Help on understanding time signatures.

[VicDiesel]

Have you ever tried handing out a tab to some piano player?

Actually, what happens if you give tab to a guitar player? Can they play it immeidately and at speed? And I don't mean single lines, something serious like a Sor sonata.

Piano rolls and tabs are a bit like mouses and menus on a computer: immeidately obvious, but you can be much faster with a commandline, or in this case, general music notation.

Victor.

[VicDiesel]

So why not ditch all the b and # around the clef and just write chromatically?

Would only make sense if music was truly chromatic. Most is based on traditional scales, so it's easier to write it as default scale with occasional abberations.

Victor.

[Toxikator]

Rules come always secondary to the reality they try to describe and embrace - and it's always only dull academics who try to deny and argue around this simple fact.

"Rules" augment your skills by providing guidelines for sound.

Us "dull academics" are the ones who fill stupid threads about simple tips for harmonizing a melody and proper use of suspensions because we don't have to play guessing games when it comes to fitting the elements of music together.

The more you know the better off you are, musically. You can't deny it.

7/8 would more likely be grouped 3+2+2.

You can do it however you want, but I'd certainly never group it that way.

MP3 example: CLICKY!

here, 7/8 is played 3 ways. The first is a 3+3+1/8, the second is a 4+3/8, and the last is a 3+3+2/8

The downbeats (the first note of each number in our sum) is marked by a high D, with each other 8th note marked with a low D (the last 8th note of every phrase is an A to make the repetition of the bars easy to track).

To me, the 3+3+1/8 sounds, by far, the most natural.

[Amberience]

Actually, what happens if you give tab to a guitar player? Can they play it immeidately and at speed? And I don't mean single lines, something serious like a Sor sonata.

What do you mean "speed" ? Speed isn't everything, certainly shouldn't be the aim of guitar music.

But most guitarists can play from a tab instantly I would say.

Piano rolls and tabs are a bit like mouses and menus on a computer: immeidately obvious, but you can be much faster with a commandline, or in this case, general music notation.

Command line is faster than a mouse controlling a GUI. Give me a break.

[Amberience]

The more you know the better off you are, musically. You can't deny it.

Er.. quite easy to deny that actually. There are thousands of artists who don't know anything about conventional music theory, and they manage to make a lot of great music.

[Amberience]

To me, the 3+3+1/8 sounds, by far, the most natural.

Oh and to me, they all sound natural. It sounds like it could be an actual part of a composition if the instrumentation were more of a "band" thing than an electronic thing.

[nuffink]

The more you know the better off you are, musically. You can't deny it.

Er.. quite easy to deny that actually. There are thousands of artists who don't know anything about conventional music theory, and they manage to make a lot of great music.

All dogs have teeth. My cat has teeth. My cat is a dog.

[Amberience]

The more you know the better off you are, musically. You can't deny it.

Er.. quite easy to deny that actually. There are thousands of artists who don't know anything about conventional music theory, and they manage to make a lot of great music.

All dogs have teeth. My cat has teeth. My cat is a dog.

If you're trying to make a point, I missed it. Be more direct for the simpleton that I am.

[Toxikator]

His point is that you're arguing backwards.

Just because knowing theory makes you a better musician does not mean that being a good musician means you must know theory.

Musicians who are great without much theory knowledge would be absolutely STUNNING with it. The point is that knowing more about music makes you a better musician.

That was a terrible explanation, I'll try another way:

Let's say two things are true -
1)Knowing theory makes you a better guitarist
2)Eric Clapton is a good guitarist

It is wrong to say "Therefore, Eric Clapton knows theory".

Theory>Good, Clapton>Good cannot be chained together to make Clapton>Theory

That was the point of the teeth analogy; Dogs>Teeth, Cats>Teeth, therefore Cats>Dogs?
Of course not.

Logic works linearly; that is, If you say
1)Knowing theory makes you a better guitarist
2)Clapton knows theory

then you can say Theory>Good, Clapton>Theory, therefore Clapton>Theory>Good, therefore Clapton>Good.

[Amberience]

But music is not comprised of notes and clefs and written theory. Music is comprised of sonic entities, frequencies, and human interaction.

I would say knowing more about those things would make you a better musician.

I wouldn't neccesarily agree that if you know more about music theory then you're a better musician. That's a bit like saying someone who has a huge vocabularly is a better writer, and that is just nonsense.

[nuffink]

I wouldn't neccesarily agree that if you know more about music theory then you're a better musician. That's a bit like saying someone who has a huge vocabularly is a better writer, and that is just nonsense.

How can you know? You're not arguing from a point of having seen both states. Everybody who knows theory didn't at one time, so they have seen both states.

[Toxikator]

Not at all. Vocabulary is one PART of literary theory. That statement is tantamount to "I don't see why knowing more chords makes you a better musician".

In itself, it's true... but it misses the bigger picture.

There is no such thing as music without theory, the same way that there is no such thing as existence without science. Whether you're writing with the KNOWLEDGE of the theory you're applying doesn't change the fact that you're applying it.

[Amberience]

I wouldn't neccesarily agree that if you know more about music theory then you're a better musician. That's a bit like saying someone who has a huge vocabularly is a better writer, and that is just nonsense.

How can you know? You're not arguing from a point of having seen both states. Everybody who knows theory didn't at one time, so they have seen both states.

I know theory. More than a lot of people I have met. I'm not a wizard with it though, and I don't write music from a theoretical perspective, I write music based on how it sounds at the time AND THEN if I need to I work out how it is built according to the theory that I do know.

So I can know, and I'm not arguing from a point of NOT seeing both states.

I just don't put as much importance on knowing theory and using theory as you seem to.

In essence I would rather use my ears first and then my brain after the fact.

[nuffink]

I just don't put as much importance on knowing theory and using theory as you seem to.

Fair enough.

I have no argument with the statement "You don't need theory to be a great musician". I do have an argument with "Theory is unimportant because x great musicians didn't know it". One doesn't follow from they other. They are a form of non sequitur.

[Toxikator]

No one writes music by application of theory. The creative process is not governed by a set of rules.

Most of the theory you apply, you do so without realizing it. It's just like being in the kitchen; there's chemistry behind it but you're just cooking.

Same here; you're writing music, and although you're actually applying theory you don't conciously do it. Theory is more like the inner mechanics; and when something goes wrong; your beat sounds off, your dynamic structure is all out of whack, your melody has a note you just can't seem to place, your harmony clashes with your bassline... that's when you apply your knowledge in an active, rather than passive sense.

Of course, understanding theory will, over time, alter your passive composition. You will start to become accustomed to how certain things should sound, you'll be able to audiate better, you'll have a clearer sonic idea to iterate. Ideas come easier when you know where they're coming from.

Theory doesn't (as some people think) take the creativity out of music. It takes the NONcreativity out of it.