note basis.

The rest of us who are not conducting chorales never expeirence it. All it does is add clutter to the mind which is a distraction from not a benefit to composition.

Those computer musicians for whom there is no real distinction between sound design and composition do not benefit from awareness of the relationships between tuning and timbre (which is what frequency ratios boil down to)? Not true.

Writers for brass instruments do not benefit from understanding frequency ratios? Very, very not true. (cf. trombone portamento for the most obvious example of why this is not so)

Though you may percieve the creation of music as combinatorics within a fixed system, learned through rote, not everyone else does.