284 karma · joined April 2, 2013
I'm just curious if they are still using note names and how this teacher is going about things... Because yes it's totally true you don't need to be able to read sheet music in order to understand theory well
Look at a jazz lead sheet for example, where chord voicings aren't usually spelled out (big band being an exception sometimes). Or in analysis e.g I - V7 - iv
of course people can hear and distinguish mathematically pure intervals especially if demonstrated in these ways.
you said,
> This brings some practical musical advantages, but even the average listener can hear the difference, the loss of purity of harmony
which I interpreted as meaning that average listeners are both hearing and actively aware of this difference in their day-to-day exposure to equal-tempered music.
I am very skeptical of this claim, but perhaps this is not what you intended to imply? I can understand why my question would lead to yours and geofft's answers.
I don't hold this assumption that you name, and it's not a part of formalized music education. which actually does emphasize method and relationships, versus rote learning. I'm curious why you think anything else would be the case. how much exposure do you have to this world? I hear that you have worked with music teachers - in what context?
also, curious to understand how many of them were coming from a jazz background?
learning to read music on the staff has no relationship to 7 notes on a privileged scale, so I'm not sure what you mean here. no note is given priority over any other note, in any clef. what makes you think that sheet music locks someone into 7 notes?
I don't intend for this to sound condescending - how well can you read music? are you speaking about all of this from the perspective of someone who has read about reading music or someone who actually understands how to read?
your comments (and those that you refer to) seem to sound like those that deride reading music as some kind of crutch or limitation in music education. I see these amusing comments a fair amount on this website.
being able to read music is having an ability to speak a shared language. like English, but with a lot smaller alphabet and an incredibly smaller set of rules. it's funny to me the degree of resistance I hear to this from people who often want to "disrupt" this language without actually understanding why it exists in the first place.
to use an analogy from mathematics, students usually benefit from learning multiplication before learning algebra as a way to see examples of logic based symbol manipulation. theory is the algebra, reading music is multiplication. that's why theory is usually taught to people who have a rudimentary understanding of the language of music.
or are you referring to the idea that people can be trained to hear these kinds of differences?
If so, how, for example, are you talking about the concept of a dominant 7th chord? Or a ii-V-I?
I have never met a working jazz musician who didn't read music, or, more fundamentally, didn't have an incredibly solid understanding of western music theory.
zynthian has a nice website. it seems like a cool idea and I'm sure it has some great use cases. it's still a kit which strikes me as not pro-level.
more concerning is that it appears to have what I would call completely unusable issues regarding latency and jitter (5-20ms of latency is unusable for realtime audio), can you comment on this? how about jitter? what is your experience with it (and if you have any, what are your use cases?)
searching the internet for solutions here seems to show a lot of unresolved issues. I see the developers asking users to file GitHub issues as recently as a couple of months ago. I know very few audio professionals who are going to want to use something with this degree of maintenance / instability / unreliability.
how would you describe the ease with which you can interface the tools you describe with outboard gear using USB or MIDI e.g. audio interfaces, mixers, synthesizers, etc, compared to the apple ecosystem? which tends to be quite plug & play. one reason why it is so widely used.
I have degrees in physics and music. I understand all of this from first principles.
Speaking as someone who has spent tens of thousands of hours in music, with other musicians at many different stages of learning - for probably the majority of music students, this is (initially) essentially useless and potentially even obfuscatory and unhelpful. It can be interesting to learn about later if someone wants to. Does nothing to help people get better at playing their instrument, which is what most people seem to want. Having an interest in acoustics and the physics of music can be helpful in driving someone to play and practice if it simply gets someone to spend more time with their instrument.
In your reply I wonder if past music teachers have emphasized memorizing theory without application - in what I have seen, this is not the norm. The emphasis is on practice and application, developing an internalized somatic memory (e.g. muscle memory & ear training), and technique in order to avoid hurting yourself.
Internalized somatic memory is not the same thing as memorizing concepts with your mind :)
Let me ask you this - it sounds like you are coming from a classical / folk perspective? I’m coming from a jazz foundational perspective, that’s the “form” of music theory education I am referring to. Which is quite common in the U.S. Do you have much practical experience playing / learning jazz or related genres on an instrument? (is this a genre that even interests you?)
for anyone else reading this just know that music theory in study and application can be approached in a much more intuitive, less “algebraic” manner.
(nothing wrong with algebra...)
Sometimes a DJ or bedroom producer is using Windows. So it's quite surprising to hear you say that Linux is the standard.
Can you point me to any producers, artists, sound engineers, studios, or production houses that use Linux? I would love to know...
I have never seen anyone using CALF tools in this profession. Looking at what that does - the functionality is available in a number of rock-solid applications native to Apple (MainStage, Ableton, Logic, etc). So there's no reason why it would need to be ported to MacOS.
How are you measuring audio stack superiority? And in terms of "stack", are you talking about something separate from the suite of professional audio / MIDI tools that come standard on every Apple computer that don't seem to have any comparison on Linux or Windows?
Are you taking into account the availability of hardware drivers on these different platforms? What is your experience in setting up a Linux-based audio production system with a lot of outboard gear? This is one area that seems to be a major source of headaches and motivation to not use Linux for producers and engineers.
Even looking through the comments on this page - there's people talking about the difficulty of setting up a functional audio production environment in Linux compared to Apple. I've noticed this sentiment is repeated over and over again on HN (going back to previous articles on audio production, Ableton, etc).
This topic stands out to me as I've sincerely wanted Linux to be much less of a headache with audio so I can get off the Apple ecosystem entirely.
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/audio-networking-explained...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_(networking)
versus the streaming associated with Spotify et al
IOW a legitimate (non—audiophile) piece of gear
> Another aspect is that the audio stack on MacOS is truly outstanding, with a whole host of professional audio applications and utilities on the platform. Hardware drivers are up to date and also well supported. Connectivity is also well supported by audio hardware vendors.
If it’s your experience as a musician I would like to understand why.
I play a lot of instruments (have been playing guitar, bass, woodwinds, and singing since age 10), and my practice routines on various instruments have a lovely way of informing my development and expression on others.
— jazz musician of 25 years
(this calculus metaphor is pretty far off - music theory in practice, by a working jazz musician, doesn’t involve “manipulation of symbols”, at least not in the same way as one works mathematical problems and proofs. it involves a lot of time on your instrument, applying theory in practical and experiental ways. oftentimes we will write out a lead sheet, or transpose something, and use theory to do that. and so there’s some calculations happening. it becomes second nature with practice).
this scale:
C# D# E F# G# A B C#
is C# Aeolian.
Minus the A natural, that is one collection of notes that is being strongly suggested by this app. Yes, an A# would would change the tonality, and the key.
To me, I hear the 9th scale degree relative to the tonic much more than the 6th (i.e. 13th). That's in general, and it's based on my own predilections and harmonic training. This scale includes a D#, as well as the 4th and 5th. I "hear" this as relative to C#, not G#. Totally welcome, of course, that you hear this as relative to G#; the E natural then functions as the minor 6th. To me, that's a much weaker harmonic suggestion than the E natural functioning as the minor third. It's totally OK with me that we hear this differently. Is it OK with you?
Also, why does it matter to you what I (some random person online) realizes (or not)?
The tonal center we'll hear using this specific collection of notes, whether it be G#, C#, E (or any other note from this key), all depends on the sequence you enter. Rhythmic variation would also support this but this app does not have that option.
Here's one with a tonal center of C#: https://music-grid.surge.sh/#1152-2112-1040-2212-1088-1320-1...
And with G#: https://music-grid.surge.sh/#260-272-528-256-160-288-512-108...
B3 C#4 F#4 G#4 C#5 D#5 E5 G#6 B6 C#7 F#8 G#8
These notes are all diatonic, e.g. from the same key (unlike all the keys on a piano). That key is C# relative minor (or E major). In modal language, this is the C# Aeolian (or, when played from E to E, Ionian mode):
C# D# E F# G# A B C#
If you play notes restricted to a single key, it will come out sounding OK.
how so? I personally find Ableton to be vastly superior to Logic. Some of these latest Logic updates look like copies of core Ableton workflow / features:
Live Loops : Session View
Drum Machine Designer : Drum Rack
Sampler & Quick Sampler : Sampler & Simpler (also Looper)
https://www.resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/dr-lise-van-sus...
The talk appproaches how to mediate and fundamentally resolve this experience (it's partly support of a book that was just released, I am in the process of reading it - I feel this is going to be really helpful context for many people).
Also, can't we observe photons older than human species with our naked eyes without taking up amateur astronomy?
For their stated purpose of the article, I wouldn't have found much added value if I had known a lot of detail about why they using and contributing to this language; the message was clear and direct.
I am fascinated with your interpretation of this post as reading that the author was very much desiring and needing social validation and connection. I didn't have this interpretation. Are there some specific things in the post they said that led you to this point of view?
? This wasn't really a technical blog post so I don't think this was a "miss", the points being shared around i18n efforts were meant to support the primary message of the article.
I read this as a thorough recounting of the author's experience, much of which was characterized by a variety of challenges. I suppose that can be construed as having a "dramatic" element.
the first shows this progression in the key of F minor (really, F melodic minor if you want to get into it).
the second describes this progression in roman numeral scale degrees, useful for transcribing this progression to any key.
either are going to be pretty much second nature for all players except for those at the beginning stages of their playing.
ø = half-diminished, or m7b5, comprised of scale degrees 1, b3, b5, b7
-∆ = minor-major, or mM, comprised of scale degrees 1, b3, 5, 7
alt = altered, or altered dominant. this type of harmony is ubiquitous in jazz since the 60s. one of the most straightforward ways to look at this is through melodic minor scale modal theory. the "locrian" scale in this mode, or mode built on the seventh note in the (ascending version of this) scale, gives scale degrees:
1, b2, b3, 3, b5, b6, b7
or, in the language of the upper structures used in jazz:
1, b9, #9, 3, #11, b13, b7
note the presence of the 3rd and the flattened 7th - these are the core elements of a dominant chord. all of these other notes, with the exception of the root, are "altered" e.g. raised or lowered by a half step from their original position, relative to the major scale.
this mode is often referred to as the "super locrian" mode.
there are dozens of options for voicing an altered dominant chord, "alt" is very general notation. when a player sees this, the context, their ear, their experience, whatever other information there is in the song, will inform what they actually play. at this point is where getting into some listening would be quite helpful!