what is this 'music theory' anyway?

[ztutz]

Maths is a way of modelling the world. Actually, a lot of ways. Music isn't immune from being modelled, so why would it be surprising that maths is related to music? Isn't it like saying 'maths is related to banking'?

No, no, you're all wrong. Math is an absolute in our Platonic world while banking is mere human activity. Math doesn't model compound interest - bankers just pick the low-hanging truth attached to e and exploit it.

Music, now *that* is an interesting question: eternal truth or lame human ripoff?

[Toxikator]

I know you define 'music theory' broadly, but To 'study music theory' as TrekStar put it surely means to look at the preexisting body of music theory. That isn't what these guys did, unless they were deliberately hiding the fact.

I'll grant you that. The point I was making was more along the lines of "whether I find out for myself that 1+1=2 or read it from a textbook, I'm still learning math"

[Topiness]

Regarding maths and music, check this thread, they are definitely related:

http://1.warezmania.info/viewtopic.php?t=69

"Major triads sound happy; when you invert them they sound sad, just like an upside-down smile looks sad. There could be some profound truth lurking here. A smile has a positive second derivative, which says that things are "looking up", while a frown has negative second derivative"

Aha... it all makes sense now...

[Toxikator]

[ztutz]

Told you!

[aaastronomer]

what is this music theory? it's not like math theory! where're the axioms, corollaries, lemmas, theorems, and proofs?

I did propose in my ramblings in another thread that the term 'music theory' was a bit misleading to non-initiates - to me, what is commonly termed music theory doesn't seem to be similar to theory in other fields, in that it's not generally considered speculative, nor does it get proved/disproved over time.

can you prove anything about music with music theory?

that the harmony scales used by many pop songs correspond with the Medieval church modes, Or that a certain song has Latin American influences, for example.

Having said that, the existing published theory seems to be more about offering systems of classification than really formal explanation.

now, it takes math and neuroscience to understand the perception of music (cause it sure ain't out there where this laptop is)!

But can you understand the perception of music, using current maths and neuroscience? Why is a minor chord sad then?

i dunno, i read an article in one of the supplements to the encyc. britanica or 'the great books' series,
summarizing some of the arguments for throwing 'music' out of the university because it has no theory. (i guess they never did. imagine trade schools for music! actually, that's not a bad idea--if i must say so myself. it would probably blow off a lot of the bs you get doing your ms!)

anybody else see a problem here?

If you threw out every subject that didn't involve large quantities of from-the-ground-up proofs, you can throw away most of the arts and humanities.

sad's a tough one for neuroscientists...the chemical pathways in the brain for emotion are somewhat understood and there are connectionist models that attempt to handle emotion for robotic systems and communicating agents...certainly there are facial models that map angry input directed at the agent into 'sad' facial expressions, but i'm not sure how 'neural' these models are...however, it would be extremely easy to develop a neural network model to map text chord representations to happy/sad/confused facial representations...it wouldn't really be that hard to train a neural network model to respond differentially to wave file data representing major and minor (as well as other chords) and have that response drive a facial emotion model...in fact, i think part of this has been done...but, hey where 'music theory' in all this?

as far a dumping the humanities from the university...well, film was the first to go from my local u.! (music can't be far behind )

[aaastronomer]

I don't know what you're talking about mathematics theory. Maths are no theory but fundamental science. The word theory implies that it is not proven and other theories could exist. Music theory is based on empirical assessments and just deserves to be qualified as "theory". Of course you can come up with another theory or just say music doesn't need theory, it's your plain right.

math isn't fundamental science like, say physics, math doesn't even address anything in the real world! math is all about abstractions like: numbers, operators, topologies, categories, topoi, etc.

now, science uses math, but its generally a one way flow of theory...also, math is well out in front of science in terms of mathematical theory that has yet to be applied in science...

[aaastronomer]

i was under the impression that maths and music theory, or harmony, were closely linked. I think Pythagoras is credited as the first chin-stroker to work out the math behind scales and the harmonic relationships of notes.

Equal temperament (the way the modern keyboard is layed out) is a bit of fudge, it doesn't follow the maths (that's because the maths sounds bad when followed to the letter). But there is method to musics maddness.

The link that Pythagoras supposedly discovered between math and music is that the most basic consonant intervals (octave, fifth, fourth) correspond to the most simple of superparticular ratios (1:2, 2:3, and 3:4 respectively). This basic understanding is the beginning of all music theory.

The problem is that if you use these mathematically pure intervals, and ascend through the circle of fifths (c,g,d,a,e,b,f#,etc) the 'c' that you arrive at will be slightly different than the c you arrive at if you start at the same low c and cycle upwards by octaves.

This difference is called the pythagorean comma. And it is the reason for all of the different temperaments western music has gone through.

All of these are an attempt to compromise between the need for music to have perceived consonances, and the need for a tuning system that allows all of the different instruments, with their increasingly large ranges, to interact with singers and with each other without a major trainwreck. It is not because equal temperament sounds better. On the contrary, acoustically pure 'Pythagorean' intervals sound absolutely gorgeous compared to their tempered counterparts, which sound sort of 'off' after listening to the others.

For more information on acoustically pure intervals, look here: http://www.justintonation.net

i've often though of the pythagorean comma as music's version of irrational numbers (which pythagoras tried to bury, if my memory serves me)...you can imagine: everything's going fine for pythagoras (in the math dept., anyway) as he progresses from N to Z to Q , but then...what the fa? again? where did these non-repeating fractions come from? this messes up my whole scheme of things! what's happening (to me)?

i gather that there was also as strong a theory of harmony in china around the time of pythagoras, but i'm not well read in chinese music theory...can anyone comment here?

[aaastronomer]

I think your analogy of music and mathematics is flawed in as much as these two disciplines work towards VERY different ends.

I dont think that music tries to explain anything. Infact, it seems that over the last 500 years, music has steadily proceeded towards complete chaos!

The technical aspects can be explained in terms of mathematics, but the heart of music (ie, the essential) cannot.

TB

i didn't make an analogy...i asserted that math had a theory, but music not, because what goes for theory in music is pretty weak at explaining what goes on in the perception of musical sound and it provides no framework to prove anything, as does math.

i don't know if western music has progressed to complete chaos...glitch and pulse (which use to be the last original school of w. music) fit pretty well into our times...current (serious?) music is just recondite (as is edge math and science). whadda ya expect after 2000 years of development?

as for the heart of music...i dunno, math provides the foundation for a lot of explanation nowadays...i'm beginning to think that stuff that doesn't admit to scientific explanation may be a bunch of vodoohoodoo (all flashing lights and drums at midnight...)

[aaastronomer]

anybody else see a problem here?

The only problem I see, is that your post adds nothing new to the debate...

Maybe you're just looking to start another useless 40 page thread?

If you feel that music need not (or does not) involve any theory, then so be it. If you are perchance bored, read any of the other myriad of threads started on this topic, rather than start a new one.

now that's not nice...is there a debate? are you debating? is this a form of debate? didn't see one...but, hey, the thread goes as long as it goes...i'm just asking a few questions here. i'd have to be a big time phD to add anything new to the larger debate (outside of kvraudio) in this area...but, then again...this is all virtual, all this text is doing is taking up some room on somebody's hard drive somewhere...and perhaps someone's time....(now, i assume we're all just here taking a break from making music.)

philosophy is just a diversion (right?) what i feel isn't the point...what do i feel? what do you feel? what do you feel i feel? (and, who are 'you' to me?)

what i may seem to be asserting may not be what i think, either. but, my question here is a question that's out there...and there are some influential people thinking about this whole question: in ways that could really affect how seriously music's taken in the future...just think about how different things would be if the prevailing wisdom was that there really was nothing to music to warrant it being taught at a university level! what about the rest of the arts? why not save some budget money and send all of these studies to their proper place: trade school (ah, i mean, art academy...). it's happening to film, it could happen to music.

sure, people will still make music, but how independently (of the commericalist)? how good would it be? who could say? what other major institutions would there be to feed some crumbs to the composer whose music had no commercial potential, but was of a qualitythat should be both performed and critiqued by people who get paid to think (exclusively?) about music. that is, music that most people wouldn't even recognize as music? music that pushes the boundaries of convention.

think of where pop music would be if electronic and music concrete and pulse music hadn't been nurtured by academia. even with all of the invention that has come out of academia over the years, pop music is awfully conventional and aesthetically dull. would it all be retro without serious academic music? but then, what would retro mean?

ah...i could go on, but i'm taking up too much thread space...