Music Theory books based on Piano Rolls not Staffs?

[gdev1981]

give us a hard and fast rule how to determine intervalls in the piano roll WITHOUT counting halfsteps and knowing by heart how many halfsteps equal any given intervall ( say a diminished seventh ) - looking at the staff you can recognize the basic size of an intervall immidiately ...

it's NOT about being lazy it's about being efficient imo

Not possible IMHO. However you go about it you will need to know what notes, scales and chords are and how to manipulate them. If you really are too bone idle to do any studying, then like I said before "just use the black notes".

@coquillo : you do understand that i support score reading, don't you???

They're turning on each other!

[coquillo]

give us a hard and fast rule how to determine intervalls in the piano roll WITHOUT counting halfsteps and knowing by heart how many halfsteps equal any given intervall ( say a diminished seventh ) - looking at the staff you can recognize the basic size of an intervall immidiately ...

it's NOT about being lazy it's about being efficient imo

Not possible IMHO. However you go about it you will need to know what notes, scales and chords are and how to manipulate them. If you really are too bone idle to do any studying, then like I said before "just use the black notes".

@coquillo : you do understand that i support score reading, don't you???

So do I. But an interval is the same whether it's displayed on a staff or a piano roll. Either way you have to count the steps and given enough practice you'll be able to see the intervals using either method. But there's no getting around the counting and practice.

[Nystul]

In computer programming, the syntax is intimidating to newcomers, but in reality it is by far the easiest part compared to learning how to solve problems and organize your work. Music notation as a part of composing is the same way. You need to know the order of the first 6 letters of the alphabet and count them out on a few lines and spaces. Then understand how the note lengths work and memorize a few more symbols. Really not that hard.

Maybe if you are just trying to mix house beats it doesn't matter. A few FL tutorials may be more useful in that case than delving into music theory at all. But if you are interested in sound track or more traditional music, why not start with a solid foundation so you can draw from the large pool of resources out there and communicate with traditional musicians? Almost every classically trained musician can read from a score, whether it is a singer, piano player, strings, woodwinds, percussion... some slight variations but basically the same music for everybody. And any serious study of western music theory will be written in the language that all those musicians can understand.

[bluedad]

why not start with a solid foundation so you can draw from the large pool of resources out there and communicate with traditional musicians? Almost every classically trained musician can read from a score, whether it is a singer, piano player, strings, woodwinds, percussion... some slight variations but basically the same music for everybody. And any serious study of western music theory will be written in the language that all those musicians can understand.

Indeed; I watched a youtube video tutorial about how to make a dub stab (cough, just out of curiousity) and he painted in a few notes in a Live midi clip saying "We'll make a C minor chord. Here's a G, a C and a D#" Try throwing that out to an orchestra and they'll be scratching their heads going "wtf?"

[gdev1981]

why not start with a solid foundation so you can draw from the large pool of resources out there and communicate with traditional musicians? Almost every classically trained musician can read from a score, whether it is a singer, piano player, strings, woodwinds, percussion... some slight variations but basically the same music for everybody. And any serious study of western music theory will be written in the language that all those musicians can understand.

Indeed; I watched a youtube video tutorial about how to make a dub stab (cough, just out of curiousity) and he painted in a few notes in a Live midi clip saying "We'll make a C minor chord. Here's a G, a C and a D#" Try throwing that out to an orchestra and they'll be scratching their heads going "wtf?"

You mean because he said D# instead of Eb?

[egbert]

Zatz right. There is no D# in a C minor chord. It is an Eb - an enharmonic tone of D# but not the same thing. This is not a pointless distinction. The minor chord is related to a scale which has D natural and Eflat in it and D# is not part of the scale. This becomes even more important when you are using key signatures.

A minus sign and a punctuation dash are not the same thing - they have different meanings and different contexts - although we might choose the same key to render them in an email.

[HunterKiller]

give us a hard and fast rule how to determine intervalls in the piano roll WITHOUT counting halfsteps and knowing by heart how many halfsteps equal any given intervall ( say a diminished seventh ) - looking at the staff you can recognize the basic size of an intervall immidiately ...

it's NOT about being lazy it's about being efficient imo

Not possible IMHO. However you go about it you will need to know what notes, scales and chords are and how to manipulate them. If you really are too bone idle to do any studying, then like I said before "just use the black notes".

@coquillo : you do understand that i support score reading, don't you???

They're turning on each other!

[tapper mike]

Blah, Blah, Blah....and more of it.

As much as I agree that learning notation can help anyone wishing to understand music. Nothing and I mean nothing prepares one like actually writing music. Seriously practice every day and practice writing with what you know. As you learn more encorporate more into your writing process. Staring at a video or a book is not going to make a song write itself. For some a little knowledge was all that it required and those some may have large catalogs of works however limited in style. (James Taylor/Jimi Hendrix)
For others they may have stated knowing little but learned along the way while continuing to write music (Paul McCartney) The big thing is that they were practicing what they knew to get better while applying themselves to what they didn't know for the future. Without theory one has very limited resources to draw from. Can you play 12 bar blues? I mean play with your own hands? Can you be satisfied only playing blues for the rest of your life? Can you write a 12 bar blues song? How bout 10 or 20 or 30? Prove it do it. Don't expect reading books will some how fill the inadequacy of poor technique. The only way to get better as a performer is practice. The only way to write songs is to actually write them. Review what you've written learn from it, Then draw from other influences and write more.

[seacouch]

So do they exist

If they do, your selection is going to be really limited. Imo, learning to read would be worthwhile just to be able to digest the better theory books out there, if for no other reason.

[flowdesigner]

The clefs are designed so that your eye does not have to travel far for a reference, whereas a piano roll would force your eyes to keep zipping to the left side of the page to see what note it is.

this is wrong

[flowdesigner]

Why not learn to read music?

Because the time could be spend to learn something else, like programming

[flowdesigner]

There is a book called "Music theory for computer musicians"

Is this the only one? It seems quite basic. Somebody should write "Advanced music theory for computer musicians"

[tapper mike]

Most of the programmers I know including yours truely are multi dimensional. Those of us who studied music studied music.

[jancivil]

Why not learn to read music?

Because the time could be spend to learn something else, like programming

did you learn programming by learning to read the language, or not.

[jancivil]

"We'll make a C minor chord. Here's a G, a C and a D#" Try throwing that out to an orchestra and they'll be scratching their heads going "wtf?"

No, they'll be saying 'this is an incompetent person'.