We have scales but why??

[SeePlusPlus]

"We have scales, but why??"

[SeePlusPlus]

[SeePlusPlus]

[crazyfiltertweaker]

oh no, my thread turned into a spamming thread...

But thx for the many peoples answers otherwise!

[D.Josef]

You may choose to write your own rules, but aside from unique names for things I betcha your major chords are still major chords, and that much if not all the form you use can be found and explained within music theory.

http://viablehybrid.com/vurt/testtube/n ... onkeys.mp3

i look forward to your analysis

Here you go, my analysis:
What we hear is clearly an example of someone fiddling with a screwdriver over the circuitboad of a radio tuned to a dead station.
That, or cybernetized crickets.

If this counts as music in your book, well at least you can find comfort in the fact that you'll always have a steady audience in the person of liberal arts majors who'll be able to look down on the uneducated masses listening to that rhythmic, harmonic backwards crap while "enjoying" your creations.

The "rules" of music are like the "rules" of physics. Literally, since soundwaves and their interaction IS physics.

You can ignore the rules of physics, but you will still be unconsciously following them.

Music theory isn't a bunch of "do this, because we say so". Instead it's a collection of observations and practices regarding music.

Sorry got to disagree with you. There are a few things in music that come from human biology and perception of sound, but overall, music is a consensual, cultural thing.

The octave is physics. The scales are not, they are human creation. But in the same way as languages are human creations. Try writing poetry without a language.

Here:

R#$QR#4 t%$ $#TYYY
TtT$#TQ#T ##Q###QQQ Q
%$T$#Q $Y%$ t$TTYYWT
TW%$%$W$ Ww 4$$TR$
3

Wow, it's great! It turned out almost as cool as vurt's "music"! I'll call it...

%#%#YYyy

[dalor]

"We have scales, but why??"

LOL!

[vurt]

You may choose to write your own rules, but aside from unique names for things I betcha your major chords are still major chords, and that much if not all the form you use can be found and explained within music theory.

http://viablehybrid.com/vurt/testtube/n ... onkeys.mp3

i look forward to your analysis

Here you go, my analysis:
What we hear is clearly an example of someone fiddling with a screwdriver over the circuitboad of a radio tuned to a dead station.
That, or cybernetized crickets.

If this counts as music in your book, well at least you can find comfort in the fact that you'll always have a steady audience in the person of liberal arts majors who'll be able to look down on the uneducated masses listening to that rhythmic, harmonic backwards crap while "enjoying" your creations.

its one miniscule aspect of what i call "music"
but even if it was all i did all i liked, even then i would still only be doing it for me, if i was interested in the size of my audience id spend more time doing the indie stuff with the bands. but its solo stuff, so completely about self expression and i take the freedom to experiment by the balls
im a bit old to be looking for recognition from my peers to be too worried about what other think, im sorry you didnt enjoy the piece, but then you probably have a specific idea about what "music" is, rather than what it could be.

R#$QR#4 t%$ $#TYYY
TtT$#TQ#T ##Q###QQQ Q
%$T$#Q $Y%$ t$TTYYWT
TW%$%$W$ Ww 4$$TR$
3

Wow, it's great! It turned out almost as cool as vurt's "music"! I'll call it...

%#%#YYyy

yay!i inspired poetry, i prefer cobralingus though.

[rp314]

I'm sure someone else must have posted this (in a thread that appears to have brought out the big guns around here) but, other than the usual "cultural" reasons that lead to certain preferences regarding scales, I think that it is important to recognize that in the West the emphasis on studying scales has a lot to do with the rigors of being a professional musician.

While it is true that many who take up an instrument will likely not end up in some orchestra, the pedagogic tradition tends to be guided by the possibility that a student will some day be asked to participate in the performance of a repertoire that could include anything from Monteverdi to Ligeti.

One's DAW can be easily told to do just about anything. But try grabbing a violin and a bunch of sheet music of the great works of the last 400 years and see what that's like.

Discipline is not a sine qua non in music. That's my bias. But to understand what folks generally do in life probably does require figuring out the purpose and method to the whole thing. It's dialectical...

[mellotronaut]

[tapper mike]

I'm sure someone else must have posted this (in a thread that appears to have brought out the big guns around here) but, other than the usual "cultural" reasons that lead to certain preferences regarding scales, I think that it is important to recognize that in the West the emphasis on studying scales has a lot to do with the rigors of being a professional musician.

While it is true that many who take up an instrument will likely not end up in some orchestra, the pedagogic tradition tends to be guided by the possibility that a student will some day be asked to participate in the performance of a repertoire that could include anything from Monteverdi to Ligeti.

One's DAW can be easily told to do just about anything. But try grabbing a violin and a bunch of sheet music of the great works of the last 400 years and see what that's like.

Discipline is not a sine qua non in music. That's my bias. But to understand what folks generally do in life probably does require figuring out the purpose and method to the whole thing. It's dialectical...

Last time I looked Daws needed a bit more then being told what do to in order to make something happen. I shouted all night at my daw and the garbage is still in the same place it was yesterday the dishes arent done and my great requiem of which I'll be famous for not my daw is still not done.
C:/Dos
C:/Dos/Run
RUN/DOS/RUN/

[aciddose]

There's yer problem.

Did you remember to hit record before doing the shouting?

[codec_spurt]

There's yer problem.

Did you remember to hit record before doing the shouting?

Did you remember to engage your brain, before speaking?

[jancivil]

I'm a contemporary American, I don't require that baggage.

Do you read figured bass? Because there is a lot more in the common *practice* thingy than determining if a floaty vamp of two suspended chords is subsumed under the concept of tonal or not.

Just play the game. You will learn a lot in the process, musically and philosophically. Play the game, even if it seems cumbersome at some times, you will not regret it, you will be changed and you will change your music and the world once you've got it, that's the best advice I can tell you.

Yes, we were required to read figured bass in every harmony class I've had, all the part-writing exercises and tests used it. I'm actually thoroughly versed in it.

You are addressing an imaginary person with that advice. It has little to do with what I'd said, I was talking about the semantics. I see the point, 'tonal' uses 'tonality', but I take the word in a more contemporary, even street usage, if there is a 'tonic', center of gravity so to speak, I say 'tonal', which doesn't have to correct for youse.

[JumpingJackFlash]

I see the point, 'tonal' uses 'tonality', but I take the word in a more contemporary, even street usage, if there is a 'tonic', center of gravity so to speak, I say 'tonal', which doesn't have to correct for youse.

Such an approach could be confusing for newbies though.
Modal music is not tonal (though admittedly you can get music which blurs the distinctions).
If you must lump them together, then a word I have often seen used is Centric, meaning it has a centre (like a tonic but not necessarily in a tonal sense).

[jancivil]

sure you're right. but it's just a semantics thing isn't it. I was upset over the V-I hegemony and that strong an assertion you can't have *home* without it to a fault I think.