Using Linnstrument to learn Music Theory

[Dirk Diggler]

MP, your statement:

(And anyway why do we need polyphonic expression when modulation wheels work just fine and I already know all 12 fingering patterns!?)

Is very puzzling for someone who owns an MPE device.
You have 16 mod wheels instead? LOL

And which 12 fingering patterns are you talking about?

I'll ask a Victor Wooten theory question,
how many keys are there to practice?

Watch the video if you want the correct answer.

Don't disregard the info just because Victor is a bass player, this applies to general theory.

Good luck on your adventure.
Dirk

[zachaudioguy]

The world is full of poorly designed things that continue widespread use simply because they are in widespread use. The systems work well enough that we continue to use them.

QWERTY keyboard layout comes to mind. A key layout whose design goal was to slow the typist down to prevent jamming the typewriter. Why it proliferates in modern computing, mobile and now VR, it's part of the standard curriculum in English speaking countries.

US system of measures comes to mind.

The LUA scripting language comes to mind, why are we writing games in a scripting language designed for the petroleum industry?

As an explorer, I say explore and use what works best for you. Just expect to have to come back around to the worldwide standards when you work with others.

[Roger_Linn]

And lest we forget, there's the piano keyboard, whose keys are arranged in a straight line because a few centuries ago there needed to be a string behind each key.

[MilesParker]

Is very puzzling for someone who owns an MPE device.
You have 16 mod wheels instead? LOL

twas joke

I'll ask a Victor Wooten theory question,
how many keys are there to practice?

Love this guy, my kid's music instructor lent me "The Spirit of Music", revelatory. Along with "this is your brain on music" my two favourite books on music. "Harmonic Experience" (Mathieu) has been my favourite deep dive technical book, but I'm wading through it a page at a time.

[edit] if you doubt the potential efficacy of Clairnote in helping people understand exactly what Mr. Wooten is talking about re scales and keys, Id encourage you to spend a few minutes playing around on this page…

https://clairnote.org/scales/

[MilesParker]

And lest we forget, there's the piano keyboard, whose keys are arranged in a straight line because a few centuries ago there needed to be a string behind each key.

And yet as driven by technical constraints as it was, there is still a lot that makes sense in terms of a linear approach and the idea of having diatonic scale as main control with accents as secondary is cool. I imagine a linear approach will always be more suited to some people's way of thinking than a grid based approach. But only having one key (two if you count A minor, or am I missing one, see above hahah) makes the practical usefulness of that innovation pretty limited. (Though the decoupling of control from sound production enables auto-transposition in keyboards, getting around this limitation -- ignoring issues we've discussed re: whether this is actually a good idea from a pedagogical perspective.)

As an explorer, I say explore and use what works best for you. Just expect to have to come back around to the worldwide standards when you work with others.

Exactly, as John pointed out, you can't expect others to conform to whatever your weird flavour of the day is. But the direct implication of that is change never has the space to happen.

I do think that some fields have been able to build in adaptability and change. Software does this almost to a fault in some cases, with an ever changing array of APIs and languages, but hardware seems to be more sticky. (Just like pre-QWERTY mechanical keyboards, couldn't resist.) Even more, I'm discovering that music technology and theory have this interesting quality of being radically progressive in content (what), while often being rigidly conservative in practice (how).

This makes sense for three reasons: ) a) physical (instruments, sheet music) and conceptual (theory, symbols) artifacts are closely bound, b) skills developed involve deep and hard won mind-body integration that are specific to these artifacts, and c) coordination between many participants both in real time and across space and time is core to the practice.

I think technology may be coming to the rescue here: a) It begins to decouple physical from conceptual artifacts - Linnsturment is configurable in so many ways, DAWs provide almost limitless flexibility, etc.., b) instruments are becoming easier to develop at least a baseline of proficiency in and translate skills from one to the other with, and c) the coordination problem can be worked around with tools like the ones shared above to translate conventional representations (i.e. staff notation) to experimental ones.

[flyingaudio]

Thank you Dirk Diggler and John the Savage for your experienced suggestions and MilesParker for your deep look into it.

Dirk, I am already running into the theory issue you spoke about. I have to create my own Clairnote SN examples to go along with the theory if I don't want to use the book's examples. On a different note, I don't expect anyone to conform to my reality, but it speaks to me. I do want access to all the written material that exists, and technology makes that translation possible.

John the Savage, I have a different view of the "arrived at over centuries" thought. The quick example, is the QWERTY vs Dvorak keyboard layouts. Dvorak is a better layout, and even though it has been included in Windows for a couple decades, hardly anyone uses it. QWERTY was a layout based on the limits of the new mechanical typewriter at the time.

I am learning the Linn and not the piano, because of its isomorphic nature, where I get to leverage my learning compared to the piano (at least that is my sense right now). To me, the "isomphoric" approach of Clairnote SN makes sense. MilesParker spoke to this.

We are standing on the shoulders of giants, and what is expected of us? Scientific innovation is a continuous progression, look at the Linn.

Just like the Linnstrument encouraged me to start my first steps into becoming a musician, Clairnote SN is encouraging me to read music, which I didn't plan on doing, but the beautiful approach of Clairnote SN parallels my thinking about the Linnstrument.

I don't know what this journey will bring, but it is upbeat and full of promise. I might throw up my hands at some point and bow to tradition, because now I want to read music for the first time, even if that means using the traditional approach. Clairnote SN pulled me in, and I will start making my music theory exercises around them. Besides, I will learn a lot more by this level of engagement.

My current goal, is to learn to play the Linnstrument well enough to both compose on it and to jam/improvise with it. If I compose using Clairnote SN notation it is easy to convert it to traditional notion for others using LilyPond. Along the way, I will learn a few songs, which I plan on using Clairnote SN sheet music to learn from (which I most likely will have to create).

Double cheers!

EDIT: I am just seeing your entry zachaudioguy, thanks for your examples.

[Dirk Diggler]

Sorry I missed the joke, no wonder it seemed like a puzzling statement.

No need for Clairnote here, I learned to read and write the traditional way, over many years.

These days I have no real need for notation at all, and it doesn't work its way into my workflow.

As long as it works for you and others, that's what counts. And the faster the better I understand.

Lastly I leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Carlos Santana about improvisation theory.
"If you're thinkin', your stinkin'."

I will say I'm impressed by all the comments and discussion here, everyone is expressing their thoughts really clearly.

Enjoy the journey.

[flyingaudio]

These days I have no real need for notation at all, and it doesn't work its way into my workflow.

Thanks for that view, I can see it.

[Ryannn]

I've looked through a few pages here and didn't see this come up as a specific topic (even though it is addressed in a limited way in a couple of threads).

I am interested in learning more about music theory (I am not interested in learning how to play other people's songs--only to learn how to compose and make my own sounds and songs better if that makes any sense). I know John The Savage says it not too difficult if you put the time in. Okay, I am planning to do that. I would like to use the Linnstrument 128 I just purchased to begin this journey in earnest. There are a bazillion keyboard and guitar layout books on this (I just ordered two posters for keyboard for fingering of chords and scales to put above my main piano keyboard midi controller), but the Linnstrument's layout is, for someone (like me) who has only a basic understanding of scales and chords, not obvious, at all. I do believe the Linnstrument has the potential (for now mostly unrealized) to become a very good tool for learning music theory while learning how to play which, along with MPE expressiveness, is the reason I bought mine.

So, I am looking for recommendations or advice from anyone with how to use the Linnstrument to learn music theory so I can play the LinnStrument in a way I have never played the piano keyboard.

Thanks for any input.

I have not read all the responses to your question, but here’s my 2 cents…

Ditch the posters, you don’t need them.

When it comes to figuring out traditional harmony and chords, it’s all based on how the thirds stack, and this is really easy to see on the LinnStrument when you look at any single row no matter how you have the rows tuned. Want a major chord? Stack a major third under minor, or four half steps under three, and reverse this for a minor chord. Need a 7th? Stack another third. If you enable the feature to have the instrument light up all instances of where the same notes occur as you play them, you’ll see all the other ways to play the same chord as well as all the inversions no matter what tuning system you use.

I have mine set up to only light up sharps (or “black” keys) and no accent notes. By doing this each row looks to my way of thinking like a piano keyboard, easily showing the locations of the half steps. I use tritone tuning (interval 6) and it looks even more like stacked keyboards.

One of the virtues of the piano is the keys are laid out in a way that literally show you the distribution of half and whole steps in a way other instruments can’t, which is why it’s so much more difficult to learn music theory on a guitar or tuba or what have you than it is on piano, but by setting up the leds on the LinnStrument carefully, everything is displayed in much the same way and you have the virtue of not having to learn multiples of different fingerings because of the isomorphic layout.

Is there a good place I can learn more about this stacking you describe as a method for learning theory on Linnstrument?

[wakyct]

As someone newly playing the Linnstrument now for a couple of weeks this whole thread is very interesting to me, and while I don't have any groundbreaking insights, I can say the default 4ths setup and light pattern really works for me. It just clicks in a way nothing else has (a couple years of beginner piano lessons and lots of self-taught guitar).

I guess it could be the piano and guitar prepared the key and the Linnstrument unlocked the door, I don't know, but honestly I'm just really excited

[flyingaudio]

Here it is. My first two months with the Linnstrument has been focused on getting use to moving around on the grid and using both hands simultaneously. Now, I want to pull up a piece of music from the web and try to play it, but I can't even read the notes on the staff, and I don't want to take time to convert it to Clairnote SN, which I wouldn't be able to read either, since I haven't learned that yet. Notation has not been my focus.

Even though I love the beauty of Clairnote SN, I am going to start with traditional notation, at least to the point of learning the notes on the clefs. One thing that helped me to make that decision is the Landmark System.

I was challenged to just learn the traditional layout, like some of you have suggested, and I was introduced to the Landmark System as a way to do it concisely, without the traditional mnemonics, which I recall disliking as a child. The approach really speaks to me, and I am excited to learn the note layout now. So often, the teaching method makes all the difference.
https://www.musiciansinspired.com/post/ ... ark-system

[wakyct]

Nice video! Yeah IMO thinking about it as shapes/spaces makes more sense than a word phrase mnemonic, because shapes/spaces relates more to music theory than a word phrase.

Was surprised though the video didn't mention something basic, the G clef and the F (bass) clef 'point' to the G and the F by the shape of the clef. That's a neat little visual clue when you're first learning.

[flyingaudio]

It was only an introduction video for a course he sells. Maybe he gets into it later.

It's kind of funny, now that I decided to learn notes on a traditional staff, that I am just learning them, no big deal. I also looked at the Clairnote SN site again, and the resources on that site are very detailed and interactive making it quite approachable. I'll see what the future brings with that.