Principia Discordia

Back in the 2nd grade, up through the 6th grade, I used to play trombone.  I wanted to get back into playing music again, for fun and to help with maff learning.  I have lost a lot of what I used to know, but I don't think it'll be too hard to pick it back up, unless I'm vastly underestimating what I don't know about music.

So, in essence, this thread is basically me asking "Um.  What?" 

If you music spags wouldn't mind letting me know what is important, that would be totally sweet.

For trombone?

Embouchure.

Also, brush up on the bass clef (http://www.jazclass.aust.com/1readm/mn4.htm).

Ooh, that site looks perfect!  Thanks. :D

i am interested in this topic and would like to answer any questions you may have.  i confess my knowledge is more stringed instrument based, so i might not be able to help with trombone specific questions - however, i would like to share a nugget of wisdom from my music theory professor:  the ear is the final arbiter.  i.e. if it sounds good, it sounds good.  corollary: if it sounds like shit, it sounds like shit.

i will also warn you against studying too much theory - it's a good way to get trapped into obeying rules instead of following your instinct.

Well, I'm actually just taking an Aural Perception class - mostly rythms, knowing a note by earish that sort of thing.

LMNO, your link is simultaneously teaching me treble clef and reminding me of bass clef.  I suspect it will take about a week before I really remember which notes go on what lines, though.

Rong, if I have any specific questions, I'll direct them here.  It's been so long, I don't even know what to ask about, because I don't know that I don't know about it yet.  If that makes sense.  :lol:

No that makes sense. Ill try and be of help too but like rong im mostly limited to stringed instruments. Also i cant read music to save my life.

A question just occurred to me:

What's a music theory?

One that's more relevant to what I need to know:

What's the difference between a major and a minor?  Other than they sound different?

Theory is just the rules used to explain how music works.

The difference between a major and a minor scale- major is do re mi fa so la ti do. Minor is la ti do re mi fa so la. Chord wise the major chords would be constructed from do mi so and minor would be constructed from la do mi. Well theyd be constructed from the other ones too but that will give you a quick comparison.

As far as keys go every major key is also a minor key. C major is identical to a minor. F major is d minor and so on. Generally its called one or the other based on what the feel is.

Oh.  Now I know. Excellent.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on January 18, 2012, 08:31:42 PM
For trombone?

Embouchure.

Also, brush up on the bass clef (http://www.jazclass.aust.com/1readm/mn4.htm).

Yep, speaking as a former brass player, trumpet.  If you don't play regularly you lose your lip and it takes a while to get it back.  Not to mention the stamina to get the high notes.  It may be a bit different for trombone but I think there are probably some similar issues. 

I got really hung up on trying to learn theory because none of it seems to stick. I get it and then it's gone again the next day. Then, when I'm back on a roll, I come across something that makes me question how much of it is even necessary. For instance, I was playing around with and learning old tuning systems from around the world and discovered that none of the music even from a hundred years ago sounds the same when played now because the frequency ratios between notes weren't the same, so keys actually had a sound that can't be transposed. I don't know what the point is of having keys anymore, unless there's something else to them.

And the black keys on a piano: Do we keep sharps and flats just because of the piano layout? They don't make sense to me anymore either.

I might be unnecessarily confusing myself, and forgive me if these are silly questions.

Quote from: Xooxe on January 19, 2012, 12:20:14 AM
For instance, I was playing around with and learning old tuning systems from around the world and discovered that none of the music even from a hundred years ago sounds the same when played now because the frequency ratios between notes weren't the same, so keys actually had a sound that can't be transposed. I don't know what the point is of having keys anymore, unless there's something else to them.

My instructor said in the last fifty years, music has been tuned up to sound brighter, and her mother, who had been an opera singer with perfect pitch, had a really hard time not sounding flat.  So that's why things don't sound the same is because the tuning is different.

Or at least that's what I understand.

Separating the sharps on a piano makes sense since it helps you see which note is which. If it were all white keys it would be easy to get lost. As far as theory goes its good to know some of it because it helps you figure out what you can do with an idea and what would sound good with it.

Quote from: RWHN on January 19, 2012, 12:17:08 AM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on January 18, 2012, 08:31:42 PM
For trombone?

Embouchure.

Also, brush up on the bass clef (http://www.jazclass.aust.com/1readm/mn4.htm).

Yep, speaking as a former brass player, trumpet.  If you don't play regularly you lose your lip and it takes a while to get it back.  Not to mention the stamina to get the high notes.  It may be a bit different for trombone but I think there are probably some similar issues.

For trombone, from what I remember, the lower notes took more breath power than high ones, which was just a matter of lip and breath control.

So.  Intervals.  What are they, and what is the difference between M2, m2, M3, m3, P4, T, m6, M6, m7, M7, and P8?

Quote from: The Freeky of SCIENCE! on January 19, 2012, 12:31:39 AMMy instructor said in the last fifty years, music has been tuned up to sound brighter, and her mother, who had been an opera singer with perfect pitch, had a really hard time not sounding flat.  So that's why things don't sound the same is because the tuning is different.

I didn't think of it like that, but it makes sense like drifting continents.

Quote from: Billy the Twid on January 19, 2012, 12:33:14 AM
Separating the sharps on a piano makes sense since it helps you see which note is which. If it were all white keys it would be easy to get lost.

Yeah, I'm happy it's all uneven like that. I don't know whether I'm remembering correctly, but I thought the Greeks started out with seven notes, and then five more were tacked on at some point and slowly became tuned so that now they're equal to the others in terms of pitch spacing, but they're still sharps and flats in notation and theory. Really, the whole thing is slightly bizarre to me.

Those are the spaces in between notes on a scale. Like if you start with c c# is the minor 2 (also the minor 9) d would be the major 2 and d#/e flat would be the minor third. So it goes root, minor(or flat) 2, maj2, min3, maj3, perfect fourth, dininished fifth (the devils note)perfect fifth augmented fifth sixth dominant seventh major seventh and then the octave which is the same note as the root but higher (this is why a second is also a ninth). This is actually how chords are also constructed. A major chord consists of a root a major third and a perfect fifth. A minor chord is the same but with a minor third. A major scale goes root maj2 maj3 perfect 4 perfect 5 sixth and major seventh. A minor scale is root major 2 min3 perf4 perf5 6 dom7

Ok.

Music Theory:  The main reason for learning how to write music down is the same reason we write anything else down -- Communication, and Memory.  The fact that we can play a Bach piece hundreds of years after he thought it up is proof of it's efficacy.  Also, if two people know theory, it's much easier to tell someone that a melody you're playing is in [a minor] than it is to try and sing the scale to them.  Or to say, "could you harmonize that a fourth down?"

Because it's a set of patterns describing sound, it's also arbitrary.  To give a foundation, we tend to use A = 440Hz.  That frequency (440 Hertz) makes a sound we are declaring to be "A".  Ok, now it gets fun.

The Greeks (among others) understood that if you take a string and tighten it, it makes a certain sound.  Then they found that if you hold down that string in the middle, it makes a sound almost exactly the same, but higher.  We're calling that an "octave".  Would it surprise you to know that the A that is an octave above A=440 is A=880? 

The space between two notes is called an "interval".  So in this case, the interval between A=440 and A=880 is a "Perfect 8th" or "P8".

Ok, 440 times two is 880, and makes an octave.  What about 440 time three?  That's 1320, which is outside of our octave (440 to 880).  But if we bring that down by half, we get 660.

660 roughly¹ corresponds to E, which is a [Major 5] above E.  To an ear brought up on Western music, the octave is the most stable of the intervals.  The M5 is the second most stable.  By "stable", I mean it sounds complete; not dissonant; in harmony.

So, to get the fifth above E=660, we multiply by three again, and get 1980.  If we divide by 2 until it gets back down into our octave, we get 495, which roughly corresponds to B, which is a [Major 2] above E.  If you keep finding the fifth of each subsequent note, you'll end up with:

A=440                                                                                                     
E=660                                                                                                     
B=495                                                                                                     
F#= 742                                                                                                 
C#=556                                                                                                   
Ab=835                                                                                                 
Eb=626                     
Bb=469                                                                                                   
F=704                                                                                                     
C=528                                                                                                     
G=792                                                                                                     
D=594                                                                                                     
A=880                       

Which, when you rearrange it, become the 12 notes in the scale. 

This is a long way of saying that there is a mathematical relationship between the intervals we hear as "stable" and the intervals we do not.  As a further example,  we've seen that the 3/2 ratio is stable (that is, A=440x3 is roughly the same as E=660x2, (i.e.1320)).  What about A=440x5?²  That's 2200, which is the same as 550x4, which is really close³ to C#=556.  Which is a [Major 3] interval above A.  And {A , C# , E} is a Major Triad, which is you basic Major chord.

Oh, math.  Is there anything you can't explain? 

Anyway, I wanted to start out by explaining that when we talk about "stable, unstable, dissonant, consonant, harsh, or pleasant" intervals, we're more or less talking about the harmonic relationships between notes.  While a lot of music is subjective, there is an underlying objectivity to it, as well.

Ok.  Next time we'll get into the arbitrary symbols and nomenclature of music theory.  Also, if this means little and explains less to you, let me know.  I wouldn't want to waste your time.















¹Due to equal tempered tuning.  Never mind that for now.
²440x4 is 1760, which is 880x2, so we're back to the octave on that one.
³See footnote 1.

For me, music theory is easiest on a piano.  Pianos are kinda set up for C major.  If you play all the white keys, starting and ending on C, its the C major scale.  A is the relative minor of C major. That means if you play all the white keys (same notes, different order, as C major) it is the A minor scale.  This leads to modes.  All the white keys, starting on D is D dorian. Starting on E is phrygian.  I forget which ones are lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, etc.

I think this is a good place to start - I will post more when I have computer access instead of trying to do it on my phone.

re LMNO:

equal tempered tuning is where someone realised that your example was really impractical because when you derive your intervals using 3/2 ratio the second octave doesn't match up to the first?  So today the interval between semi-tones is 2^1/12 (or the twelth root of 2), which is mathematically perfect, but doesn't subscribe to the same logic that Western music had been using previously, which was largely built off greek traditions (where the 3/2 ratio came from), which only used one octave, so never had that problem.

There was another "fixed" tuning that basically applied a correction every octave, can't remember what it was called though, quite popular in the 15th century I believe

xx

Speaking as a recovering mathematician, I agree that discussing music theory in terms of frequency is interesting, but not very practical for the aspiring trombonist.

After some consideration, I think the next logical step would be to illustrate that the written musical staff also correlates to the piano.  The spaces and lines directly represent the white keys. (unless there's a key signature indicated). The default key is C major.

RB: yes. Equal temperament solved some of the weirdness. However, I wanted to start with a pure example, because everything after that is arbitrary.

LMNO, I wish I could say that your explanation was insightful and helpful.  I really, really do, because you are awesome and I rarely have a chance to interact with you in a meaningful way. 

But all it made me do was go "duuuuuuh @____@"

Sorry about that.  :(

But hey, let's talk about nomenclature and symbols.  That sounds interesting and important. :)

Well, FWIW, I found it really interesting (so much that I'm going to have to re-read it later on), so it wasn't entirely for nothing :)

Cause for me it's kind of the other way around, I tried to get a better understanding of music theory, read a couple of things, but the mathy bits were in fact the only parts I could make sense of :) So I know:

- that A is defined at 440Hz
- that frequency ratios made of small fractions such as 1:2, 2:3 and 5:3 sound pleasing to the human ear
- music theory calls them "intervals" instead of "ratios" and it is customary to put the big number first so 2:1, 3:2 and 5:3
- the 1:2 interval is called an "octave" because "oct" means eight and on a piano there's 8 white notes in an octave IF you count the C twice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-by-one_error#Fencepost_error): C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C¹
- According to this list (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_intervallen) (sorry it's the Dutch one but the same page on English wikipedia also lists all sorts of really obscure intervals and is therefore quite hard to read), the 3:2 is called "perfect fifth" (kwint), 5:3 is the "major sixth" (grote sext) and 5:4 is the "major third" (grote terts) and to finish off the list of "small integer frequency ratios" there's 4:3 the "perfect fourth" (kwart) and 5:2 the "major tenth" (grote decime).²
- and finally that the twelfth root of two ratio per half note, with 12 half-notes in an octave, gives frequency points that get pretty close (not really, but that's the theory) to all these ratios of small integers.

Things that confuse me here:

¹ this one is not that confusing, as long as you know it is completely arbitrary, and just is that way because that's how it is. Problem I had with a lot of introductions to music theory texts is that they explain everything as if it's completely logical and obviously follows from the theory discussed so far. I've no problem with arbitrary, but tell me when it's arbitrary and tell me when it's actually based on previous (possibly arbitrary) assumptions.
That's what I liked so much about Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah, it was really clear about when it laid completely arbitrary foundations ("the Sephiroth looks like <this> graph and its vertices and edges tell a symbolic story that roughly goes like <this>") and when it applied (some sort of) logical reasoning to build on these foundations via associations etc.

² for example, I just explained why (I think) the 2:1 ratio is called oct-ave ("eighth"), but that doesn't really give me any clue why the other "ratio of small integer" intervals got theirs? In the same way perhaps?
Let's see, the 3:2 is the "perfect fifth", here's a table of the half notes (semitones?) in the octave:

---

C   ▇  1.00000
C^#  ▇  1.05946
D   ▇  1.12246
D^#  ▇  1.18921
E   ▇  1.25992 ~ 1.25 = 5/4 major third
F   ▇  1.33484 ~ 1.333 = 4/3 perfect fourth
F^#  ▇  1.41421
G   ▇  1.49831 ~ 1.5 = 3/2 perfect fifth
G^#  ▇  1.58740
A   ▇  1.68179 ~ 1.667 = 5/3 major sixth
A^#  ▇  1.78180
B   ▇  1.88775
C   ▇  2.00000 = 2:1 octave

---

The black or white square shows what colour key it would be on a piano, and the number is the ratio according to the 12th-root-of-2 tuning

(to Freeky: the 12th-root-of-2 is the number by which we multiply the frequency every step, as you can see from the C->C# step in the table, that number is about 1.059. Because it's the twelfth root of two, repeatedly multiplying by that number twelve times, is the same as multiplying by two, as you can see from the table, the final C has twice as high frequency as the initial C.)

So 3:2, the "perfect fifth" has a ratio of 3/2 = 1.5, which is really close to the 1.49831 ratio of the C->G interval. And whoa! If you count the white keys, including both the first and the last of the interval just as with the octave, there's FIVE of them! ZOMG PINEAL 2:3 LAW OF PERFECT FIFTH :fnord:

I don't trust it yet, let's check. 5:3, the "perfect major sixth" is 5/3 = 1.667, which is kinda-sorta close to the 1.68 between C->A. And that range on the piano indeed spans six white keys!

So what's major about it? According to Wikipedia, the "minor sixth" is 8:5 = 8/5 = 1.6, that's closest to the 1.587 of C->G#. Because it ends on a black key, it's just one step short of spanning six white keys. Is that what "minor" means?

So what's "perfect" mean and why is there a minor and a major sixth but not a minor and major fifth?

Or is that one of those arbitrary things? I see in this list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(music)#Main_intervals
that for the "major" intervals go one semitone down and you get the minor version, but with the "perfect" intervals you can go either one down or up, and get the "diminished" and "augmented" versions.
Sort of, kind of.
And then you get that the major third is the same as a diminished fourth, at least that's how it looks in the table. Exactly the same?
The perfect fourth 4:3 = 4/3 = 1.333 = C->F, add one semitone to get the augmented fourth, which is the same as the diminished fifth. Again, exactly the same? Or is there some slight difference in frequency that does not get expressed in this method of obtaining notes intervals and frequencies? I thought I read something along those lines, once. If that is so, then what is this frequency difference based on?

Okay, awesome, I figured out most of that whole naming system thing is based on counting the white keys on a piano. SWEET.

*Musings on this*, 12 years ago, in my demoscene days, I wrote some software synthesizer code. And because my specialty was 4kb demos, I had to make those reeeeeeally tiny. And for that reason I was quite happy that I just needed to store the numbers 440 and 1.05946, repeatedly multiply the first with the second and you got a nice list of all the semitones you could possibly need. (actually I started 3 octaves lower at 440/8=55, because of, well, BASS :) ).

And just sort of like the MIDI spec, I could code the index of the semitone into one byte (0-255) and span more than enough octaves. So a melody of, say, 8/4 beats, would code into just 8 bytes. Not bad. (not counting the timing data and of course the 303-inspired lowpass-resonance filtersweep cutoff envelope)

But now I wonder, isn't this sort of throwing out the baby with the bathwater? If all you actually want is frequency ratios of small integer fractions, and you're not tied to piano keys because this is your homebrewn softsynth and it'll do whatever the fuck I tell it to, couldn't I just code the melody as frequency ratios instead? It would be more accurate than this 12th-root-of-2 stuff too!

Because instead of one number between 0-255 (8 bits) you can also fit two numbers between 0-15 (2x4 bits) into one byte. That seems to be enough to encode most small integer fractions you could need, right? And your intervals would be bloody spot-on.

Would that be awesome or would that sound really weird? I recall reading somewhere that since most musical instruments--especially in mainstream popmusic--are tuned with the 12th-root-of-2 scale, our ears are so used to it that hearing the actual proper intervals the way they were intended would actually sound out-of-tune to us? Or am I confusing some things now, it could have also been some medieval scale tuned even more different.

Ok this is turning into a long rambling post, but I'm kinda happy to find that I actually know more about this stuff than I thought :) Not bad given my musical abilities are limited to playing the first phrase of Yankee-Doodle on a keyboard, slowly, after five failed attempts, one-finger hunt-n-peck style like a very bad typist :lol:

Finally, at the top of this post I said I was gonna read LMNO's post again later. Because I didn't immediately understand some bits but then I wrote all of the above and read back your post and I got it :) (it was the "A=440x3" bit that was kind of ambiguous, better write "A@440Hz x 3" or "A(440) * 3"--take this advice on formula-text notation from a seasoned programmer: binary operators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_operator) in infix notation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infix_notation) shall be surrounded with a space on either side for readability ;) )

Well there's about 99999 things I want to try out and discuss, but I'll save that for another post.

I got kinda lost there trip but my guess is that the fourth and the fifth are called perfect because they harmonize well (your standard rock guitar chord or power chord consists of a root its fifth and sometimes the octave) as for the reason for diminished and augmented im not sure. And ive only really heard of the minor sixth refered to as augmented fifth but some of the nomenclature can get shifted depending on the root note. An a minor sixth chorf is identical in spelling to an f major seventh but the root note is different. Also fun fact the diminished fifth is in the middle so that b flat is the dimished fifth of e and e is the diminished fifth of b flat.

Quote(to Freeky: the 12th-root-of-2 is the number by which we multiply the frequency every step, as you can see from the C->C# step in the table, that number is about 1.059. Because it's the twelfth root of two, repeatedly multiplying by that number twelve times, is the same as multiplying by two, as you can see from the table, the final C has twice as high frequency as the initial C.)

I feel like I ought to get this, but using words to describe the math is throwing me off. 

Could you rewrite this as an equation?  Is this a reasonable thing, by which I mean would I understand better what you're saying, given the discussion?  I don't even know.

A = 440 Hz
Bb = A# = 440*2^1/12 Hz
B = A## = 440*2^1/12*2^1/12 Hz = 440*2^2/12 Hz
.
.
.
A (one octave higher) = 440*2^12/12 Hz = 440*2 Hz = 880 Hz

anyhow- getting back to written music and the white keys.  once you start thinking of the notes in terms of their number, instead of their letter, you can write music in any key just as easily as you can write it in C. you just have to put the appropriate key signature (sharps and flats at the beginning of the staff) and realize that the first note, or the "1" or "I" or "i" starts on the corresponding line or space.

Quote from: The Freeky of SCIENCE! on January 20, 2012, 07:47:58 PM

Quote(to Freeky: the 12th-root-of-2 is the number by which we multiply the frequency every step, as you can see from the C->C# step in the table, that number is about 1.059. Because it's the twelfth root of two, repeatedly multiplying by that number twelve times, is the same as multiplying by two, as you can see from the table, the final C has twice as high frequency as the initial C.)

I feel like I ought to get this, but using words to describe the math is throwing me off. 

Could you rewrite this as an equation?  Is this a reasonable thing, by which I mean would I understand better what you're saying, given the discussion?  I don't even know.

Well, yes. By which I mean you'd understand it better (cause indeed I didn't take enough care to word it most clearly since the post was already getting much longer than I anticipated :oops:) but given the discussion--well this is the sort of thing I like to think about, understanding it might not directly help you with what you asked in the OP ITT, but extra understanding certainly can't hurt.

Ok here's with formulas.

So if you have x² and you take the square root of that, you get x back right?

  square_root(x²) = x

And if you have x³ and you take the cube root, you again get x back, right? (your calculator might not have a cube root button. Windows Calculator switched to "scientific mode" does, though)

  cube_root(x³) = x

Now if you have x¹² and you'd take the 12th root, you'd also get x back. Remember that taking the square root of x is the same as doing x^1/2? and taking the cube root of x is equivalent to doing x^1/3, and indeed, taking the 12th root of something is like doing x^1/12. Guess what? That's what the x^1/y button on the scientific-mode Windows Calculator is for! :)

So

  twelfth_root(x¹²) = (x¹²)^1/12 = x

So what's that mean? Let's first calculate the twelfth root of two (you can check this with Windows Calc):

  twelfth_root(2) = 2^1/12 = 1.059463

Now remember the musical note A above middle C has a frequency of exactly 440 hertz? What frequencies would the next notes after that A have? So that's A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A2. Spanning one octave in semitone steps. I call the final A "A2" because it's one octave higher (dunno what the proper musical notation is for that).

So we know that

A = 440Hz

We also know that

A2 = 880Hz

Because it is exactly one octave higher, so twice the frequency. But what about the semitones in between? This is where the twelfth root of two comes in handy! Let's call it R, okay? So

  R = 1.059463

Now check this, stepping through the octave, one semitone at a time:

A  = 440 * R⁰ = 440.00
A# = 440 * R¹ = 466.16
B  = 440 * R² = 493.88
C  = 440 * R³ = 523.25
C# = 440 * R⁴ = 554.37
D  = 440 * R⁵ = 587.33
D# = 440 * R⁶ = 622.25
E  = 440 * R⁷ = 659.26
F  = 440 * R⁸ = 698.46
F# = 440 * R⁹ = 739.99
G  = 440 * R¹⁰ = 783.99
G# = 440 * R¹¹ = 830.61
A  = 440 * R¹² = 880.00

At each step, we multiply the frequency of the previous semitone by R, and wonder of wonders, after doing that twelve times, we find that the frequency (880) has exactly doubled compared to the start (440)!

Because that's just how the twelfth-root-of-two rolls 8)



HEY another question to people that might know this: Why is it that the octave generally starts at C and not A, like any normal human being would expect? Sure it's just modular arithmetic, but what if I told you that I developed a new decimal system, it's just the same as the normal one, except that, well, you know how everybody starts counting at zero or one like the fucking mainstream sellouts that they are? Yeah? That's right, this motherfucking decimal system starts counting at motherfucking three. Like a boss. Remember, we started counting at three, before everyone was doing it. Watch this space.

My baseless guess is that because the key of c major is identical to the key of a  minor is that people based theyre music on more scales first. I submit gregorian chant as evidence since that was the first written music. And if i recall normal speech patterns are generally in c major.

WAIT, NO ONE MORE THING (I thought I already posted this but then I didn't!)

What ancient music spag ever came up with the idea to call it a "fifth" when you multiply by three and call it a "third" when you multiply by five? Seriously wtf was wrong with him/her?? I bet they thought it was hi-fucking-larious, just like how Maxwell (or was it Faraday) must have been grinning like a maniac when he decided to give the elementary unit of electricity a negative charge so "electron current" runs from negative to positive? :lol: -- ok it didn't exactly go like that and it's completely insignificant and arbitrary, but still kind of counter-intuitive. Yet, flipping the signs in every electro-magnetics textbook formula in the world and most importantly dealing with the mistakes resulting from confusion between "old-style" formulas and "new-style" formulas (such as space shuttles falling from the sky), would make this transition significantly less likely than the US ever transitioning to metrics.
It's just one of those things that are stuck in this reality, like evolving our optic nerve on the wrong side of the retina (D'OH!).

Gah! Minor scales first. So even though speech patterns are in c major the more sombre type of medieval church music would be viewed from the perspective of its relative minor key which is a.

Trip they didnt know what hertz was back then lol. Its the fifth note in the scale. So its the fifth interval.

Quote from: Triple Zero on January 20, 2012, 09:37:32 PM


  twelfth_root(2) = 2^1/12 = 1.059463

I got to this point and I was like "Oh.  OH!!"

Okay, the frequency thing makes sense now.


I was looking at that jazclass.aust.com link LMNO gave me, and from what this lesson (http://www.jazclass.aust.com/1readm/mn2.htm) shows, the treble clef staff starts at C because that's where the bass clef ends.  Or something.

Am I extrapolating that correctly?

ETA because 4 new posts:  Apparently not.

Also, isn't an octave just the range of eight notes starting from one note and ending at the same note in a higher or lower whatchacallit? 

Work Order #34545
Date: 1/20/12

*** Repair damaged vinyl ***

Some spag has pulled back all the vinyl.  Please take a tack hammer, some upholstery tacks, and a 12 gauge loaded with rock salt, and reattach the vinyl.  If anyone stops you, shoot 'em in the ass.

Craftsman Notes:  Too late, boss.  There's a whole room full of bastards tearing the shit up.  I ran out of rock salt.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 20, 2012, 09:54:22 PM
Work Order #34545
Date: 1/20/12

*** Repair damaged vinyl ***

Some spag has pulled back all the vinyl.  Please take a tack hammer, some upholstery tacks, and a 12 gauge loaded with rock salt, and reattach the vinyl.  If anyone stops you, shoot 'em in the ass.

Craftsman Notes:  Too late, boss.  There's a whole room full of bastards tearing the shit up.  I ran out of rock salt.

What?  :lol: 



(That's a ^Wha_ut?, by the way, not a _Wh^at?)

Just yankin' your chains, because I'm bored.   :lol:

I feel like a plumber at a astrophysicist convention.

Well, I'm out.  See you guys in 9 days or so.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 20, 2012, 09:59:45 PM
Just yankin' your chains, because I'm bored.   :lol:

I feel like a plumber at a astrophysicist convention.

Well, me too a bit.  :lol:

Im a musician and i stopped unserstanding what was going on once frequency rates started happening. :lol: i knew a was 440 but that was it.

Huh Roger where are you going for 9 days? (if you mentioned it in another thread, nvm, I'll get to it)

BTW I feel like the programmer of Super Mario level design at a plumber's convention.

---

Twid

But we're talking about the starting note of a scale here, so that implies an absolute pitch.

That doesn't follow with human speech, how can that be, with individuals speaking at very different base pitches depending on age, gender and individuality? Remember how your voice changed in pitch during puberty? If your base pitch was a C before and after, that means you shifted exactly one octave interval.

It also means that if every human being speaks in C major, allowing for different base pitches, those base pitches must be exactly a whole number of octaves apart, or they won't be C's anymore.

Now I don't know about you in puberty, but I'm fairly sure that the latter is not the case.

Quote from: Billy the Twid on January 20, 2012, 09:49:09 PM
Trip they didnt know what hertz was back then lol. Its the fifth note in the scale. So its the fifth interval.

Ok. But this is not about Hertz, but about frequency ratios. It's not about what the absolute frequency of something is, but about what the ratio is between two frequencies. Pythagoras already knew about that, cause he built his scales based on that.

You make the string half as short --> frequency gets twice as high
Make the string 1/3rd as short --> frequency x 3 as high

Knowing that, I can imagine mistaking "half" for "double" or "third" for "triple" because it's just which way you look at it, but I can't imagine mistaking "three" for "five" and vice versa.

But okay, I'll accept the "fifth note in the scale" explanation, I'll just have to ponder it for a while before it "clicks". I still want to know what smart-ass came up with this :P

I mean check this awesome alphabet numbering system I just came up with:

A - 1
B - 4
C - 7
D - 8
E - 10
F - 14
G - 17

See because my civilization's time-stream has not yet discovered advanced concepts such as "sanity" or "Keep It Simple, Stupid", I'm not counting the characters, but the number of the first stroke of each character. Therefore, obviously, the distance between A and C is 5 (since you obviously don't count the first and the last strokes but only those in between).

Ehhhhh sorry. I'm just spouting bullshit and being purposefully dumb/difficult now :) I perfectly understand that some things are arbitrary because convention helps in communication.

Let's talk about actual music theory :)

(though I will make a point of figuring out who came up with this shit, so I can snicker about their short-sightedness, musical genius notwithstanding)

Hey trip! I know something about the dutch that you don't! Check out influence by music experience in the wikipedia article for absolute pitch. Though now it becomes more of a chicken and the egg sort of thing.

Cool! Checking that out. Got the PDF now, it's Swedish research, but it's about the Dutch. Not as cool as the orange carrot thing, though (still my favourite feat of Dutch awesome :) ).

I have to stop reading this thread. My head feels funny and I think I'm starting to get angry at music.

Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on January 21, 2012, 01:32:58 AM
I have to stop reading this thread. My head feels funny and I think I'm starting to get angry at music.

Why?

BECAUSE IT'S ANGRY MUSIC!!

♫ ♬ RRRAAAAHHHH!!! ♬♫ BAM BAM BAM BAM DONK!!! ♫ WRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! ♬ BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAUUUUUUURGH!!! ♬ ANGRY!!! ♬ ♫ BZZZZZZZZZZZZZSSSHCHCHCHKRKRKRGGGT!! ♬ ANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRYANGRY!!! RRARAAHHHHH! ♫♬

BZT

Quote from: The Freeky of SCIENCE! on January 21, 2012, 01:37:36 AM

Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on January 21, 2012, 01:32:58 AM
I have to stop reading this thread. My head feels funny and I think I'm starting to get angry at music.

Why?

My brain is not wired for higher math. And if I actually absorb enough of this to start thinking of music in mathematical terms, it will make music less enjoyable for me because it will feel like listening to homework. :lulz:

Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on January 21, 2012, 03:03:47 AM

Quote from: The Freeky of SCIENCE! on January 21, 2012, 01:37:36 AM

Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on January 21, 2012, 01:32:58 AM
I have to stop reading this thread. My head feels funny and I think I'm starting to get angry at music.

Why?

My brain is not wired for higher math. And if I actually absorb enough of this to start thinking of music in mathematical terms, it will make music less enjoyable for me because it will feel like listening to homework. :lulz:

Oh.  I forget math isn't everyone's cup of tea.  :lulz:

Yeah, it kind of sucks because science fucking fascinates me and I can grasp the basic concept of almost anything if it's explained to me properly (and sometimes even if it isn't), but I definitely need some remedial math lessons before I'd be able to do more than understand someone else's concepts.

This actually makes sense because of the other thread that was pissing you off when theory became involved. Ive listened to your stuff and obviously you know what youre doing but at the same time guitar is one of those instruments where you can know exactly what youre doing without knowing exactly what youre doing. Hence the reason i cant read music. You just dont need to. And when i write something im not thinking oh this is an extended chord of the phrygian mode blah blah blah. Its more of an after thought like oh thats what that is. I can talk theory but if you ask me the theory behind i riff i wrote wait ten minutes for the explanation. On the bright side an accimplished violinist once told me she didnt consider sight readers musicians if they couldnt actually produce original content. :)

twid
illiterate musician

I used to be able to read music but I've never been any kind of musician. I took piano lessons and remember not one fucking thing from it.

I just cant make sense of notation. Problem is is that i cant think of what the pitch is at the same time as the timing on it is. Its like that quantum heisenberg uncertainty thing. I can observe timing or pitch. Just not both at the same time.

Not that it matters. Do what you feels. And guitar is more based on shape patterns.

Twid
literally sees music and not in a synesthetic way

See, that's how it always worked for me (FYI, though, I wasn't the guitar player in the stuff you heard though I did write most of the riffs). I have an instinctive understanding of what patterns work together on the fretboard, but if I tried to transpose that to, say, piano or oboe (even assuming I could play those instruments competently), I'd be fucked.

Funny story. In my previous band we were putting out an album and i wanted to write a song. I presented lyrics and guitar riffs. I was told well put it on but youre on your own.

Now i did this with the understanding we would eventually do this live but aparently too much metal came out.

So i had to the whole thing myself raspy vocals and all. Well. I had to pick apart my riffs and write keyboard riffs program the drums and all. The keyboard was the most interesting part. I actually had to think about it and since i was doing extended chords with it play on individual tracks the root the third the fifth and the extended. That led to a happy accident. And i had no fucking clue what i was doing but i understood why it worked after. Still proud of it shitty quality and doing inappropriate grunt vocals notwithstanding.

Twid
realizes he has a song for side project since the postbreak up understanding was "well that was all you"

Hey guys, I made this really sweet awesome kickass graph sort of thing that shows frequency ratios / intervals on the octave:

(http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6351/intervals2.png)

The notes at the bottom are the equal-ratio 12th-root-of-2 notes. I keep forgetting what is the official name for that tuning, anyone?

Also, is this useful for anyone? or did I just have a lot of fun playing around with funky bent arrow lines in Python/Matplotlib :)

When it comes to playing and creating music, I'm much more into sounds, textures of sounds, etc.  I can read sheet music pretty well, and have all of the fundamentals down pat.  But, I like just playing and seeing where it goes.  I like melding instruments that you wouldn't normally meld.  Playing instruments that aren't generally considered instruments.  (rubber chicken anyone?) 

Granted this is a lot easier on some instruments compared to others.  Like, you can't really just pick up a clarinet and play it.  You gotta learn how to mouth the thing properly to get anything other than horrible shrieks out of it. 

But then again, you could probably compose a piece of music around those horrible shrieks and make it work. 

I HAET YOU ZIPPLETITS. :mad:

Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on January 23, 2012, 07:56:03 PM
I HAET YOU ZIPPLETITS. :mad:

Oh I can't hide anything from you can I? Sorry! Here's the complete version:

(http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/7466/intervall.png)